What new features would you like to see in Delphi 13?

[PeterPanettone 157]

Do you have any special wishes for Delphi 13? Built-in AI? NeuraLink interface? A new Code Editor?

Edited February 18 by PeterPanettone

[Fred Ahrens 59]

I don't need any new features.

I just need that the existing features work as intended. And there are many areas where existing features need to be made usable again (e.g. refactoring, code formatting, HighDPI).

 

OK, one new feature would be nice: compiling for Raspberry Pi. But fixing the existing features needs to be done first.

[PeterPanettone 157]

14 minutes ago, Fred Ahrens said:

e.g. refactoring

The best refactoring feature for Delphi I have found so far is in MMX. 

 

But new refactoring tools could certainly implement even better and smarter refactoring features, e.g.:

1. Search the entire project for identical or similar code fragments and automatically replace them with a common procedure.

2. Automatically insert selected code into a (new) class.

Etc.

Edited February 18 by PeterPanettone

[PeterPanettone 157]

20 minutes ago, PeterPanettone said:

1. Search the entire project for identical or similar code fragments and automatically replace them with a common procedure.

An IDE with AI capabilities could easily accomplish such things.

Edited February 18 by PeterPanettone

[dummzeuch 1505]

1 hour ago, PeterPanettone said:

An IDE with AI capabilities could easily accomplish such things.

No, not with the kind of AI that we currently have.

[PeterPanettone 157]

10 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

not with the kind of AI that we currently have.

You don't believe in AI?

[Uwe Raabe 2057]

1 hour ago, PeterPanettone said:

You don't believe in AI?

Sounds like it were a religion...

[@AT 0]

My list of preferences:

1. arm64 compiler for Linux
2. Enable Generic functions (pure functions/procedures, but not members of classes)
3. Ability to declare external functions without pointing library names (to simplify writing libraries for Linux applications (both, shared and statically linked)
4. Static Code Analysis build-in
5. Improve "Refactor" functionality
6. [Need to think more...]

[Thijs van Dien 9]

The one thing I'm still waiting for is per project packages/components that are automatically (un)loaded by the IDE, right from the code repository they're used in (i.e. machine independent). I can't believe we still don't have something like that after so many years.

Edited February 19 by Thijs van Dien

[emileverh 21]

11 hours ago, Fred Ahrens said:

I don't need any new features.

I just need that the existing features work as intended. And there are many areas where existing features need to be made usable again (e.g. refactoring, code formatting, HighDPI).

 

OK, one new feature would be nice: compiling for Raspberry Pi. But fixing the existing features needs to be done first.

Totally agree. Fix the existing things first....

[dummzeuch 1505]

9 hours ago, PeterPanettone said:

You don't believe in AI?

I have some experience with the "quality" of AI generated code as well as answers to some basic queries. I certainly don't want it to mess with my code without close supervision.

And no, I don't believe what we currently have deserves the name artificial intelligence.

[dummzeuch 1505]

8 hours ago, @AT said:

Enable Generic functions (pure functions/procedures, but not members of classes)

I was under the impression we already have these.. ?

Edited February 19 by dummzeuch

[Lajos Juhász 293]

9 hours ago, PeterPanettone said:

You don't believe in AI?

I am with the idea that was presented in the Delphi's birthday webinar, I do not want the code from any of the projects I am working on to land in some AI database and pop up as a suggestion on a query. The code I am working on belongs to the company I am working for or a client. Nobody wants that code to go public.

 

I am ok with the idea and did it a couple of times to ask Bing to write some simple code that I can review faster than to type in, have some fun. 

[Sinspin 1]

I would like to see one version of Delphi / RAD, not 4. And the components sold (and maintained) separately. Mixing IDE and components in one product makes zero sense.

 

3 hours ago, dummzeuch said:

I have some experience with the "quality" of AI generated code as well as answers to some basic queries. I certainly don't want it to mess with my code without close supervision.

And no, I don't believe what we currently have deserves the name artificial intelligence.

I agreee.

I don't like all kind of product where my work is edited in a web interface and stored in the cloud operated by the company.

They can promise whatever they want about privacy and security. If they see my foo is better than theirs, and they want know why.... they have just a look. Nobody can prevent that.

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

1. Debuggers, debuggers, debuggers - multithread handling is abysmal today

2. Make HighDPI actually works as intended - it is useless in a team as is - unless everyone runs the same scaling

3. Generics constraints for enumerated types to enable the use of conversion to/from ordinal values, use set operators, etc.

4. Native ARM64 compiler for Delphi for Windows (and Linux/Raspberry PI, but Windows has prio)

5. A 64-bit IDE that ensured that EMBT was dogfooding 64-bit VCL and RTL and raise the quality

 

As for AI, I wouldn't mind an AI that could look at code and suggest improvements - perhaps as a part of the static code analysis, or one that could explain "what does this code do".

 

I don't really need or want an AI to generate code.  If it is a standard, a lib should already exist. If it doesn't and there is no standard that covers the need, I'd be happy to have an AI outline alternative approaches - but given that the wide scope of parameters that goes into a design, I think it is unrealistic to expect that it would come up with the ideal suggestion without us writing a huge requirement. The output of VLLM generators is extremely dependant on precise and accurate specification statements, and writing those are almost as hard as writing good code. 

 

As for AI and privacy - keep your secret credentials separated from your code.  Other than that, I don't think that many of us write code that truly needs to be hidden for secrecy reasons, although it is obvious that it will be necessary to ensure that privacy permeates the use of AI.

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

4 hours ago, dummzeuch said:

I was under the impression we already have these.. ?

Nope.
 

interface
type

  TClass = class
    function Something<T>: string; // OK
  end;

function Something<T>: string; // NOT OK
      
implementation

 

[Lajos Juhász 293]

12 minutes ago, Lars Fosdal said:

As for AI and privacy - keep your secret credentials separated from your code.  Other than that, I don't think that many of us write code that truly needs to be hidden for secrecy reasons, although it is obvious that it will be necessary to ensure that privacy permeates the use of AI.

 

It is not about privacy. it is copyright. Anyone that has invested money into an algorithm and solution would not like to see it to appear inside an AI suggested code. That is one of the reasons why the source code for Microsoft Office is not open sourced.....

[Oleksandr Skliar 2]

My TOP list:

1. LSP improvements/quility. Now it doesn't work at all for big projects. (working on D11.3/D12). Refactoring doesn't work at all. 

2. Generic Types improvements (more constraints, global generics, better work with interfaces (as/is support), better type infers, etc)

3. General IDE/Compiler/RTL/VCL quility. Better support for System.JSON / System.REST.

4. Ternary Operator (or make existing IfThen() as generic/magic intrinsic)

5. And the last one, Please, be more open for Delphi comunity - open Betas for all, open Roadmaps, Bi-monthly updates, etc.

[JonRobertson 72]

1 hour ago, Lars Fosdal said:

Make HighDPI actually works as intended - it is useless in a team as is - unless everyone runs the same scaling

Genuine question on HighDPI. So far, working in DPI Unaware mode works well for me. As long as the run-time handles scaling "correctly". Since switching to DPI Unaware mode, I have not needed to write (or borrow) workarounds for HighDPI issues.

 

Are there scenarios where designing in HighDPI would be beneficial? Just to improve the development experience or to improve the user's experience when using the produced app?

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

1 hour ago, Lajos Juhász said:

 

It is not about privacy. it is copyright. Anyone that has invested money into an algorithm and solution would not like to see it to appear inside an AI suggested code. That is one of the reasons why the source code for Microsoft Office is not open sourced.....

It is about privacy.  It is the lack of proper privacy that causes private code to leak into generated AI code.

 

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

11 minutes ago, JonRobertson said:

Are there scenarios where designing in HighDPI would be beneficial?

Not per se. However, the problem is that once you use the DPI aware IDE, the measurements and coordinates in forms are according to your current Windows DPI and scaling settings. Which means that when someone with a different DPI or scaling opens the form, it looks like shit and the changes that someone makes, will again be impacted by their settings. So if two people with two different settings, takes turn in changing a form, you can get a form that keeps on growing or shrinking during the design.

 

Personally, I would prefer that such a thing doesn't happen - so that I can benefit from HighDPI also in the IDE.

 

It is not a trivial problem to solve. Pixel perfection becomes very hard once you have to deal with design time as well as runtime scaling.

[Lajos Juhász 293]

2 minutes ago, JonRobertson said:

Are there scenarios where designing in HighDPI would be beneficial? Just to improve the development experience or to improve the user's experience when using the produced app?

 

An example would be Quick Report. It was designed to work only with 96PPI. When HighDPI is not allowed for the application the generated preview would be wrongly scaled and would not fit the page.

[PeterPanettone 157]

11 hours ago, Thijs van Dien said:

The one thing I'm still waiting for is per project packages/components that are automatically (un)loaded by the IDE, right from the code repository they're used in (i.e. machine independent). I can't believe we still don't have something like that after so many years.

Strongly agree.

[PeterPanettone 157]

7 hours ago, dummzeuch said:

I have some experience with the "quality" of AI generated code as well as answers to some basic queries. I certainly don't want it to mess with my code without close supervision.

And no, I don't believe what we currently have deserves the name artificial intelligence.

Low-quality AI answers often are the result of poor prompts. However, I agree with the last statement.

[PeterPanettone 157]

1 hour ago, Oleksandr Skliar said:

LSP improvements/quility. Now it doesn't work at all for big projects.

In a large project, I always have to wait for code insight.