Looking for a couple of good "starter" Delphi books

[t2000kw 0]

First, some background on me. I have a basic understanding of programming. And I do mean basic, as in I am not even an intermediate code writer. I had a very introductory class in Fortran IV when I was in High School as part of a weekend college program (non-credit). I got familiar with Atari basic well enough to learn how to create a dice-rolling simulation for the Parker Brothers game of Risk, which kept track of the number of armies for both the attacker and defender and displayed each dice roll and how many aries each side lost. It used a random number generator and kept track of up to 5 dice, up to 2 for the defender and up to 3 for the attacker. I learned how to do decision tree logic, subroutines, go-to statements, and more, but it wasn't really all that deep. I learned what I needed as I went through the process of building the program. So I am familiar a bit with a flow chart, too. 

 

For those here who never played risk, it's a world conquest strategy/chance game. Anyway, I was just starting to learn Delphi maybe 20 years ago and had a good book that was a tutorial that took the beginner through some basic GUI forms and I was starting to learn about writing code that would run when things on the form clicked. Then I gave up and about 10 years later tried learning Visual Basic. I had an H. W. Sams book something like "Learn Visual Basic in 24 hours" or maybe it was "Learn Visual Basic in X days." It was also a tutorial book and I wrote my first image viewer program. I used the code the book gave me, so it wasn't that I figured out how to write that program myself. 

 

I once again had some interest in Vb.net and have the community edition. I couldn't find any recent books on the language that were like those books I used before. I understand that Visual Basic isn't known for being backwards compatible, so programs written with older code might not work anyway, so the older books were not useful. 

 

So, I am looking at Delphi once again, since I remember it was easier to learn how to do things in Delphi than what little I learned in VB. I a mow installing the community edition of Delphi and am hoping someone can recommend a book or two for BEGINNERS. I read the recent thread:

 

https://en.delphipraxis.net/topic/8639-which-is-the-best-book-to-learn-delphi/?tab=comments#comment-72820

 

But it really didn't answer the OP's question on the subject of a good beginner's book. I don't want to spend money on an advanced book that starts way beyond where I need to start. I can pay for a good book or two, and move on from there as I learn more. 

 

So, can anyone here recommend a specific book to learn Delphi from?

 

A combination of 2 or even 3 (or more) books is OK, but I need books that start at ground zero and don't require prior knowledge of any other language. I'd rather have a book that is too simple than too complicated for my entry level knowledge. 

 

Donald

 

 

[t2000kw 0]

I'm making this post just to be sure I receive notifications of replies. 

[Nigel Thomas 35]

Don't get hooked up on just books. There is a lot of useful visual material on the Net that is targeted at Delphi beginners. Embarcadero's Helpful Resources for New Users has some good links to both books and visual resources.

Edited March 27 by Nigel Thomas
removed link to old stuff

[haentschman 92]

Hi...

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=delphi+tutorial+english

...maybe there is something for you.

 

 

Edited March 27 by haentschman

[t2000kw 0]

Thank you both. I will check out those resources. 

[Guest]

The Little Book of Delphi Object Pascal by Huw Collingbourne might be of interest to you. I am somewhat in the same boat as you.  Not much in the book on the way of GUI development, but surprisingly well centered and focused on essential info.  My version is from Kindle so it is fairly inexpensive there and I am getting some use out of it.  Same type of book for GUI work would be helpful too, but I don't have one yet.  Hope this helps.

 

PS Here is a site that might be of help or interest to you.  Looks like Huw Collingbourne might be connected with it also.  Some good indexed basic code samples there also it seems. The downloadable version of the site (~$6) is showing itself to be a very useful and convenient offline tool/resource for me.

 

https://www.delphibasics.co.uk/index.html

Edited April 14 by Guest

[Rollo62 536]

https://blogs.embarcadero.com/6-books-about-delphi-you-should-read/

https://en.delphipraxis.net/topic/10623-good-delphi-learning-sites-for-new-team-member/?tab=comments#comment-84363

[David Schwartz 426]

Any Delphi book from D2010 and later will help you learn the language and develop basic UI skills.

 

And they pretty much all teach the same bad habits to simplify showing how to build forms. 

 

There are also tons of videos on YT and other sites, some of which are step-by-step tutorials, as well as lots on specific topics.

 

Don't forget the annual CodeRage virtual conferences that CodeGear and then Embarcadero have hosted over the years. There are always a few presentations for beginners as well as lots of interesting niche topics.

[hsauro 40]

I particularly like

 

https://www.amazon.com/Delphi-XE2-Foundations-Chris-Rolliston/dp/1477550895

 

 

[bazzer747 25]

Why not look at Alistair Christies' web site Welcome to LearnDelphi.tv  I found the articles 'Free Content' very useful and the 'Premium' content extremely useful in weaning my way into Delphi.

[Die Holländer 45]

Books by dr. Bob (Bob Swart)

[Sherlock 663]

Funny this has remained unmentioned thus far: Object Pascal Handbook by Marco Cantù ...especially because it is free.

[Rick_Delphi 14]

6 hours ago, Sherlock said:

Object Pascal Handbook by Marco Cantù .

It's a pretty good book, a lot of language type stuff. With low/no code being the focus today (again), look at component based development and generating most of your code. Learning to write all the basic code patterns before becoming productive at app development is a waste these days. If you study all the low-level stuff, you'll end up finding yourself on programming forums fighting about how to shave one clock-cycle off of a 10,000 line module. Also, as you have already learned, ten years will go by and your app still won't be ready for release.

[Sherlock 663]

@Rick_Delphi Please don't kill this forums raison d'être. 😉