Delphi [DPH] developers are coming into the modern age with changes that put their language on Microsoft Corp’s .NET platform and introduce rapid application modeling.
Borland Software Corp’s [BORL] nine-year-old Windows programming language has been updated, enabling Delphi programmers to compile code to Microsoft’s [MSFT] Common Language Runtime (CLR).
Additionally, Delphi becomes Borland’s second language to employ the company’s Enterprise Code Objects (ECO) for Rapid Application Development (RAD) using Model Driven Architectures (MDA).
ECO was introduced in Borland’s C Sharp Builder for the Microsoft .NET Framework recently. Delphi 8 for the Microsoft. NET Framework will be announced shortly.
Since launching Delphi in 1994 as a RAD-based Windows development language surpassing Microsoft’s own offerings at the time, Borland claims two million programmers.
Borland believes the Delphi community will next year begin migrating to .NET. Borland claims 75% want to build .NET applications by the first-half of 2004.
Delphi 8 brings Borland’s development language on the CLR, applications can be written to ASP.NET for web services and web pages and to ADO.NET for database applications.
Programmers use Delphi but code is compiled into Microsoft’s .NET intermediate language. Re-usable software components in Borland’s VCL library have also been updated for .NET.
Delphi 8 programmers also get to benefit from ECO. Borland is famed for RAD and is applying its skills to the Object Management Group’s MDA specification with ECO.
Conventional approaches to MDA requires that definition of a business model is constructed, then a platform specific model generated, and finally code is compiled. By compiling to Windows, ECO bypasses the need to create a platform-specific model.
ECO means application architectures are created using a model-based approach. This simplifies development and change management, as model information is automatically updated in databases and changes to source code flow through the application.
This article was based on material originally published by ComputerWire.
