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Delphi programming language

Delphi is a programming language and software development environment. It is produced by Borland (known for a time as Inprise). The Delphi language, formerly known as the Object Pascal Language (the Pascal with object-oriented extensions) originally targeted only Microsoft Windows, but now builds native applications for Linux and the Microsoft .NET Framework as well (see below).

Its most popular use is the development of desktop and enterprise database applications, but as a general purpose development tool it is capable of and used for most types of development projects. It was one of the first of what came to be known as RAD tools, for Rapid Application Development, when released in 1995. Delphi 2, released a year later, supported 32-bit Windows environments, and a C++ version, C++Builder, followed a few years after. In 2001 a Linux version known as Kylix (a classical Greek urn) became available. With one new major release every year, in 2002, the product became known as Delphi 7 Studio, the language became known officially as Delphi instead of Object Pascal, and support for Linux (through Kylix) and .NET (through a preview compiler) were added. Full support for .NET is scheduled for the forthcoming Delphi 8.

The main components of Delphi and Kylix are the Delphi language (formally known as the Object Pascal language), the VCL/CLX (Visual Component Library), and strong database connectivity, combined with a powerful IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and additional support tools.

The remarkable features of the Delphi language include:

Most of the features listed above were introduced in Delphi first and adapted in other languages later.

The chief architect behind Delphi, and its predecessor Turbo Pascal, was Anders Hejlsberg until he left for Microsoft in 1996.

The Delphi product is distributed as various suites, each offering more functionality over the other:

Compelling reasons to use Delphi:

External Links:

Clones and alternatives

While not being a direct substitute for the entire product Delphi itself, there are a number of efforts that strive to be more or less language compatible and take Delphi code to places where Delphi and Kylix itself can't reach.

These can get you the extra mile to get your costly Delphi code running in ways not possible with Delphi (think Operating Systems, free distribution and educational use, examining compiler source etc). These seem to be used the most educationally and to get the server parts of Delphi apps running on non mainstream operating systems (with most having Linux support predating Kylix for years)