Delphi for .NET Developer's Guide, First Edition

Rating:
Summary: I definitely recommend this book.
Review: Delphi for .NET Developer's Guide by Xavier Pacheco is the first book about the new generation of Borland Delphi development environment. Delphi 8 is the first version of Delphi that allows programmers to harness the power of Microsoft .NET framework, and bring productivity to the new levels through advanced technologies and application lifecycle management.

The collaboration of author and several contributing writers enabled this book to bring fresh and relevant information in print quickly. I enjoyed this format while reading the book; the mix of styles brought in by different people makes reading moving. At the same time it is in no way disconnected, and the well-structured set-up is definitely felt through the chapters.

Seeing how fast this book was brought to the market, some minor discrepancies and misprints are excusable, do not lower the technical value of the book, and can be overlooked. I haven't noticed any serious mistakes.

The book includes a concise introduction to .NET and to the Delphi language, as well as the more important features of the new Delphi for .NET environment. Such subjects as Assemblies, GDI+ programming, Cross Platform demonstration, Reflection, and memory management are discussed.

Most developers will find chapters on .NET collections, strings and multithreading extremely useful. Interoperability with unmanaged applications, and WinForms programming are also covered.

Multitier development is mostly discussed in the context of web services and .NET remoting. Which are very powerful concepts of the new framework that will definitely progress in the future.

Unfortunately, there are no chapters on the Borland VCL.NET. However, the accompanying CD includes a copy of the Delphi 6 Developer's Guide by Xavier Pacheco in PDF format, which discusses VCL, the ancestor of VCL.NET in great detail. VCL is a time proven extremely well structured extendable library of visual and non-visual components that allows building business class applications in very rapid and clean manner.

Back to the Delphi for .NET Developer's Guide. Out of the several data access technologies available with Delphi, the book discusses the one that fits the .NET framework the best: ADO.NET. This topic is well covered from different sides. There is also a chapter on the Borland Data Provider - the methodology that allows better data connectivity design time support.

ASP.NET is one of the most exciting features of .NET. Built on top of ISAPI frameset, it allows development of powerful web applications and interactive web sites. ASP.NET uses code behind concept of dynamically loaded libraries written in full fidelity .NET languages such as Delphi 8. At the same time ASP.NET provides developers with all the plumbing necessary for scalable session management, statefull and stateless execution, caching, as well as authentication and authorization mechanisms.

ASP.NET is arguably the best-covered subject in the book that surly deserves the attention.

As far as improvements go, perhaps, I would enjoy seeing chapters on cryptography, regular expressions, but at 861 or so pages, this book is definitely a fundamental work, that is a good read and works well as a handy reference.

Rating:
Summary: A must-have for moving to .Net w/ Delphi !
Review: Excellent book. The examples are clear and straight forward. The guest author list reads like a Delphi Community Celebrity party. The inclusion of the prev Dev Guide on CD is a really nice touch.

I had a lot of .Net migration misconceptions that Mr. Pacheco has addressed very well, leaving me excited about using Delphi within the .Net framework.

Joe Hendricks

Rating:
Summary: A must-have for moving to .Net w/ Delphi !
Review: Excellent book. The examples are clear and straight forward. The guest author list reads like a Delphi Community Celebrity party. The inclusion of the prev Dev Guide on CD is a really nice touch.

I had a lot of .Net migration misconceptions that Mr. Pacheco has addressed very well, leaving me excited about using Delphi within the .Net framework.

Joe Hendricks

Rating:
Summary: Not impressed
Review: I just wasn't impressed with the book. I'm an experienced Delphi developer and I puchased this book thinking it would show me how to leverage my Delphi skills and learn how to do things in .NET. What a disappointment. After a chapter on using the graphics routines comes a section on Mono then off to a discussion of databases. Not much on creating normal forms apps and many of the code examples are in C# or VB. Even some of the sample Delphi code was for version 7, not even .NET examples. I really wanted this book to get me ready for .NET and instead I merely learned some about the graphics routines and file IO. I wanted more from the standpoint of you're a Delphi developer here's how to work with .NET.

Found a bunch of typos also, so I had to really study the book to see what was meant. In one case it says you'd expect to see an 'A' as the result but what you really get is an 'A' - not very useful from a learning standpoint.

Rating:
Summary: Not impressed
Review: I just wasn't impressed with the book. I'm an experienced Delphi developer and I puchased this book thinking it would show me how to leverage my Delphi skills and learn how to do things in .NET. What a disappointment. After a chapter on using the graphics routines comes a section on Mono then off to a discussion of databases. Not much on creating normal forms apps and many of the code examples are in C# or VB. Even some of the sample Delphi code was for version 7, not even .NET examples. I really wanted this book to get me ready for .NET and instead I merely learned some about the graphics routines and file IO. I wanted more from the standpoint of you're a Delphi developer here's how to work with .NET.

Found a bunch of typos also, so I had to really study the book to see what was meant. In one case it says you'd expect to see an 'A' as the result but what you really get is an 'A' - not very useful from a learning standpoint.

Rating:
Summary: Good .NET instruction, but not very Delphi-centric
Review: I was initially disappointed by this book, though now I am only slightly negative. In the book, the author provides a good overview of how you can use Delphi for .NET and ASP.NET. I did learn a lot about .NET and am better prepared for the migration.

However, this looks and reads like an editted C# book. Except for a few pages (literally one chapter), there is very little about Delphi. The examples are in Delphi, which helps with the understanding, but the author uses the Microsoft .NET libraries and DOES NOT USE EVEN ONE of the Borland specific libraries like VCL.NET, etc. in his examples.

Overall, an educational book, but not what I was looking for.

Rating:
Summary: Essential for Delphi .Net developer
Review: The book covers an excellent range of topics. As both Delphi and .Net are large subjects I think Xavier has managed the content very well.

The book is easy to read and the examples are very easy to follow.

The Delphi 6 Developers Guide on CD is also a nice bonus if you are still developing for Win32 in Delphi 6/7.

What I expect out of this type of book is to reduce my learning curve and allow me to start writing programs, Delphi for .NET Developer's Guide has certainly done that for me.

If you are going to write .NET programs in Delphi than you want this book on your shelf.



Rating:
Summary: Excellent, lots of advanced topics
Review: Though this book aimed primarilly at .NET rather than Delphi it self, but I think its approach is correct, for the readers that already familiar Delphi 5/6/7. I would call this book '.NET for Delphi programmers'.

This book contains advanced topics I didn't feel useful first time. But lately I migrate some old Delphi 5 compoment packages
to VCL.NET, I found there're many useful topics in this book.

In a word, I like this book and it worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive Intro to .NET From a Delphi Perspective
Review: Xavier has continued his excellent Delphi Developers Guide tradition into the .NET space, but don't let the title fool you. This is first and foremost a book on .NET software development, using Delphi for .NET for the examples and to demonstrate the concepts seasoned programmers need when moving to .NET. This book is not a simple "here's how to drop a component onto a form" type of introduction to programming. It is written so as to not insult the intelligence of the seasoned programmer, yet is written in such an easy to read approachable manner that intermediate programmers will easily pick it up and beginning programmers will easily figure out what they need to research when they go to the more introductory texts that already exist elsewhere for Delphi.
Xavier has included a nice variety of topic matter, assisted by a plethora of contributing authors. There's even a chapter on using Delphi for .NET with Mono! (How's that for being up to date?) Other chapters cover the newest changes to the Delphi language, writing database applications using ADO.NET, as well as ASP.NET and a variety of very useful topics like multithreading in .NET as well as memory issues and collections, and .NET remoting.
The writing is top-notch and very readable. This is a book you can take with you on the plane, or sit next to the fireplace, and actually read. If you are a software developer that has been sitting on the fence in regard to .NET, you owe to yourself to read this book and use it as your guide to .NET and Delphi for .NET.