Rating: 
Summary: There is no target audience for this book.
Review: It's hard for me to say who this book is for. If I had to guess, I'd say it's for the dedicated intermediate to advanced Delphi programmer with lots of time on his hands. At over 1000 pages, it's going to take some time to get through it. Worse, since the writing style is not consistent, it's hard to get into the rhythm of the book. With a good programming book, I know what I'm getting, so I can skim through sections that I get right away, and read more deeply through tough topics. This book is patchy, if you don't read it carefully, you'll miss things. It's also not a book for beginners. It expects you to be proficient in the Delphi IDE and Object Pascal. In that respect it would also not be a good reference, since there's not even a short chapter with Pascal basics. Although I can't speak for expert programmers, I bet they'd have a hard time liking this book, there's too much style that experts would find fault with, and as others have pointed out, it is not complete on advanced topics. I'm not sure why I'm giving it a 2, perhaps I'm being generous in the hope that I will read it again and find some hidden treasure.
Rating: 
Summary: The literary equivalent of Delphi 4. Unmatched by any other.
Review: Marco's treatment of each Delphi topic is concise, well thought out and succinctly written. I cannot praise his book more than this. Its his best yet!
Rating:
Summary: beni@freemail.orgmk
Review: Mastering Delphi
Rating:
Summary: Marco Cantù did it again: Mastering Delphi 4 is very good.
Review: Mastering Delphi 4 is the bestselling mega-book written by Marco Cantù. I can fully recommend this book for all Delphi users, ranging from beginning to advanced. Actually, I just received a review copy of Mastering Delphi 4, and one of the things that I noticed is that Marco has removed some of the "beginning" material from his book, replacing it with more advanced and new material. So, it looks like Mastering Delphi 4 is now aiming a little bit higher compared to the previous editions (although Delphi Developer's Handbook is still Marco's masterpiece for really advanced Delphi programmers). Mastering Delphi 4 does not include a CD-ROM (so all pages are actually printed), but the source code can be downloaded from the web.
Rating:
Summary: Marco Cantù did it again: Mastering Delphi 4 is very good.
Review: Mastering Delphi 4 is the bestselling mega-book written by Marco Cantù. I can fully recommend this book for all Delphi users, ranging from beginning to advanced. Actually, I just received a review copy of Mastering Delphi 4, and one of the things that I noticed is that Marco has removed some of the "beginning" material from his book, replacing it with more advanced and new material. So, it looks like Mastering Delphi 4 is now aiming a little bit higher compared to the previous editions (although Delphi Developer's Handbook is still Marco's masterpiece for really advanced Delphi programmers). Mastering Delphi 4 does not include a CD-ROM (so all pages are actually printed), but the source code can be downloaded from the web.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent intermediate level book
Review: This book does an excellent job of walking the user through all the basics of Delphi and Object Pascal. It does assume some familiarity with Pascal, but if the reader has that, this is an extremely easy to follow book. The examples are useful, and are explained well enough that the reader can easily expand them to meet his own needs
Rating:
Summary: Excellent work
Review: This is a fantastic work. Cantu has an excellent summary of the new language features added to Delphi 4, and notes pitfalls which may occur when compiling old code. I generally only refer to books when I'm stuck and need help beyond the online docs. I can sit down and just read this one; there's so much useful information in it that I always find something helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: If you only buy one Delphi 4 book, this is the one!
Review: This is the most comprehensive and useful book on Delphi 4 programming that I have come across (and I've browsed ALL the books on D4 that Amazon list). The only reason I do not rate it at 5 stars is the fact that the code in the book is not included on a CD-ROM; you have to download it from the web. Give me a CD any day.
| 
