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Rating: 
Summary: Good Intro to Delphi, but not great
Review: For several years, I searched for ways to learn to use Delphi to create language-analysis programs. No courses are offered in Atlanta. All of the "learn to program with Delphi" books that I found on Amazon are horrible in similar ways: (a) They promise to start at the beginning but can't figure out where the beginning is. (b) They make huge leaps between levels. (c) They do not have enough practical activities to help the learn understand and apply features in Delphi. (d) They give exercise/practice activities that require knowledge not presented in the book. I had given up. Then, over the 2003 Christmas holidays, I decided to check around the Internet one last time for Delphi materials. I stumbled over an online course offered through the University of South Africa that is built around "Introducing Delphi Programming: Theory through Practice." The example materials for the course demonstrated a very practical set of explanations and exercises. So, I ordered the book through Amazon-UK because it was not at that time available in the U.S. "Introducting Delphi programming: Theory through Practice" turned out to be outstanding: it begins where I needed to begin; it progresses smoothly from task to task; it is built around sets of practical exercises and practice activities; explanations are clear and well organized. It is the best "how to" book of any type that I've ever used. In addition, there's an online course offered through the University of South Africa. I've signed up and am progressing through the book at the schedule required for the course; the schedule helps to keep me working away at learning Delphi in the midst of a busy life. The course also offers email contact with 2 of the authors of the book (Gelderblom and Miller) for help with the activities. (...)Pat
Rating: 
Summary: Practical and Effective Teaching of Delphi Programming
Review: For several years, I searched for ways to learn to use Delphi to create language-analysis programs. No courses are offered in Atlanta. All of the "learn to program with Delphi" books that I found on Amazon are horrible in similar ways: (a) They promise to start at the beginning but can't figure out where the beginning is. (b) They make huge leaps between levels. (c) They do not have enough practical activities to help the learn understand and apply features in Delphi. (d) They give exercise/practice activities that require knowledge not presented in the book. I had given up. Then, over the 2003 Christmas holidays, I decided to check around the Internet one last time for Delphi materials. I stumbled over an online course offered through the University of South Africa that is built around "Introducing Delphi Programming: Theory through Practice." The example materials for the course demonstrated a very practical set of explanations and exercises. So, I ordered the book through Amazon-UK because it was not at that time available in the U.S. "Introducting Delphi programming: Theory through Practice" turned out to be outstanding: it begins where I needed to begin; it progresses smoothly from task to task; it is built around sets of practical exercises and practice activities; explanations are clear and well organized. It is the best "how to" book of any type that I've ever used. In addition, there's an online course offered through the University of South Africa. I've signed up and am progressing through the book at the schedule required for the course; the schedule helps to keep me working away at learning Delphi in the midst of a busy life. The course also offers email contact with 2 of the authors of the book (Gelderblom and Miller) for help with the activities. (...)Pat
Rating:
Summary: Good Intro to Delphi, but not great
Review: In general, I recommend this book. It is an easy-to-use introduction to Delpi, Visual IDEs, and event-driven programming. As an experienced programmer (FORTRAN, COBOL, C++), I found the book a little boring, but I definitely learned some Pascal and got a mercifully gentle introduction (which I needed) to Visual IDEs and event-driven programming with Delphi. The book was written as a text for an introductory programming course using Delphi, which brings me to my only concern. The book does not do a good job of preparing students for a more advanced course. Important concepts are explained only by analogy and the analogies are often misleading. This could present a problem for a beginning student who might want to move on to Java or (Visual) C++, which are notoriously unforgiving of ignorance or misunderstanding. If you are an instructor considering this book, be careful to include rigorous explanations of basic concepts in your lectures. Otherwise, the book is quite serviceable and I reiterate my recommendation.
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