30 Years of Delphi: My Story with a Game-Changing Development Tool

Today marks a monumental milestone—Delphi’s 30th anniversary! It’s incredible to think that this development powerhouse has been shaping the software world for three decades. As I reflect on my own journey with Delphi, I can’t help but feel a deep appreciation for how it has influenced my career, projects, and the broader developer community.

The Early Days – ClubRunner and Delphi 5

My story with Delphi began in 1999 when I started working with a Leisure Management Software company, ClubRunner. At the time, we were transitioning from DOS to Windows, and Delphi provided the perfect tool to make this leap. My first copy of Delphi was version 3, but we quickly moved to Delphi 5, which became the foundation of our software for many years.

ClubRunner managed everything from health club memberships, bookings, and class scheduling to video rentals, POS printers, cash drawers, and even membership card printing. One of Delphi’s greatest strengths was its ability to integrate seamlessly with any hardware we needed. It gave us the flexibility to tackle any challenge, no matter the complexity.

Rapid Prototyping and Expansion

Delphi’s rapid prototyping capabilities enabled us to develop new features quickly, which led to our software winning numerous awards and expanding into new sectors like Soft Play and Golf Driving Ranges. No matter what we needed to build, Delphi gave us the tools to make it happen. We never encountered something we couldn’t code for, and that was a testament to its power and adaptability.

While much of the industry has moved to web and cloud-based solutions, there are still strong reasons why local software and hardware integrations remain critical. The modern Delphi full-stack approach ensures that developers can build solutions that bridge both worlds seamlessly.

Joining Embarcadero – Advocating for Delphi Developers

In 2011, I had the opportunity to join Embarcadero, a defining moment in my career. As a Presales Engineer, I’ve had the honor of talking to developers worldwide about what they create with Delphi. I’ve seen Delphi power everything from high-frequency trading software for the South African Stock Exchange to black box recorders, automated milking machines, and countless line-of-business applications.

During my time as Senior Product Marketing Manager, I was proud to play a role in launching the updated Delphi Community Edition, which has been a significant support for students and educators. South Africa, in particular, has a thriving Delphi community, with Delphi being the primary programming language taught in secondary schools. It’s been inspiring to see how it has helped shape the next generation of developers.

While today, my time is largely split between a number of Brands at Idera, Delphi remains a core focus with the presales team I run supporting developers world wide. As part of that effort, today we are launching a new book specifically for helping other developers from other languages get started with Delphi, and this is now available to anyone with an active Update Subscription via GetIt.

Longevity and Business Value

One of the things that has always impressed me about Delphi is the sheer longevity of its codebase. Many companies have compact development teams achieving incredible results thanks to Delphi’s long life span and strong backwards compatibility. Even at ClubRunner, we were able to evolve the software by adding web services as an API, (thanks to upgrading existing code easily into Delphi 7 and then later 2009) allowing customers to expand beyond the original scope of the product. This ability to extend and innovate while maintaining compatibility kept customers loyal and provided immense business value.

Building for the Future – Cross-Platform Success

In today’s fast-moving world, so much code is written and discarded, but with Delphi, I’ve been able to leverage my experience to build lasting applications. One of my proudest achievements has been using my Delphi knowledge to create cross-platform apps that reached the top of the App Store. That’s a testament to the power of Delphi—it allows developers to continuously evolve their skills while building applications that stand the test of time.

Conclusion

As Delphi enters its fourth decade, I’m excited about what the future holds. The ability to build powerful, cross-platform applications with a compact and efficient team remains one of Delphi’s greatest strengths. Looking back at my journey—from ClubRunner to Embarcadero, from local software to global applications—I’m reminded just how powerful and enduring Delphi truly is.

Happy 30th Anniversary, Delphi! Here’s to many more years of innovation, efficiency, and game-changing development.

My Delphi App made it to #1 on both the Apple App Store (iOS) and Google Play Store (Android) charts last weekend! (12 to 14 April 2024)

I was blown away by the response to my RAD Studio / Delphi Application, written for iOS and Android after I published it to Google Play and Apple AppStore. The app helps go karting mechanics and drivers quickly get answers to setup questions and understand the difference in their gearing ratios, and how that translates to speed on track.

Despite being for a niche market, it raced (excuse the pun) to the #1 Paid Sports App for both app stores within two days of launch.

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Continue reading Delphi App hits #1 on the App Stores! →

One great feature of RAD Studio is the ability to load component packages into the IDE rapidly via GetIt. This service feature works by collecting a list of available packages from the Online Servers, and then allowing you to select what you want and seconds later, the components and add-ons are available inside the IDE!

While GetIt is a lot faster and simpler for setting up the IDE, compared to using the traditional manual package install and setup route, it does was limited to online working only…. That is until now and the release of RAD Studio 11.2

11.2 adds the ability to load packages via GetIt when the PC is offline. This greatly improves access to packages for machines that are blocked from the Internet.

It’s pretty simple! You just need an active subscription, a downloaded package, and the file on the local machine.

I got a question this week about how to migrate from an old version of InterBase to the latest version, so I thought I would share a few tips and hints on how to move data forward from old versions.

InterBase On Disk Structure

Before we start, it is important to know that each major release of InterBase has an associated On-Disk Structure (ODS).

When database files are restored on created with the latest ODS it enables InterBase to make features available for use with that database file. If you don’t use the latest ODS format, then features in the InterBase engine may not be available to that database file.

InterBase version	Primary ODS version
2020	18
2017	17
XE7	16
XE3	15
XE	15
2009	13
2007	12
7.0	11
6.0	10
5.5/5.6	9.1
5.0/5.1	9

One benefit of InterBase today is that the ODS is cross-platform, meaning the same database file can be moved between Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux without modification, drastically simplifying the development and maintenance of data in cross-platform/multi-platform applications.

What is the InterBase migration process?

For most cases, the InterBase migration progress follows 4 simple steps:

1. Backup all the databases to be migrated.
2. Install the latest InterBase server.
3. Restore the databases being migrated on the most recent version
4. Validate migrated databases.

When migrating from a version using ODS 13 or newer, this should be enough to get updated. If you are using an older ODS, then there are a couple of more steps to get updated.

The only other checks to make when updating are for are new keywords in InterBase. These are occasionally added to support new features, such as table truncation, or ChangeViews. A full list of keywords is available on docwiki

How to migrate from very old versions of InterBase?

If you are using a version prior to InterBase 2009, then there are two options available to you.

1. Migrate to an intermediary version first (that supports ODS 13 or above)
2. Move the data to a new database created in the latest version.

Migrating to an intermediary version

As an example, a backed-up version of an InterBase 5 database could be restored using InterBase 2007 (to create an InterBase database file that uses ODS 12). The new database file can then be backed up in InterBase 2007 to a backup that supports ODS 12. InterBase 2020 can actually read ODS 11 and 12 for backup purposes only, so from here you can restore to the latest version.

Prior to the release of InterBase 2007, a number of new keywords were added to InterBase. By targeting InterBase 2007 first, you can also locate any issues around keywords prior to the bigger jump to ODS 18 (InterBase 2020)

Moving data from an old to a new database

The other option is to use a data pump tool to move the database from an old database to a newer version. This can be more complicated due to foreign key constraints, however, there are specialist tools such as InterBase DataPump that can be used for this process.

https://clevercomponents.com/products/datapump/index.asp

If you choose to go this path, then the basic steps are to

1. Create a blank new database in the latest version
2. Save the metadata from the existing database, and use it as a script to add the structure to the new database file
3. Pump in the data: Making allowance for
   • the order data is moved based on Foreign key constraints
   • table triggers (best to disable these first)
4. Reset database generators to the required value

External Dependencies

Another things to check when migrating to newer InterBase versions are any external dependancies. (e.g. User Defined Libraries (UDF) that you use). Older versions of InterBase could have been 32bit only.

As 32bit and 64bit libraries are incompatible with each other, an initial upgrade route would be to get to the latest version of InterBase on 32bit, and then look to get a 64bit version of the UDFs for use with a 64bit version of InterBase. As the ODS is the same for all InterBase platforms, this is then a seamless migration.

Where to download the latest InterBase version?

The Latest version of InterBase is available from Embarcadero.com with a Developer Edition (which offers light database encryption only) or Trial Edition (includes strong encryption at rest on disk). For older editions of InterBase to help with migration, please contact Embarcadero sales

I recently posted on my Embarcadero Blog about the 3 main types of mobile applications that developers write. Native apps, web-based mobile apps, and hybrid apps, and highlighted that you can achieve the benefits of both Hybrid development with a single code base to manage, test, and develop, with the SPEED AND SECURITY of TRUE native compilation. (Note, Not all development toolchains that claim to be native, compile everything!- Delphi does!)

Definitely worth sharing with those you know looking to choose which platform they want for their next development project.

Each approach has its Pro’s and Con’s, and with a view of how operating systems have developed over time, its easy to see how web-based technologies (web-native, and hybrid) have had a positive role to play in the adoption of multiple platforms by targeting the one thing each platform provides, a browser-based on HTML and open standard.

With OS vendors only interested in offering the best speed, performance, and usability via their own tools to aid adoption, and as OS’s evolve in different ways, (especially early in their development cycle) is understandable that choosing web can seem a good option to gain market entry with a broad access.

That said, we are now at a point where the market has matured. We have Apple and Google as the two key players covering over 99% of the market, pushing developers towards needing to maintain two codebases for the best user experience on mobile. On the other side, a number of web-based frameworks offering semi-native apps with a single code base.

What I love about Delphi, is that there is a unique offering enabling developers to benefit from a single code base that address both mobile platforms, with the speed, security and usability of Vender tools, PLUS the lower development cost, and low code options promoted by web/scripted frameworks.

FireMonkey is now 9 years old, and benefits from the best available compilers on the market, targeting the latest technologies (like Metal on iOS for blazing-fast rendering) and offers a choice of true native controls or platform styles controls at runtime.

Read more on my Embarcadero blog – What are the best options for mobile app development?