Does anyone have information about Linux Support in the upcoming version of Delphi?

Question

I need this info to decide on what I am going to do about my platform support of my systems in the coming year, but can't find any real info on that. Maybe someone has some just released information.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There are four projects on the Delphi roadmap:

• Delphi Weaver (Firebird support, enhanced RTTI, Windows 7 API)
• Delphi X (Cross-platform)
• Delphi Chromium (Quality)
• Delphi Commodore (64-bit compiler, better multi-threading support)

You are looking for Delphi X, but it is unknown when it will come out. Delphi Weaver will be the next Delphi version.

Answer 2

This is as much as there is publicly available. Marco usually is well informed. But there are no release dates for the version.

Project Weaver

Focused on User Experience (new IDE Insight, Touch support), Connectivity, improved Documentation, Team Productivity, DataSnap with HTTP, REST server, .NET Proxies for DataSnap, Callbacks supported, dbExpress with native Firebird support, Aspect Oriented Programming support, Subversion integration, Windows 7 and Direct2D support, SOAP 1.2 clients, enhanced RTTI

Project Delphi “X”

Cross-platform support for MacOS and Linux, server and clients on Linux and Mac

Project Chromium

All about developer productivity, Pascal code formatter, documentation for the ToolsAPI, new Databinding model, integrated DB tools

Project Commodore

64-bit Windows, compiler + RTL + VCL, multicore support, parallel RTL

Future (far)

Cloud computing, Web 3.0++, beyond RIA, Devices, sw appliances, secutiry, compliance

Beyond the Beyond

Functional programming, declarative programming, natural input, more platforms…

Answer 3

Nothing official from Embarcadero, but I think around 2010-2011 based on:

Embarcadero's CEO Wayne Williams said in interview with The Register:

Williams says cross-platform is now a higher priority than a 64-bit compiler, though both are planned, and that we will see the first cross-platform release next year.

Beside Robert Love commented at his blog which was about next Delphi versions:

Nothing was set in stone. These are current plans and they may change. Time frames where avoided, but one comment was made in Q & A... They did not see anything on this list taking longer than 2011. So 2-3 years may be practical since time frames were really avoided, I would not plan on anything right now.

Answer 4

A few things to keep in mind about Delphi forcasting:

At DelphiLive! Nick announced that they changed the way they are doing development now. Previously everyone was working on the next release. This made it harder to get bigger changes done in time and done well. So there would be one "code named" version they were working on, and that was it.

Now there are multiple code named projects that are not necessarily attached to a specific release. So for example the list of code named projects that everyone provided here isn't necessarily each a different release of Delphi. They will take whichever projects are "ready" when they have a release coming and include those.

If you want more information about the road map, you can check out a series of videos I shot at DelphiLive! or the DelphiLive! Recap and Product address.

As far as when we might expect the next Delphi release, I wrote a blog post about that based on information provided at DelphiLive! as well.

If you are going to use this information to plan your Delphi purchases, and you don't currently have Delphi 2009 then buy Delphi 2009 now (at least by Aug 24th). They have a great promotion going on, and you can get software assurance and then you will get whatever new versions come out in the next year.

Delphi 2009 is a fantastic release and you will want to come up to speed on generics and Unicode now so you can take better advantage of them in the next releases.

Answer 5

In Stack Overflow Podcast #61, Miguel de Icaza talks a lot about his work on Mono and briefly mentions Delphi, so one might speculate that any cross platform support is going to be built around Mono.

Answer 6

We at twinforms provide support for Mac and Linux development using the current Delphi versions (for Linux and Mac, you need to compile the source using FreePascal). Have a look at the screencast that shows how to develop a cross platform application using Delphi and FreePascal - http://twinforms.com/products/wxformsdelphi/screencasts.php

Answer 7

They tried this before with Kylix. Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself here.

The last thing we need is more proprietary development applications.