Books on designing and implementing a Delphi application

Question

Hi there, I would like to broaden my Delphi horizons by reading a book about creation of Delphi applications. So far I have read books about Delphi mostly from Marco Cantu (Delphi 6-2009) or The Tomes of Delphi Algorithms and Data Structures.

But none of them describe the process of application creation from the beginning to end. Somewhere you see usage of design patterns, customized data structures or language specifics. But I cannot find a book which I would take as a reference in application development. Sure there are many hints and howtos on specific problems, there are also open source applications in delphi, from which one can learn a lot.

Are there books, which would guide a programmer in the process of creating advanced desktop Delphi applications?

With

• strong
• scalable
• modular
• decoupled

source code at the end?

Answer 1

You can read any OOP/OOA/OOD books. I recommend:

• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" by Gamma (GoF)
• Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck
• Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development (3rd Edition) by Craig Larman
• Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction by Steve McConnell

It's not Delphi specific books, but I'm sure their help you.

Answer 2

Nope, unfortunately there aren't so many new books about Delphi programming nowadays, and the ones which are available nowadays and cover the newer versions of Delphi focus mainly on the new features added in each version.

I personally think Embarcadero should spend more money on encouraging and supporting Delphi writers to publish new books about different aspects of Delphi.

So, as a solution to you, I also recommend leonidv's answer; right now you have to read books that are not directly related to Delphi programming language, and apply their techniques in your projects, or convert their source code samples to Delphi. That is what Dave is doing with Head First Design Patterns book here in his blog: http://tdelphihobbyist.blogspot.com/search/label/Design%20Patterns

Answer 3

I've never come across any such book, even outside of Delphi. The closest I would recommend is "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture" by Fowler.

A method that has worked for me is to study someone else's source code.. making sure that the source you look at is well written. Sourceforge.net is full of OS Delphi applications. Maybe that is a good starting point?

When I wanted to learn PHP, I spent a few weeks examining the Xoops CMS source.

When I wanted to leann Ruby on Rails, again I looked at a complex OS application (I believe it was called Collaboa at the time).

HTH and good luck!

Answer 4

I will suggest the obvious "Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction". Old, but still current. The book that you're asking for doesn't exist but I think that there is a hungry market out there.

Answer 5

For the Delphi part of the question.

Please have a look at http://blog.marcocantu.com/ for the latest info on the Marco Cantu books. I can't imagine he is not planning a 2010 release.

Bit in the mean time, a great resource to start with Delphi: http://delphi.about.com/.