What features would you like to see in the win32 Delphi Compiler?

Question

Delphi (the language) has its own syntax and features, and other languages have their own too.

As a Delphi developer, what would you like to have in the win32 Delphi compiler? And if you are not a Delphi developer, what features would make you starting using Delphi?

Here's my short list

Main Features:

1. Cross platform compiler (Revive Kylix) Windows/Linux/Mac.
2. Native support for 64bit Processors (it may be in the next Delphi version as mentioned in Delphi roadmap).
3. Advanced support for newer multi cores CPUs.
4. Inline declaration of variables such as: var MyObj := new TMyClass.Create() (Similar to C);
5. Multiples assignment: X := Y := Z := 1;
6. Lambda expressions (same as C# 3).
7. Automatic properties (same as C# 3).

I'm sure many have their own list, so let's start dreaming ;-)

Answer 1

Uhm, only two items on my list:

1. fix existing bugs
2. crash/hang-free IDE

PS: x64 support will be nice too ;)

Answer 2

I was a long time Delphi developer but switched to .NET a few years ago. Still use Delphi from time to time, but feel it has fallen behind C# as a language.

IMHO Delphi needs to set it self apart, so CrossPlatform would definitely be what would bring me back. Would have to be all three: Windows/Mac/Linux maybe they could use something like wxWidgets.

Inline variable declaration would be high on my list too - hate having to declare vars at the top of a procedure.

Managed Memory model in Win32 would be awesome.

Better refactoring tools in the IDE - although haven't used the latest one, so it could be better than the last IDE I have (2006)

Answer 3

Garbage collection.

Answer 4

Definitely 64-bit support (but we'll get it soon, I hope, maybe even next year ...).

Automatic property getters/setters (I proposed this two years ago).

Less verbose syntax for the anonymous methods. I hate the current approach oh so much.

Profiler.

I don't care much about multithreading support. I'm writing my own. I also don't care much about GC. I don't imagine how I would find stuff-that-should-be-released-but-is-not in the GC program. I still remember how it was to work without FastMM.

Answer 5

I miss the post-increment and ternary conditional operators when I use Delphi.

Inc() and IfThen() just do not cut it.

Answer 6

I would concentrate on the Mac instead of Linux for Delphi/Kylix dreaming.

The reason Kylix failed was that Linux people will not pay money for development tools. With the rise of the Mac over the past few years, a Delphi that makes native Mac binaries might make business sense for them.

Answer 7

When I look at newer languages such as Perl and Ruby the obvious difference that strikes me is the support for hash tables and their associated ability (especially in Ruby) to iterate, concatenate and otherwise process the hash tables (or just an arrays) contents.

Okay, so I can create an iterator in Delphi but having to create a new class todo it is too unwieldy for everyday use.

Related to this is a more extensive VCL for lists and collections. For example I should be able to sort a StringList using an anonymous method or a callback function (which may have been added in D2009).

In general I'd say a more extensive collection of data structures is needed in the language and VCL.

Answer 8

Forwards that work across units. The problem comes with classes that need to work together.

Permit a forward declaration inside a class in the interface. Add a keyword "CompletedBy", similar to Uses but when a filename is found there it is NOT compiled until the very end unless otherwise called for normally.

I do not favor the previously mentioned prefix/postfix operators, I'm not too happy with inline variables other than loop variables and I do not like multiple assignment.

Answer 9

From the Compiler

• Generation of assemblies that aren't so badly mangled that C# or VB can barely add references and make use of them.

From the IDE

• An IDE that only crashes 1 week (if that) - delphi 6/7 where did you go??
• Doesn't leaks GIGs of memory
• Doesn't eat markup in .ASPX

From Codegear itself

• Come clean about support for the "new" .NET technologies - silverlight, .NET 3.x etc. If there is no future support comming, just tell us so we can move on.
• Get realistic pricing. Delphi is more expensive than an MSDN Premium (exclude TFS costs)

Answer 10

1) At all places where the compiler expects a list of stuff, allow the last element to be followed with the list separator. This makes is easier to move stuff around. It's in C# and I really like it!.

const
mydata:array[0..2] of string=(
   'one',
   'two',
   'three',
);

2) String litterals like in C#,

str:=@'This is line one
this is the second line';

Have not used Delphi 2009, so perhaps this is already onboard.

Answer 11

• Option to inline finalized virtual methods.
• Extending generic constrains to class (record) operators.
• “Managed records”
• 32/64bit cross-platform compiler + RTL.

Answer 12

Remembered one more: inlining of pure assembler procedures.

Answer 13

Smarter record operators!

I totally hate that I have to define both Equal and NotEqual. If one of them is missing, the compiler could use the other one and negate the result!

Same goes for LessThan, LessThanOrEqual, GreaterThan ...

Answer 14

• Set operations that work on strings, object references etc.
• Remove limit on the number of items in sets (even if performance suffers)
• Attributes and reflection in the native compiler

Answer 15

look here

Answer 16

Delphi is an incredible language, but it could be better. I've posted this a few other places, but it needs to be said, repeatedly, until it gets implemented. This is all stuff that's not in D2009, and should be. There's more, of course, but these are my major wish-list issues:

• Properties are wonderful. But why are we stuck with an implementation that's only halfway complete? Give me one good reason why you should ever be unable to pass a read/write property to a var parameter. If they both refer to the same data member, it's simple. If not, retrieve the read value and make a copy of it, pass the copy, get the result, and send it to the appropriate write.
• Likewise, array properties need to be fixed. Why should they require get/set methods instead of direct access? If I wanted to work with mandatory get/set methods to access the private members of my objects, I'd code in C++. I use Delphi to get away from that sort of syntactic diarrhea.
• Bring some of the syntactic sugar introduced in Oxygene/Prism over to native Delphi. Some of it's dependent on a managed code framework, but stuff like the colon operator and double comparison ("if 5 < x < 12") are just automagical compiler tricks, and I'd love to have access to them without all the overhead the CLR imposes. Also, if they could find some way to bring parallel FOR loops and Futures in without the CLR, I'd be ever-so-grateful.

Answer 17

Inline (local) variables, like this :

// some code
var i: Integer;
// some more code

Answer 18

Qualified 'with' statements, like this :

with s: TStringList.Create do
try
  s.Add('Hello world!');
  ShowMessage(s.Text);
finally
  s.Free;
end;

Answer 19

Language features are important to get others to use Delphi, but the IDE is equally important and having a good editor for your code is mandatory. Delphi's editor is pretty good, but it is omitting something you see in other editors:

It needs allow split screen or multiple windows, so you can see, scroll and edit independently two (or more) views of one unit at once.

and similarly:

It needs multiple windows so that you can see, scroll and edit multiple units at once. The tabbed editor window interface doesn't allow this.

Answer 20

MikeJ: Delphi 6/7 is gone forever and ever.

Let me elaborate on that a little bit. So like, there was a good IDE and compiler, Delphi 7. It had nice-looking GUI, was responsible, stable (I'm guessing that this is the reason it still ships in some countries :D). And then there was a huuuuge void and nothing usable after that.

So what I'd love to see is Delphi 7 revived and kicking with new language features (like shorthands for properties as in C# 3 or maybe anonymous classes / methods - that'd help a lot).