What are the pros/cons of Delphi Prism 2010/2011?

Question

Have you developed much with Delphi Prism 2010 or 2011? If so, what are your chief complaints? I can't seem to find much critique on the relatively new releases. What do you use it for? .NET apps on Windows? On a different OS? What do you like best about it?

Thanks!

Answer 1

This is my list of pros and cons

pros

• Support for .NET 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0
• MonoDevelop IDE Integration (Multi-platform IDE supports Windows and Mac OSX)
• AOP (Cirrus) support
• Parallel Sequences
• Futures
• Standard Aspects Library
• Support for Novell MonoTouch to create apps for Apple iPhone, iPod touch and iPad with .NET and Mono.

cons

• the lack of third party support for .Net Controls like Telerik or DevExpress
• and others great tools like Codekana or CodeRush.
• No designer support for .NET Compact Framework 2.

Answer 2

We have a system where we have a Win32 client and a .NET back end. We transmit the data between the two systems via XML and SOAP. One of the best Pro's for us is that our objects we can serialize and de-serialize in both Win32 and .NET and keep a common code base.

.NET Delphi Prism Object <--> XML <--> Win32 Delphi Object.

The Delphi Prism Object is the same code as the Win32 Object.

Answer 3

I use it for the Hebrew conjugation program I am working on. The reason I started the project with Prism was two-fold: I wanted to program in Pascal again and I found out that Delphi Prism pays lip-service to crossplatform development (and I want my program to run on Mac OS X with a native GUI at the end).

I thought programming in Delphi Prism would make it easier for me to learn Delphi. Since I don't know C++ I was looking for a powerful language for native Win32 development. Hence learning Delphi was a good target for me as well.