Why we need Delphi prism

Question

What is the need to use delphi prism instead of Visual studio; i am a delphi programmer so i like object pascal but what else are that delphi prism have that other does not have

Answer 1

Check this link wich show the enhancements of Delphi-prism vs CSharp.

• Delphi Prism vs. CSharp

Answer 2

What do you mean by "Delphi Prism instead of Visual Studio"?! Delphi Prism is a pascal-flavor in .NET platform. Visual Studio is an IDE. Delphi Prism uses Visual Studio as its IDE. So when you code in Delphi Prism or debug your prism codes, you are doing it in Visual Studio, just as doing with C# or VB.NET.

.NET is supposed to support multiple programming languages and providing common types and libraries to all languages targeting it. Delphi Prism is just another .NET language. It has access to all the stuff that .NET provides to languages. It also has some distinct language features (refer to PRUZ post).

So you can use Delphi Prism when you want to code in Pascal for .NET platform, or if you really need any of its distinct language features in your .NET applications.

Of course Microsoft's own languages (C#, VB.NET, F#) have little edge in .NET over third-party language providers:

• There are so many books and articles - including MSDN - written about MS languages, or written about .NET with C# or VB.NET sample codes (recently Delphi Prism added a tool to automatically convert C# code snippet to Delphi Prism code).
• New .NET features would be available first to Microsoft's own
  languages first, and then to other
  languages, so if you need a really
  new .NET feature, you might have to
  wait a few months to have it in your favorite language.
• And, some IDE features like visual form designer for .NET compact edition are only provided for C# and VB.NET.

Answer 3

Like any other programming language, we don't need Delphi Prism. But Prism is an option for software developers with a Pascal/Delphi background to start developing for DotNET. Is this important? For some, yes. For others, not really.

I have over 20 years of experience with Pascal and am familiar with every Delphi version since the first one. But 8 years ago, I also learned C# simply because Delphi was too weak as a tool for developing DotNET applications. And unfortunately, no matter how much Embarcadero/Borland tries, their development of Prism will also be behind the generic DotNET products that Microsoft keeps publishing.

The advantage of Prism is that it's an add-on for Visual Studio. And you can use Prism to write applications for the Mono platform, which is used on Apple's Mac computers. It can also work together with C# and VB.NET applications and you can create mixed projects where you use Delphi, C# and VB.NET to create a single product. (Made of multiple assemblies, though.) Prism allows you to create Pascal code that you can use in your regular WIN32 environment but also in DotNET. This code can't be too platform-specific but in general you can get some very good results this way.

Delphi Prism isn't fully developed by Borland/Embarcadero, though! It started with RemObjects, who created an alternative compiler for Delphi-like code, but with some additional features that you won't find in regular Delphi code. RemObjects started to just push out Delphi for DotNET from the market, since RemObjects provided a nicer product and they had focused more on the DotNET issues. So the two started to work together to create Prism.

Like any programming language, Prism has some features that you won't find elsewhere. If those features are practical always depends on if you can find some practical usage for them. In my personal opinion, if you already have Visual Studio and you're only creating applications for the Windows platform then you won't really need Prism. If you have additional Delphi experience, you might like Prism for some projects. If you need to port a Delphi/WIN32 application to DotNET then Prism might help with that. But I don't know of any advantage that would make Prism a requirement.

Answer 4

You can view old question Will you use Delphi Prism, about many opining about Delphi prism from Delphi developers and others.

Answer 5

Personally I think Delphi Prism do more bad than good for the (real) Delphi ecosystem. I can not deny that the RemObject's product has many interesting things and technically well done, but as a (real) Delphi programmer and enthusiast I see that thay are dangerously distracting the attention and giving some ambiguos non clear message to new comers and .Net programmers.

A (MS) .Net programmer will never move to D. Prism, only Delphi programmers who wants a smooth transition while leaving the boat.

Since there is no tie between D. Prism and (real) Delphi it was a bad move to name it Delphi. They share some basic pascal syntaxis but that's all. They even do not share their improvments, nor they can be used fully integrated.