Any good, new Delphi books?

Question

I've noticed that the number of good Delphi books is slowly going down to zero. Of course, there are plenty of books that explain the basics but good titles like the "Tomes of Delphi" series seem to have stopped.

What I am looking for are recent, new book titles about Delphi that are useful for Delphi experts, not newbies. There are plenty of older books that are useful but I just wonder if there are still enough authors interested in supporting Delphi.

Well, Marco Cantu still seems to publish his Delphi handbooks. But are there more, or is the Delphi book business now officially dead?

I am not looking for books for newbies! Am using Delphi since 1995 so I'm definitely no newbies and have no use for a newbie book. (Well, my chair is crooked and wobbly. A thin, half-inch book would fit nicely.) What I'm looking for are the more technical books that discuss newer techniques and which are more up-to-date about Vista and even Windows 7.

Answer 1

"Am using Delphi since 1994 "

... it seems you can write a book about Delphi on your own :)

Answer 2

First thing that comes to mind is Marco Cantu's Delphi 2009 Handbook. It goes into depth on new features from D2009 and assumes you're already familiar with previous versions. (And with a new release scheduled for next week, we're likely to see a Delphi 2010 Handbook before too long too.)

Answer 3

Unfortunately, all the authors from the good old Delphi days (Jim Mischel, Ray Konopka, Jeff Duntemann et al) seem to have stopped writing or moved on to other systems :(

Not much new stuff coming out lately, I'm afraid..... see this search on Amazon as an illustration.......

Marc

Answer 4

Marco Cantu and Bob Swart have current (Delphi 2007/2009) books and training materials on Lulu.com, which prints on demand. An electronic copy of Marco's Delphi 2009 Handbook is available to registered Delphi users.

It isn't as current, but Julian Bucknall's Tomes of Delphi: Algorithms and Data Structures is available there, too.

Not a printed book, but Blaize Pascal Magazine is dedicated to all things Pascal. Again, for registered Delphi 2009 users, there is a free one year subscription. If you aren't, there's still a special Delphi 2009 edition you can download.

Please excuse the TinyURL links. SO didn't like some of Lulu's very long links. If you don't get any results on first load, hit refresh.

Answer 5

I like books as well, but don't forget that some of the best reference sources for Delphi are on the web. It is these resources, and the fact that they are free and indexed by search tools and updated regularly that make it tougher for authors to publish Delphi programming books.

Books have a limited life as they tend to get out of date quickly. I give Marco and Dr. Bob credit for continuing on and going the self-publishing route. Otherwise, there might not be any new Delphi books.

A great reference site on the web is the Delphi Wiki at http://delphi.wikia.com/ and it might be just what you're looking for. There they are trying to collect and present all the knowledge about Delphi. Some of their articles go into great depth. I'm sure the entire contents there would produce many books if it were all printed.

The other online source that is excellent is Zarko Gajic's Delphi Programming at About.com: http://delphi.about.com He's been doing this for years now, and the articles there seem to be endless.

Also check out the question: "Where can I find a Delphi online help better than the integrated one?"

Answer 6

I guess there is not much need for new delphi books any more. If you compare all the big, old books on delphi (e.g. mastering delphi) there ain't much new to learn between versions besides new language features and components. Cantu's handbooks and drBob's Delphi 200x Development Essentials will give you this update.

I find that after doing delphi for ten years, there is much more to learn from non-delphi specific books. There is so much universal thinking that has nothing to do with what language is used. Like patterns, like clean/solid code, like testing etc.