Win32 in a .NET World

One of the more frequent questions we get asked these days is about the future of Delphi on Win32. It's practical question because there are literally hundreds of thousands of Delphi Win32 applications in operation today by millions of end users who rely on them. With all of the .NET hype and future .NET based Windows Longhorn technologies being talked about all the time by Borland, Microsoft, and the software development industry in general, it's no wonder a developer with ongoing Win32 requirements might pause with concern. Developers care about maintaining the quality of these Win32 projects and adding new features along the way. Fortunately for those invested in Delphi, Borland is taking the practical approach to continued Win32 support while at the same time speeding on the .NET track like a bullet train.

It's obvious that we're dedicated to .NET in a big way. Managed code is the future of general application development on Windows and most Delphi developers are already starting new projects on .NET with Delphi 8. If you haven't tried it yet, get a copy - you'll be amazed how great the new technology is… and also how surprisingly familiar everything is - but that's for another conversation. Rest assured that for now we are going to continue supporting Win32 in Delphi. As promised, we just signed off on the 7.1 service pack for Win32 which addresses some of the more commonly cited Delphi 7 issues - including everyone's favorite project manager sorting anomaly. Anders has kindly posted the readme on his blog. The update is available for download now and eventually will work it's way into the Delphi 8 boxes themselves - which happen to conveniently include Delphi 7. Win32 support and new features will be included in future Delphi's as well.

It's interesting that in addition to the questions of "if" Win32 support will continue, we also get the flip side; "why continue to support Win32?". One thing I've learned in my years of working on Delphi is that there is no single Delphi developer profile and there is no single Delphi application profile. Delphi:=diversity; It's the force behind Enterprise applications of all sizes, but is also used on rides at famous amusement parks, and tools on space missions, imaging equipment on search and rescue missions, is a favorite in Wall Street trading systems, and on and on. Some of these applications will benefit by migrating to .NET today, and there are some that don't have an immediate need. And when they do, Delphi will make it easier than any other development tool to get an existing application moved onto .NET. Not only does Delphi 8 include a .NET version of VCL to make migrating existing Delphi applications easier, language syntax is preserved, and additional features are included to make building hybrid applications simple. For example with unmanaged exports you can build new .NET assemblies that can be directly called from existing Delphi Win32 applications without adding COM or Web Services wrappers. So existing applications can even start to take advantage of .NET incrementally if desired.

Delphi .NET should be the first consideration for any new application development project, but many existing mission critical Delphi Win32 applications will still be in operation years from now and yes, there will even be brand new Win32 apps developed as well. So continuing to support Win32 along side .NET makes sense and provides Delphi developers a distinct advantage. That's how we see it anyway. Of course we'll take it release by release but for now Win32 is still a first class Delphi citizen.