August 12, 2010

What beta testers are saying about RAD Studio XE

We recently asked our beta testers to tell us what they think about RAD Studio XE (including Delphi XE, Delphi Prism XE, C++Builder XE and RadPHP XE).

Here are just some of the great things they had to say:

“I'm very excited about the integrated SVN support, since I rely very much on SVN in my own projects. Having SVN accessible directly in the IDE certainly gives a whole new meaning to the RAD concept.”

“Very stable environment, all features have matured. DataSnap has become very important in a lot of our projects. It’s just very easy to develop Internet enabled apps.”

“Delphi XE also has some interesting news w.r.t. the compiler. The new {$CODEALIGN 16} directive will allow procedures to be aligned to 16 byte boundaries, which can be very useful for certain low-level optimizations.”

“It's great to see that tools such as AQTime and CodeSite will now be part of the default setup -- I have nothing but good things to say about these tools; they provide an external layer that makes it so much easier to debug even the most intricate multithreaded problems.”

“My profiler needs aren't sufficient to justify the cost of purchasing AQTime. If it's included with Delphi then it should come in handy for the occasional profiling job.”

“I love the ability to copy C# code and paste to Oxygene Pascal”

“All of RadPHP is exciting me. I think most of desktop database developers have been waiting for a product like this to develop web based database applications.”

The Unicode support introduced in version 2010 is a huge benefit, and has already been put to a very good use. The migration was almost effortless, making Delphi the only product we have ever used that allowed switching from non-Unicode to Unicode version in matter of only few days.”

“The improvements in the code editor and the designer are significant. I use the RAD Studio for enhanced GUI applications mostly as customer information systems or similar administrative applications.”

“With so many features, in-depth debugging support, powerful IDE, & even with all the views activated, the IDE response remains lightning fast. But the main benefit, in my views, is that I can deliver real robust products, much faster and with added flavors (like gesture support) wide across different markets (including iPhone users and as assemblies to other .Net developers) utilizing my same Pascal skills.”

“With Delphi I can write world-ready applications in a high level language that are easy to deploy. Not only are there's a wealth of components available in the box to get the job done, but there's also a thriving community with code samples and components to fill in the gaps.”

“I don't have the figures, but I think the number of bug fixes in this release exceeds that of any preceding release. I will vouch for that all of my own reported bugs have been fixed and I'm especially glad to the improvements made to generics. Subversion support, cloud computing, new profiling and logging tools (AQTime and CodeSite) are just some of the new features in this release.”

“I am keen on whole Delphi Prism… it means I am excited about all its features.”

“Prism is totally cool and so easy to use. It gives you full access to the latest .NET stack without limits.”

“I actually like to see that the future of this project is good. Integration of Delphi Prism with Mono is actually a very good idea.”

“Delphi Prism = Considering the additional features included into Prism, compared with any other .NET language, I think it is the obvious alternative to C#”

“Recently, using beta version of Prism I was able to showcase to one of my client's CEO that if required we can even beat best of VS developers at their own game by delivering a real good eye candy and stable WPF application within few hours!”

“Your products are I think Best Database Application Developer tools both desktop and the web… You have great tools , easy usable and powerful. I like your tools.”

“For Delphi, Hands down, best dev. tool for native apps. I can literally program anything, quickly, fantastic database connectivity, fast compile and run speeds.”

“RAD Studio is the only product to offer true native platform rapid development for Windows applications. It offers unmatched performance, ease of use, expandability, and flexibility.”

“It's on every level comparable with other developer tools, usually even far better. There is no reason to prefer MS Visual Studio or similar tools.”

“We are using Delphi for Win32 since 16 bit version, and we can confirm that, Delphi 2011 has the strongest feature set from the history.”

21 comments:

Yogi Yang said...

@Tim,
I am surprised by your comment regarding RadPHP:
“All of RadPHP is exciting me. I think most of desktop database developers have been waiting for a product like this to develop web based database applications.”

It seems you have still not explored the net properly. There are other products like this already they are much much better then what you have been offering till date (i.e. Delphi 4 PHP). I can't say about RadPHP.

The only selling point in this product is that is mimics the behavior of a Delphi IDE. That is it!!!! Nothing beyond that.

Have a look at Yes Software's "Code Charge Studio". http://www.yessoftware.com/index2.php

Now that is what I call a good IDE for developing web applications.

Except giving it a jazzy look and snappy UI I don't think you can do much about it as the underlying VCL4PHP is not rewritten from scratch, it is just updated a bit, so all limitations of VCL4PHP are always going to get inherited in the new version.

LDS said...

Besides some of those declaration are really laughable, as others pointed out (did you read them before posting?):

1) We already use AQTime
2) We already use (heavily) a RegEx library (a PCRE based one)
3) We already use a logging system
4) We don't use Subversion
5) We don't use Prism
6) We don't use PHP
What's in this version really new and worth to upgrade?

Anonymous said...

...and I'm especially glad to the improvements made to generics...

This sounds interesting. Any chance of including some more details in one of the peek reviews?

(I assume this refers to the native code version, not Prism)

Unknown said...

Being excited about integrated SVN support? Really? Its been available for a while now with Jedi and EPocalipse.

Unicode support was available in Delphi 2009, you didn't have to wait until version 2010 to be introduced.

A 16-bit version of Delphi for Win32? Great....

Tim said...

The roadmap gives an overview of what's coming in the upcoming release. We'll publish the complete, detailed product information in a couple weeks when the the products are available to purchase.

Until then we are doing sneak previews providing more information on certain areas of the product each week. I understand everyone would like every detailed bit of information at once but we're still finishing up all of the marketing materials at we approach the launch date.

If you don't care about certain new features, that's fine. It just seems a little mean to bash other people for being excited about something just because you personally aren't interested in it.

Arnaud said...

"The new {$CODEALIGN 16} directive will allow procedures to be aligned to 16 byte boundaries, which can be very useful for certain low-level optimizations."

I agree with that. 16 bytes alignment is needed for SSE, or general speed improvement.

And what about {$A 16} for const/record/object alignment to 16 bytes?
Is it planned/included in Delphi XE?

This should be great having a list of compiler/language related improvements (generics, attributes, RTTI, etc...) of Delphi XE.

Thanks for the news!

Anonymous said...

"Having SVN accessible directly in the IDE certainly gives a whole new meaning to the RAD concept" -- Mein Gott! This guy is real?

Anonymous said...

"RAD Studio XE (including Delphi XE, Delphi Prism XE, C++Builder XE and RadPHP XE)"

But none of the beta testers have commented on CBuilderXE. Does this mean CBuilderXE is CBuilder2010 rebranded? Sure, a few compiler bug fixes - perhaps you should include that as part of CBuilder2010 compiler hotfix??? CBuilder2010 is _UNUSABLE_ still!!!

All about pascal pascal and pascal.

Subversion integration -- trivial feature. Have had this for ages in VS with Ankh but don't find it to be any more productive than ALT-tabbing to explorer.

Tim said...

I just went down the list and copied and pasted as many as I had time to do. Here are some that mentioned C++Builder...

More stability, more mature tools, better documentation, enhaced and updated compiler. Long term commitment gives the project leaders the peace of mind that modern times seems to stole from you. I strongly recommend C++Builder to you.

C++Builder is one of the most advanced, highly compliant C++ compiler. Plus it has the unique feature that is support VCL. No other C++ compiler will allow to produce Windows applications so visually. No dependency on slow frameworks. Pure C++ = fastest speed.

Delphi and C++ Builder along with Delphi Prism give you an arsenal of development power that cannot be beat. These tools walk all over Microsoft Visual developer's studio.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

I see you've deleted the comment above. So we're not allowed to say anything negative about C++ Builder now are we?

Tim said...

Not if they're just negative rants that aren't related to the content of the post and include language that I find offensive.

Anonymous said...

Hi!
1. C++Builder 2010 Enterprise includes support for DataSnap 2010, although it's not always as easy as for Delphi 2010 developers since the DataSnap Wizards are missing in the C++Builder personality. This means that C++Builder 2010 developers have to manually create new projects, place components, assign property values, hook up event handlers, etc. (not to mention that it's currently very hard to produce DataSnap 2010 servers with Server Methods implemented in C++).
http://qc.embarcadero.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=83542
Will be C++ Builder XE include DataSnap Wizards?
2. What version of IntraWEB will be including in C++ Builder XE? What about help files and examples of IntraWEB of C++? IntraWEB technology very power, but very poor help documentation in IDE about IntraWEB in C++ Builder.
Thanks.

Tim said...

There are new wizards for creating DataSnap server applications in C++Builder XE.

IntraWeb is version XI.

You can see more in preview video 3 which will go live at midnight tonight (California time).

Anonymous said...

"Not if they're just negative rants that aren't related to the content of the post and include language that I find offensive."

which bit of the post isn't related?
and which bit of my language was offensive?

Anonymous said...

>There are new wizards for creating DataSnap server applications in C++Builder XE.

>IntraWeb is version XI.

Thank you Tim for this great news!

Anonymous said...

If I go back 4-5 years, it is the same. Everything is new, great and blah, blah. But always, what the people want, is not there. And burying the head in sand, will do nothing.

Anonymous said...

Why people are so negative?
Embarcadero is not microsoft, but it works people who need to earn money to live.
There are many applications developed using Delphi.
What’s new in office 97, or 2000, or xp, or 2003, or 2007, … a ribbon?….
This is a business, and we’re all in it.
Delphi is a great product, a great community.
Please let’s give it a try.

Anonymous said...

I've ditched Office for OpenOffice some years ago and haven't looked back.

Microsoft Visual Studio, however, is a remarkable improvement every release.

Anonymous said...

I wish I could afford a legimit version od delpi xe

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised by the beta testers - did you recruit a bunch of monkeys to do the beta testing?

15 minutes into the trial and my code that compiled and ran fine using cb2007 and cb2010 caused AV read of addr 0. Comparing the asm, XE's bcc32's definitely wrong.