Famous software made with Delphi
Delphi is used in thousands of titles
Once in a while I meet some programmer, typically Java, Python or C++ developer who have absolutely no knowledge of Delphi. The only thing he knows is that it looks like something between Basic and Modula, and as such he blurts out comments like “Delphi? What the hell, who uses Delphi anyways! I have never used a program written in Delphi! Have you ever seen a Delphi program that actually works!“.
The latter is a direct quote from the React OS forums [an older thread I admit, but true non-the-less] where several users asked for prioritized Delphi support (to be able to run Delphi on the free ReactOS system, which is basically an open-source re-make of Windows NT). The response came from one of React OS engineers, a very well known C++ programmer, who for some reason hates Delphi. Why we will never know.
I wish I could have been a part of that conversation because I would have set him straight about a number of things; but by the time I came into in this (by asking about Delphi of course) the comment section was muted and the thread left for dead. Which is a great shame, because I am willing to bet that he indeed has used a program written in Delphi. He simply did not know that it was a Delphi application — or the fact that Delphi rivals C/C++ in almost every field. In some cases it even surpasses C/C++ in terms of speed, but C++ programmers dont like to talk about that 🙂
Famous Delphi titles
Anyways, below is a short list of applications written in Delphi, just those that I can think about on top of my head (and with a little help of my friends over at Delphi Developer on Facebook). Some may come as a surprise, other not. But there is a lot of Delphi code out there that people don’t know about! And this is just a drop in the proverbial ocean of Delphi software titles.
So if you are new to object pascal, introduced by Smart Mobile Studio, Delphi or FreePascal, then I hope this list will at least give you a taste of what our language can do. You will find highly versatile, friendly, advanced, scalable and productive language which grows with you. No matter how good you get at programming, object pascal will never leave you lacking in features. Well, here is the list of the titles I know:
- Nero Burning Rom, CD/DVD burning software
- Skype, network telephony, voIP application
- Macromedia DreamWeaver, HTML website builder [bought by Adobe]
- Embarcadero C++ Builder IDE, Commercial C++ IDE written in Delphi
- Smart Mobile Studio, IDE and compiler toolchain for HTML5/JavaScript
- Homesite, HTML website editor [bought by Adobe, merged with DreamWeaver]
- FL Studio Pro, professional sound sequencer and synthesizer
- InstallAware, software installer
- InnoSetup, software installer
- DBase, rock solid database management application [Delphi & C++]
- WinRAR, compression application
- Partition Magic, Disk partitioning and cloning suite
- The online trader, Live stock exchange and trading application
- Syncback Pro, Brilliant backup application
Anti spyware and system tools
- Panda Titanium Antivirus, commercial antivirus
- Spyware Terminator, Anti spyware suite
- Spybot Search And Destroy, Anti spyware suite
- PC Tools Spyware Doctor, Anti spyware kit for Windows
- TuneUp Utilities, system optimizer
- Aida64, Benchmark software
File and disk
- BeyondCompare, file comparison and merge application
- Total Commander, file management application
- Super Copier, Win32/64 file copy/move dialog replacements
- CloneDVD, DVD copying software
- Ultra ISO, DVD and CD program
Authoring and help
- Help and Manual, Helpfile and book authoring software
- HelpNDoc, HTML help writer application
- SSuite Office Software, full office package written in Delphi
Database
- Oracle SQL Developer, SQL programming software
- Nexus DB, Commercial database engine written in Delphi
- MySQL Admin tools, Database management suite for mySQL
- SQL Navigator, SQL management application
- Toad for Oracle, de-facto SQL management for Oracle DB
- ElevateDB, Commercial database engine written in Delphi
Multimedia, print and web
- RadioBoss, Radio management software
- Ultimate paint, Image editor and drawing program
- IcoFX, icon and glyph editor
- KMplayer, Video and Movie application
- Responsive Layout Maker Pro, HTML WYSIWYG website designer
- Pro Motion, Pixel perfect image editor
- Media Monkey, Music manager application
- Press To Go, high-end printing press layout and management
- Gold Wave, Sound editor
Networking
- Jotta Online Backup, Cloud backup service
- TeamSpeak, network telephony, voIP application
- Hamachi, VPN Software [C++ builder combo]
- Avant browser, web browser written in Delphi
Scientific
- Altium Designer Board
- Orca Flex, design and analysis of offshore marine systems
- SOFIA, Nasa software project
- Orca Lay, planning and optimization of pipeline and umbilical lay procedures
- Orca Bend, design tool for efficient optimization of elastomeric bend stiffeners
- Diptrace, Schematic capture software
Misc titles
- Personal Historian, Ancestry and genealogy program
- Family Atlas, Ancestry and genealogy program
- Basic Premiere, Organ donor software
- Omni Accounts, Accounting software
Programming languages and IDE’s
- Morfik, Ajax native server website builder
- Elevate Web Builder, Javascript RAD IDE
- Dark Basic, game programming language
- PhpED, PHP coding editor
- RapidPHP, PHP coding IDE
- Smart Inspect, In-Depth debugging and log framework
- RAD PHP, Commercial PHP programming IDE and framework
- Finalbuilder, Commercial build management for programmers
- Lazarus, Open Source IDE for freepascal
- Freepascal, Open source object pascal compiler toolchain
Commercial gaming
- Space Rangers, Game written in Delphi
- Abra Academy, Game title by Big Fish games
- Tunngle, global LAN gaming network
- Soldat, online action game
- Age of Wonders, strategy game
Emulators
- nesTen, Nintendo emulator written in Delphi
- winNes, Nintendo emulator written in Delphi
- ulTee, Another Nintendo emulator also written in Delphi
- DSP, Arcade emulator written in Delphi
- Dolphin, Nintendo Gamecube and WII emulator written in Delphi
- DxBx, XBox emulator written in Delphi
As mentioned, there are thousands of titles created in Delphi and freepascal which are available in the global marketplace. Many of them completely free of charge just like freepascal and Lazarus. Applications that are very well known and used — which means it’s a shame that people (especially programmers using different languages) dont give Delphi and object pascal the credit it deserves. Delphi is not basic, and pascal was the language designed to replace C/C++ all those years ago. So it’s no push-over or lightweight. The code produced by Delphi is en-par with C++ Builder (it’s companion “sister” product) with support for generics, inline assembler, anonymous procedures, templates (FPC) and much, much more.
Scene from Abra Academy, game written in Delphi
So the next time someone goes “What? Object Pascal? Delphi?” then give them this list and ask them if they have ever used one of these programs. I havent even scratched the surface with this tiny list, but im pretty sure most people have used or at least heard about Skype. And Nero Burning Rom is also very, very well known – so odds are they have used that at some point.
Pascal is a “real” language. It’s not a basic compiler with an intermediate bytecode format that requires a truck-load of bloated DLL files to run. It’s not a script runtime or juiced up state machine. Object Pascal compilers produce real machine code and the language supports inline assembly straight out of the box. The executables you get have NO dependencies. As for Delphi, which is regarded as the “trend setter”, it’s sister and companion product is C++ builder which it is binary compatible with; Meaning that you can use compiled units between them without change. What you compile in C/C++ you can use in pascal, and what you create in pascal you can link and use in C without special treatment.
Besides that you can link to .lib and .obj files to your heart content, write header files for dll’s or imported code segments — heck, operative systems have been written from scratch in object pascal (so you Java boys can chill out, we did it decades before you – and we did it better).
And programmers (even Microsoft) use InnoSetup or there is something wrong with them 😉
Jon L. Aasenden 
Interesting list!
Do you have a link to the forum question about Delphi? My googling showed a few around 2005, 2012, etc, but I couldn’t find a recent one.
Sadly no link, I was trying to find it again myself, but I remember it vividly because I was shocked at the anti-delphi sentiment at the time (but this was quite a while back, it did not happen yesterday just so you know!). I also had a debate over Delphi vs. Python on the Facebook Raspberry PI forum – as well as the official Raspberry PI web-forum. In both places I was meet with the same hostile, anti-delphi kind of mentality.
I have been wanting to write that list many times, just to rub in someone’s face whenever they come up with their silly superstitions. One guy even said “Delphi cant be used to write good software, it never works!”.. Yeah right
Don’t forget this little nugget:
https://community.embarcadero.com/index.php/blogs/entry/delphi-begins-its-10year-journey-to-the-origins-of-the-solar-system-36
A very famous US space agency, NASA, has written software in Delphi for the Space Shuttle and International Space STation: http://blogs.embarcadero.com/davidi/2011/07/21/40857
From the link:
A few of the SpOC applications include (SS=Space Shuttle, ISS=International Space Station):
* Ping Master (SS, ISS)
* HazMat (SS,ISS)
* Packet Display Program (SS,ISS)
* Time Utilities (SS,ISS)
* Video Monitor & Video Server (ISS)
* Station Video Overlay (ISS)
* Voting in Space (ISS)
* CD Library (ISS)
Our Software also written in Delphi :
http://softpedia.com/publisher/Fahmy-Corporation-70514.html
Cool!
Reblogged this on RizkyPrimadona.
Skype is not written in Delphi. Only the UI is written in Delphi; the core is written in portable C/C++. Source:
http://www.quora.com/What-programming-language-was-Skype-originally-written-in
That Skype is written in Delphi is one of the many “myths” of Delphi that users keep repeating.
Second, very little on this list is actually famous. Most are just small little utility programs.
Most importantly, these are all old software programs originally developed in the 1990s when Delphi really was competitive with other solutions. Where’s something “famous” written within the last five years, or even 10 years? Who uses Nero anymore? Heck, DVD drives themselves are disappearing from computers. DBase is dead. Partition Magic is discontinued, etc. Most of the database solutions listed are the weird Delphi-only database engines that exist because nothing else supports Delphi anymore.
Rather than being impressive, this list is rather sad. It makes the opposite case -that Delphi use peaked in the 1990s and that enterprises don’t use Delphi anymore (and few ever used it). And we the Delphi community continue to fool ourselves and claim that it’s still relevant. It’s as relevant as COBOL today. Nothing important or interesting is being done in Delphi. With MS’ open sourcing of important parts of C#/.NET, that makes Delphi essentially the only proprietary language left – although actually Powerbuilder still exists but it’s even less relevant. Open source won the developer tool battle just as Borland predicted, but Embarcadero still carries on as if nothing’s changed.
>Delphi is not basic, and pascal was the language designed to replace C/C++ all those
>years ago.
Pascal was never designed to replace C or C++. Pascal predates both of them! It was designed as an improvement on ALGOL and to be used as a teaching language.
>The code produced by Delphi is en-par with C++ Builder (it’s companion “sister” product)
That’s not really saying anything. No one uses C++ Builder either. Visual Studio C++ completely dominates the Windows C++ market, while CLang and Objective C rule on OS X and gcc dominates on Linux.
>with support for generics, inline assembler, anonymous procedures, templates (FPC) and
>much, much more.
But these are nothing that other languages don’t support, and Delphi got them dead last. Heck, even Microsoft, which makes its own version control system, finally added support of Git to VS. Embarcadero has only added partial support. It’s really the last IDE in existence to not support modern version control systems.
Generics have been around forever. What about functional programming, type inference, asynchronous programming, etc? These are the new cool things and are nowhere to be seen in Delphi. Delphi just added a parallel for loop while the next version of Java is building in support for HSA, which allows code to run on CPU or GPU as appropriate. Let’s not kid ourselves: while Delphi has come far from where it started, it’s still far behind and trailing everyone else. EMBT just don’t have the resources – or real talent – to lead.They play catch-up.
>It’s not a basic compiler with an intermediate bytecode format that requires a truck-load of
>bloated DLL files to run. It’s not a script runtime or juiced up state machine.
One reporter commented on their blog that they thought they’d gone back to the ’90s when an interview with EMBT’s CEO produced similar sentiments. 1) No one cares that code is managed except Delphi developers because they have nothing left to brag about. 2) Java is faster than Delphi in single-threaded tasks such as SciMark. So is C#. 3) Managed languages are also faster to develop in and safer. Once upon a time Delphi was about RAD. Now RAD belongs to languages like Python and Ruby. Thus the new story is Delphi is really C++++, but benchmarks show its ancient, million-line, uncommented C-based compiler (seriously) produces code that runs at half the speed or less of modern C/C++ compilers. In fact, EMBT is giving up on writing compilers and adopting LLVM as a backend. That’s really a comment on the state of the product right there. Once it’s using the same backend as lots of other languages, what’s going to be left to brag about?
> Object Pascal compilers produce real machine code and the language supports inline
>assembly straight out of the box.
Again, something no one other than a Delphi developer cares about. If you’re still coding in assembly, you’re doing something wrong. Today people code in very high level languages like C# or Python and step down to C++ for speed optimization where necessary.
> The executables you get have NO dependencies.
Again, how does this benefit anyone in 2015? I run a Java-based data mining tool that I’m sure probably has close to a thousand files. I download it as one archived file, extract it, and run. It could have a million files – I’d never see or bother with them. What’s the big deal? This is also misleading. When I was developing commercial software in Delphi Borland Database Engine was a dependency, but no one complained about dependencies in that case. Installshield handled installing it.
>As for Delphi, which is regarded as the “trend setter”
You’re kidding, right? What trend has it set?
This article doesn’t give us any reasons to use Delphi over C#, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, GoLang, Rust, Haskell, F#, etc. It doesn’t tell us why VCL or FireMonkey is superior to Qt or GTK. It also ignores reality. No major publisher has published a Delphi book since 2005! They disappeared from my local bookstore before then. We’ve had maybe 3 books appear, two self-published, over the last nine years. There are no online courses that teach people Delphi, much less free ones. Other than Marco’s Pascal reference, there are no free Delphi books. There are no Delphi magazines. Torry added an average of 0.5 packages per day to its repository – actually down to 0.1 near the end of the year. Python added somewhere between 35-38, adding about 13,000 packages to their open source code repository in 2014. That’s more than the total number of files on Torry! And a lot of Torry files are binary-only or shareware/demos. Now Google’s Go is really on fire, averaging 90 new open source code libraries per day! Go is the real “trend setter”.
>Besides that you can link to .lib and .obj files to your heart content, write header files for dll’s or imported code segments
Please. Delphi’s interoperability is horrible. It can interface with C only because they share some data types. It can’t interface with C++ object-oriented code unless you break the whole code apart into standalone functions, in which case you might as just well rewrite the library. And even if you manage this, don’t dare pass a string! Who’s going to delete it when it’s no longer used? If you’re using Python they have wrappers for every C type – including pointers, which the language lacks! Two libraries, Swig and Boost, exist to wrap C++ code for Python – including classes/objects – one being more complete while the other can wrap many libraries automatically. Python has wrappers for Fortran, R, D, a bridge for Perl and PHP, bridges for .NET and Java but also Python implementations for each, IronPython and Jython, and bridges for octave and MATLAB. In addition Cython can convert Python code to C or C++ and enable mixing the two together (e.g. a Python function that defines a C++ struct) and any C or C++ library can be imported and used. There are probably more wrappers and bridges too. But essentially it’s either a small effort to zero effort to interface with any library from all of the major languages. Delphi is hardly a “glue language” – heck, even the order Pascal and C use for funtion parameters is different by default!
>— heck, operative systems have been written from scratch in object pascal
And someone infamously wrote a 50,000 line BASIC program to do the function of a short PROLOG program to prove that all languages “are the same”. Obviously no sane person would write AI code in BASIC and Delphi isn’t remotely targeted at operating system development.
It’s great your passionate about Delphi but if you’re going to share your reasons why you need to be more familiar with the state of the art in 2015 (sadly, many Delphi developers are not because being a Delphi developer is isolating). To justify using Delphi you need to explain why you’re giving up so much that other tools offer today and are willing to pay so much more for it – that’s an argument I’ve yet to hear anyone successfully make. That’s without getting into issues regarding EMBT’s handling of the product, the 8 month support window, complete inability to handle security bugs, restrictive EULA, bugs that go unfixed for years, etc. I brought Delphi into a start-up in 1995 and used it successfully there until I left in 2003. I called it my “Access Killer” and don’t regret the decision at all. However, more than ten years on, so much has changed and Delphi has grown very little. When I surveyed languages for another start-up I had to come to the conclusion that sadly Delphi just can’t compete anymore and if I was doing what I did in 1995 today Delphi would no longer be my first choice. In fact, the project I’m involved in now went completely open source instead, got much more featureful tools, and the full Delphi stack (Delphi.libraries, support tools) would have cost almost $5000! The language I’m using now has updates for 18 months and security updates for 5 years; EMBT offers 8 months of updates and no security extension. Worse, with the Delphi vulnerability that was discovered a few months ago, the security expert who found it wrote that he unable to get anyone at EMBT to return his messages for an entire month until he got Homeland Security involved! And then EMBT put the vulnerability into their bug tracker – including the sample code to exploit it! The rest of his story is even more crazy. How could anyone in a business trust their code to an outfit like that? That’s the question that never gets an answer, perhaps beacuse the honest answer is “I’m locked in and stuck with Delphi”. I don’t see how Delphi can be successfully pitched to new companies, and I was involved in selling software to businesses for 8 years.
There are many factors involved in this.
You bring to light things like security, which is ofcourse important — but you also have to remember that it’s possible to exploit pretty much anything digital these days. Be it a C++ program, a java package or whatever. If you know your way around bytecodes then getting the JVM to crash, or the C# CLR to blow up — is not a problem.
My focus has been primarily on language and what you can do. People scream and shout about generics like they cant live without it — but how much of it do you “really” use on a daily basis? Typed lists, stacks and perhaps a handful of typed objects.
The critical parts of a program or large architecture remains very much OPP without generics. I work in one of the largest companies in europe in C# and C++ — and with the exception of some low-level, attribute bound code — we use gen’s for typed lists and various other tidbits. And this is one of the most critical and rock solid code and companies in europe.
But if we look away from that — and just look at what FPC/Delphi can do — as an alternative to other languages, then Delphi is more en-par with C++. It’s a shame that EMB did not update the code compatability with C++ (especially visual studio and .lib file linking) regarding classes, but there are reasons for it.
C++ allows multiple inheritance, meaning that you can inherit from two classes at the same time, resulting in all manner of fun problems like identical names etc..
This could be solved elegantly by namespaces ofcourse, prefixing a method with the ancestor or something like that — but somehow EMB seem more interested in “keeping the ball rolling”.
I have tons of critique about EMB, so we are on the same page there.
But as a language I find object pascal so much more elegant than C# or C++. Its efficient to work with, to the point, fast and easy on the eyes.
But is it the #1 language in the world? No. But compared to many other languages out there, it has a rich background and feature set to give, and it’s worth investing in from my point of view.
And as for the “trend setting”, I am ofcourse talking about FPC and Oxygene — between all the Compilers that Accept Object pascal code, Delphi is regarded as the trend-setter.
Superiority over QT and GTK? Eh.. have you been drinking my friend?
QT used to be a great Project, but it’s been largely phased out after the buy-out. The Community Version is coming along, but it’s no longer a real alternative because us insecurity of the market. As for GTK — why on earth would you want to mess with that under Windows? I use it With mono only because I have to, but winAPI is much easier on Windows. FMX still have some way to og but it’s main strength is exactlty as QT — platform Independence and GPU aux.
So why throw that into Your comment? Thats just setting up straw men..
There are tons of Languages, dialects, plugins, frameworks and so on around the world — and if you are to pick one, Delphi or FPC has a lot to offer, and that is the point I was underlying.
GameMaker: Studio is “very” famous, and its IDE is written in Delphi, runner in C++. but the previous versions of it had the IDE and the runner built in Delphi! 🙂
Great article, bookmarked it for future reference, though there are a couple of titles that weren’t mentioned. However, one annoying thing is this Joseph guy’s damn long comment. It looks like the longer the rant, the less convinced poster becomes in his own points. And really, most of his points are pretty invalid as soon as you start to check them out. Stuff is supported by things like “One reporter commented on their blog that they thought…”, yet the guy tries to claim general positions like “Pascal was never designed to…”, without even adding something like IMHO. WTF is wrong with these people?
Mitzen’s comment is so common and pathetic sounding just like the old developers that refused to let go of Cobol. I highly doubt he has truly tried to develop with Delphi.
Delphi is s strong TYPED strict language – which is a VERY good thing. It forces the developer to LEARN the correct way to write code. So many of the newer languages – most interpreted ones – as so forgiving allowing the developer to write sloppy code and by adding multiple layers of additional code/library to compensate where they are too lazy to clean up after themselves – example: allocations.
It’s like the spell checker that is embedded with everything now. Yes it’s nice and can be helpful, but it allows everyone to get away with not learning to SPELL or TYPE correctly.
Before the word processor was created, typist using typewriters had to be nearly 100% accurate in spelling and typing – if for nothing else to allow to get a paper typed correctly without having to re-type, whiteout, correct etc. all day long.
Delphi and Delphi developers may seem quiet and few, but there really are so many around the world. Embarcadero is creating and selling new versions every year to no one.
Delphi is strong and will be around forever. Even if Embarcadero falls to a competitor someone will buy it and continue, because they understand the brilliance of what Delphi can do.
One more note: Why did microshit con and hire chief and original architect of Delphi 15 or so years ago? Think they were afraid of Delphi or wanted the technology for themselves. Enter the .net platform!
Dear Joseph Mitzen, don’t say anything strong if you’re not sure how it works. If we choose C/C++ then we’ll decline both human language and word-oriented structure. No doubts that this is the beginning of the end, because people today become more cruel and evil inside, so this way is wrong. Delphi has more human-oriented and related language, that’s why the future is with Delphi. No matter the degree of low-level, the things written on C/C++ can be written on Delphi as well, with high-speed, so… You’re wrong, buddy, except it.
Hardware Developer: Delphi(Pascal) is alive.
we use it for every day testing of hardware and embedded systems.
We have many software engineer in our company that write in Python /Java /C++, but they can’t write real program!
I think they can’t be expert completely, because of huge amount of article in their programming language.
Even, they can’t decide on best IDE!!!
In the past year, our pascal programmer write over 18 applications for our embedded boards with delphi anf lazarus/free pascal (Windows and Linux). But our other developer only read books.
And soon, I’ll be releasing my own game engine (Javascript and Windows) made in Delphi! 🙂 🙂 🙂
thank you very much doctors, i’m a delphi fan and you make me very happy because you prove to The World that Our Language is Very Strong ….
With all Best : Brave.
One Code Base Love it! Delphi rules Rock n Roll to the World! Delphi10 Seattle here I go…
Good Quality Applications written in Delphi…http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Good_Quality_Applications_Built_With_Delphi
Thanks for your wonderful article. I think object pascal is very easy to read and maintain and less error prone than many other languages. Fpc is wonderful compared to Delphi. Embarcodero ruined Delphi. It’s price difference from fpc is totally not justifiable and the company ‘ s treatment of developers is terrible. I write programs that talk to each other in iOS, android, raspberry pi and windows PC. Fpc is the best choice for it. Fast on raspberry pi and I can use the same common code base in all these platforms. Both C# with mono and Java are too slow on raspberry pi and not good for interfacing with hardware. Objective c might work on all these platforms, except android, but it’s syntax and reference counting are horrible. Fpc is a well balanced language. It will lose out to others in each particular field but is good enough in every field. Most languages have serious shortcomings in one or more fields but fpc has close to none. It won’t have as many modern features as c# or free libraries as c or Python but these are not critical problems. If u only know one language and need to work on various areas, fpc is a good choice. Of course, it is very difficult to find jobs but that is not a language issue.
Great list! 🙂
I released a new web browser made with Delphi 10 called BriskBard. It also includes an email client, a media player, a news aggregator, a file transfer client, a newsgroups reader, a contact manager, instant messaging, and several web developer tools.
BriskBard is available at http://www.briskbard.com
dont forget https://sourceforge.net/projects/shoutcastgui/ or icecastgui or mwplayer,kastordsp and many more
IBM has a lot of stuff written in Delphi.
Database Workbench is also written in Delphi.
In Brazil the most sucesfull ERPS are all witten in Delphi.
I can´t say the name,because I´m not allowed but one of the most used credit card programs used to interface with mainframes is written in Delphi.
In fact all over the world there are ERP´S made with Delphi.
I agree most search i made to the software ERP vendor i see in brazil was selling software that really written in Delphi.. I also found that most of the old systems used by Japanese company (really old ERP software was still use until today) was written in Java or Delphi
But there games development they use C++
OMG!!! I have needed to see this a site/blog like this. I encounter the same stone faced looks and idiotic responses from the hords of microshit programming drones.
Most times when I develop an application for a client, I don’t tell them what languages or tools I will use to develop the app. Which is usually fine since they just want to end result.
Then they are totally amazed when they here the initial cost of development and future add-ons will be so much faster to create and ALL BECAUSE OF THE AMAZING DELPHI LANGUAGE AND TOOLS!!!!!!
So big, big thanks for creating this site. I will be following from now on.
Wow, I was convince Delphi was all but dead, kept on life-support by Embarcadero. I wrote some electronic production test software in Delphi back in the Borland days. Liked the clarity of the language.
A couple of million users of object pascal in the world, and growing, so.. nope, not dead. Not by a long shot.
DELPHI is HIDDEN in many Companies because of Competitions. If other Companies know that the very good software was written under DELPHI then a lot of Companies will copy! Got the point!
DELPHI is multi-platform!
Now, show me a list from what Ruby,Python,Mathlab,Go Did?
and I’ll show you a hundreds of software made from Delphi!
Delphi is an assassin software, companies HIDE that they are using this language to build better than good results!
Bit Defender Anti Virus(101% sure, they use MIDAS) is programmed from DELPHI! and many other Antivirus Tools, many companies hide that their using Delphi because of competitions. Delphi is Walking Dead, that’s why it’s always LIVE!
Honestly I’ve downloaded many software around the internet, mostly are Delphi. To see if it’s a Delphi Manufactured Software; view the .Exe Application using a lister or notepad, or any other editor then search the word “delphi”.
You missed one really important application written in Delphi…Delphi itself!!!
It grew out of Borland’s Object Pascal (while no doubt trying to make itself better by using itself), born was Delphi. Best development language I have ever used. While VB.NET and C# have evolved, they still (out of the box) do not compare with the ease and full functionality of Delphi (until you buy so many 3rd party components for Visual Studio – what a nightmare, and cost).
Delphi is sadly not written in Delphi, its written in C++ builder (or at least the subsystem). I cant really say much here since its closed source.
But i do remember one of the coders working on it said it was written in C++ builder (the bootstrap) and Delphi.
Same as C#. There is a C bootstrap that kicks in the system – then the rest is in C# itself.
More from Scott Hanselman’s tools list:
http://glooscapsoftware.blogspot.ca/2017/04/something-something-delphi-something.html
Totally awesome Delphi!
as I said earlier, Bitdefender Antivirus is written under Delphi Language! and many others that is hidden due to company restrictions…. They don’t want competence from using Delphi! Delphi is Walking Dead! Never dies!
The Collectorz.com suite of collection management software (Music Collector, Book Collector, Comic Collector, Game Collector) is written in Delphi. It has Windows, Mac, iPad/iPhone, and Android apps.
OCR Translator made in Delphi
https://www.ocrtranslator.com/
Cool
Very Nice
I am returning to Delphi after many successfully years of using Turbo Pascal back in the day and am so heartened of your comments on Delphi – I too was doing things c programmers thought were their turf – ie interrupt service routines! Always worked well.
Now I’m doing a month long eval to see if I can afford Delphi to embark on a new multi-platform development I’m planning. I’ve been a manager for a long time and am finding I have to relearn grammar especially for firemonkey and the new additions since the older borland days. No complaints but I have a few concerns.
1. Has microsoft dropped delphi as the development platform for skype? it looks like the code examples dwindle out circa 2005 or so? I really want to use an imbedded product for video teleconferencing and thought of skype first. Maybe there are others that would suit – I’m just too green to know at this point. So I’m looking for an api / sdk but should I be happy with URIs – I just don’t see this as bulletproof and able to capture exceptions. Am I too strict here?
2. What are the best sources of information (aside from here of course) for the steep learning curve of delphi? Historically I’m a programmer but I like a book;-)
1. Yes, Skype has been re-written in C# i believe, which is why Skype has had a fall in quality the past 5 years. I think they have ironed out most problems now, but it took them ages to do so. The Delphi version was smaller, faster and never had any of the problems you get now (because there is no garbage collector kicking in to ruin performance).
2. There is sites like “http://www.delphibasics.co.uk/” that is quite informative. But to be honest I learned most from examples. I would stick to the VCL first so you dont get confused between what is VCL and what is FMX. But “beginend.net” is a cool feed with delphi news, you also have “delphifeeds.com” that does the same. You just need to google around and pick up things here and there.
The best way to learn is to make some tasks for yourself. Like “today i will make a notepad clone” and then sit down and do it. As you progress through these simple tasks you will face logical requirements that you can google, like “how do i save the text” will force you to look at streams etc. etc.
Hope it helps!
> Yes, Skype has been re-written in C# i believe
The latest Windows client (7.40.0.103) that was last updated in August of 2017 was written in Delphi.
Are you looking at another version of Skype?
> 1. Has microsoft dropped delphi as the development platform for skype?
The most recent version of the Skype Windows client was written in Delphi. I’m not sure if that is going to change. When in doubt, you can always check for yourself.
http://glooscapsoftware.blogspot.ca/2017/05/software-made-with-delphi-how-do-you.html
> 2. What are the best sources of information (aside from here of course) for the steep learning curve of delphi? Historically I’m a programmer but I like a book;-)
This might help get you started. There are a number of recent and up to date webinars, references, samples and books available.
http://glooscapsoftware.blogspot.ca/2017/04/getting-started-with-delphi.html
“Pascal was never designed to replace C or C++. Pascal predates both of them! It was designed as an improvement on ALGOL and to be used as a teaching language.”
it was designed based on ALGOL, not desgined to be a teaching language but found it was great at teaching structured programming,
“That’s not really saying anything. No one uses C++ Builder either. Visual Studio C++ completely dominates the Windows C++ market, while CLang and Objective C rule on OS X and gcc dominates on Linux.”
Bad news also dominates the news channels, that does not mean bad news is best. Builder does not dominate the market cause its not free. but as you said, if you want to program on 3 OS you need vs, clang, gcc.. or just 1 C++ builder..
“But these are nothing that other languages don’t support, and Delphi got them dead last. Heck, even Microsoft, which makes its own version control system, finally added support of Git to VS. Embarcadero has only added partial support. It’s really the last IDE in existence to not support modern version control systems.
Generics have been around forever. What about functional programming, type inference, asynchronous programming, etc? These are the new cool things and are nowhere to be seen in Delphi. Delphi just added a parallel for loop while the next version of Java is building in support for HSA, which allows code to run on CPU or GPU as appropriate. Let’s not kid ourselves: while Delphi has come far from where it started, it’s still far behind and trailing everyone else. EMBT just don’t have the resources – or real talent – to lead.They play catch-up.”
Functional programming and asynchronous programming, delphi has. but look at the core, What can other languages do in 64 bit linux and Windows, or both android and ios apps?
“One reporter commented on their blog that they thought they’d gone back to the ’90s when an interview with EMBT’s CEO produced similar sentiments. 1) No one cares that code is managed except Delphi developers because they have nothing left to brag about. 2) Java is faster than Delphi in single-threaded tasks such as SciMark. So is C#. 3) Managed languages are also faster to develop in and safer. Once upon a time Delphi was about RAD. Now RAD belongs to languages like Python and Ruby. Thus the new story is Delphi is really C++++, but benchmarks show its ancient, million-line, uncommented C-based compiler (seriously) produces code that runs at half the speed or less of modern C/C++ compilers. In fact, EMBT is giving up on writing compilers and adopting LLVM as a backend. That’s really a comment on the state of the product right there. Once it’s using the same backend as lots of other languages, what’s going to be left to brag about?”
Delphi has always been c++ builder. also next time you make a program have your blog reporter desgin it lol. So much here is is just speculation or rumors so ill skip this.
“Again, something no one other than a Delphi developer cares about. If you’re still coding in assembly, you’re doing something wrong. Today people code in very high level languages like C# or Python and step down to C++ for speed optimization where necessary.”
I hope you are not serious here. or you have never programmed for kernals, or hardware, or visual 3d, While its not normally done with assembly, with out knowing it you will never complete your projects with secure features or good code.
“Again, how does this benefit anyone in 2015? I run a Java-based data mining tool that I’m sure probably has close to a thousand files. I download it as one archived file, extract it, and run. It could have a million files – I’d never see or bother with them. What’s the big deal? This is also misleading. When I was developing commercial software in Delphi Borland Database Engine was a dependency, but no one complained about dependencies in that case. Installshield handled installing it. ”
Once again this shows what kind of programmer you are. good example of bad vs good programming. Who cares, as long as it runs right? lol
“You’re kidding, right? What trend has it set?
This article doesn’t give us any reasons to use Delphi over C#, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, GoLang, Rust, Haskell, F#, etc. It doesn’t tell us why VCL or FireMonkey is superior to Qt or GTK. It also ignores reality. No major publisher has published a Delphi book since 2005! They disappeared from my local bookstore before then. We’ve had maybe 3 books appear, two self-published, over the last nine years. There are no online courses that teach people Delphi, much less free ones. Other than Marco’s Pascal reference, there are no free Delphi books. There are no Delphi magazines. Torry added an average of 0.5 packages per day to its repository – actually down to 0.1 near the end of the year. Python added somewhere between 35-38, adding about 13,000 packages to their open source code repository in 2014. That’s more than the total number of files on Torry! And a lot of Torry files are binary-only or shareware/demos. Now Google’s Go is really on fire, averaging 90 new open source code libraries per day! Go is the real “trend setter”.”
Tread setter cause it started the base for just about all the programming languages you just said. And yes open source will always be updated more then a controlled source , usually cause there is more people and bugs. But once again that means nothing. Also most books are pointless as the languages change so much that by time its published there is new and better ways. Examples is best way to learn, Which are all well documented unlike some languages.
“Please. Delphi’s interoperability is horrible. It can interface with C only because they share some data types. It can’t interface with C++ object-oriented code unless you break the whole code apart into standalone functions, in which case you might as just well rewrite the library. And even if you manage this, don’t dare pass a string! Who’s going to delete it when it’s no longer used? If you’re using Python they have wrappers for every C type – including pointers, which the language lacks! Two libraries, Swig and Boost, exist to wrap C++ code for Python – including classes/objects – one being more complete while the other can wrap many libraries automatically. Python has wrappers for Fortran, R, D, a bridge for Perl and PHP, bridges for .NET and Java but also Python implementations for each, IronPython and Jython, and bridges for octave and MATLAB. In addition Cython can convert Python code to C or C++ and enable mixing the two together (e.g. a Python function that defines a C++ struct) and any C or C++ library can be imported and used. There are probably more wrappers and bridges too. But essentially it’s either a small effort to zero effort to interface with any library from all of the major languages. Delphi is hardly a “glue language” – heck, even the order Pascal and C use for funtion parameters is different by default! ”
its not hard to make a wrapper? and yes makeing it your self is alot better then just downloading one. maybe not easier, something bad programmers like, but delphi is best at interfaceing with with so much more then any other language.
“It’s great your passionate about Delphi but if you’re going to share your reasons why you need to be more familiar with the state of the art in 2015 (sadly, many Delphi developers are not because being a Delphi developer is isolating). To justify using Delphi you need to explain why you’re giving up so much that other tools offer today and are willing to pay so much more for it – that’s an argument I’ve yet to hear anyone successfully make. That’s without getting into issues regarding EMBT’s handling of the product, the 8 month support window, complete inability to handle security bugs, restrictive EULA, bugs that go unfixed for years, etc. I brought Delphi into a start-up in 1995 and used it successfully there until I left in 2003. I called it my “Access Killer” and don’t regret the decision at all. However, more than ten years on, so much has changed and Delphi has grown very little. When I surveyed languages for another start-up I had to come to the conclusion that sadly Delphi just can’t compete anymore and if I was doing what I did in 1995 today Delphi would no longer be my first choice. In fact, the project I’m involved in now went completely open source instead, got much more featureful tools, and the full Delphi stack (Delphi.libraries, support tools) would have cost almost $5000! The language I’m using now has updates for 18 months and security updates for 5 years; EMBT offers 8 months of updates and no security extension. Worse, with the Delphi vulnerability that was discovered a few months ago, the security expert who found it wrote that he unable to get anyone at EMBT to return his messages for an entire month until he got Homeland Security involved! And then EMBT put the vulnerability into their bug tracker – including the sample code to exploit it! The rest of his story is even more crazy. How could anyone in a business trust their code to an outfit like that? That’s the question that never gets an answer, perhaps beacuse the honest answer is “I’m locked in and stuck with Delphi”. I don’t see how Delphi can be successfully pitched to new companies, and I was involved in selling software to businesses for 8 years.”
This proves what i thought most of the time responding , you dont know how to program you only know how to use tools, and hope they work. Yes you can make a program but you really have no idea how it works. This is why delphi is not for you.
It is very strange that your history seem to collide with how both the author of pascal, Apple and other academic institutions behind pascal describe and date things. While i am sure things overlap it still holds little merit. But hey, if you got some documentation on this i would love to see it.
As for pricing, there is always freepascal and smart pascal and oxygene pascal — so embarcadero is not your only option. I have yet to find a task i cant use object pascal to solve, often better than using other languages. This includes custom kernel work on the Raspberry PI.
SASPlanet (http://sasgis.org) created by Delphi
Engineering and CAD Software
SANS – Structural Analysis System – a 3D Interactive Steel/Concrete Structural Analysis and Design Software is written in Delphi since 1989. It has more than 1 million lines of code written fully in Delphi language. (sanspro.esrcen.com).
The CoffeeCup Responsive Layout Maker Pro is NOT written in Delphi, however other CoffeeCup apps such as the HTML Editor, Website Insight, Sonar, and PixConverter are. I write those.
POS restaurant, store, booking, TAXI(part) -> in Windows, Android and WEB check on eskassa.com
Problem is, the licensing is designed to get yearly money from existing big developers, not new ones. Way overpriced and the IDE doesn’t feel as polished anymore as Delphi 7. Heck, hidpi is not supported in the IDE in 2020 while they advertise it for programmers. The company is not trying to find a new audience and lacks marketing budget. Video’s and sites are amateur level and development is now web based. Still, if you need a native GUI application go for… Lazarus 🙂 They don’t screw you there. EMBT is not serious about getting new users. The latest lame and already abandon effort was the Community edition. Long standing bugs. Sadly it went wrong loooong ago with their .NET focus disaster decision. They should really introduce a lower priced scheme if they ever want new users. Like back to how they started instead of trying to get piles of money from a few customers.
We need more web pages like this on Pascal. Pages that make the grand public more aware of this great language and it’s great free IDE Lazarus. Companies like Embarcadero have almost milked this beautiful language into a dead language, by lack off vision and an abundance off greed. The only reason it is still around is because it may be the best language of all. Its easy to learn, code and maintain, its incredibly fast, its rock solid stable and mature, its multi-platform and has great support for hardware and is thus better prepared for the internet of things then most other languages, it’s Free IDE Lazarus is one of the best RAD tools around for building beautiful GUI’s, and there are some good libraries around, like for interoperability with JavaScript and Python. It could be the best language (for)ever! If only it could get enough support and a more focused community to build a larger open source ecosystem and better interoperability. So if anybody would like to get on the bandwagon it would be great. Off course that would probably also mean that some people with major influence on the Pascal community need to come aboard by being more open and positive towards, and for suggestions or critic from, the outside world. Since we need to give new developers a place where they can find solutions to their answers, and where they can grow and feel at home. However, since a large part of the Pascal community exists off old farts (like me) and companies, with vested interests and emotions, I wonder weather they are still flexible enough to step over their shadow and change, or else hand over the stick to others more suitable for the tasks ahead. For starters Embarcadero doesn’t really seem to be able to do that, and I don’t see some highly influential people in the FreePascal community do that either……….
Good job
C++, Delphi and RADStudio are so well architected that we can single step back and forth between Pascal and C++! All the debug tooling works as expected.
In the competitor’s product, they don’t even keep the function keys meaning the same.