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The primary goal for most application development projects is delivering a working product that solves the problem it’s created for. However, let’s face it, what good is a solution if no-one uses it? That’s why metrics like user growth, engagement, and brand awareness are useful for measuring the success of a project. In other words, to provide the right conditions for your project to be considered successful, you must work to achieve these sub-goals – user growth, engagement, and brand awareness – right from the beginning. This involves choosing the right platform for your application and ultimately using the right tools to build on that platform.   Here is undeniable proof that you need a Windows software maker – something which is optimized for the delivery of professional-quality Windows applications with low code or minimal code with the right combination of developer productivity assistance technology to make your life easier and optimize your time. Ideally, the “right platform” would be one with a large community of users: What better spot to fish than one that’s teeming with fish? the answer is, currently, Microsoft Windows. Since 1985, when Windows 1.0 was released, it has evolved to provide the experience most end-users have come to expect today. The large community of Windows users does seem to underline that it’s still a popular platform despite fierce competition from Linux on the desktop and Apple’s macOS. In the overwhelming majority of corporate customers, it is Windows which is still very much the operating system of choice, especially for ‘regular’ non-technical users.  1.3 Billion Windows 10 Devices According to Microsoft, 1.3 billion devices are running Windows 10. In other words, over 16% of the world’s population uses the Windows 10 operating system. Therefore, building your solution on the Windows platform means you have the potential to reach this number of devices. When Windows 10 was released on July 29, 2015, Microsoft promised to provide a platform where developers can find growing success. For many of us, that means bringing our code to a large reach. Indeed, having a user base of 1.3 billion devices and counting sets them up to make good on their promise. Today, many developers and firms are building on Windows and enjoying great success.  According to Ben Schein, Product Manager at NPR, “Seventy percent of NPR listeners use Windows devices, and we’ve seen a 50-percent increase in their listening time just since Windows 10 came out. And that was before we upgraded our app.” Also, Lois Wang, Senior Product Manager at Box, shared: “By combining the two apps in Windows 10 as a universal Windows app, it decreased our engineering overhead and increased our velocity for future iterations. We’re really excited about this.” Having said all that, it’s evident that building on the Windows platform increases your chances of success. To do so, you need a Windows software maker. Delphi is one of the market-leading rapid application development environments for Windows applications. You can build native and cross-platform applications several times faster than competing methods. Some of its features include: Single Code Base for Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux – Even you can use that logic in web apps using 3rd party tools with Delphi. Cloud aware and a wide range of database components Responsive UI and fast prototyping for mobile […]

Windows app development is quite a large subject when you go beyond just scratching the surface. There are several different kinds of Windows app development beyond just the regular GUI application. In this article we take a look at a few of the other types of app such as Windows services, web server apps and even DLLs for Apache web servers. In Windows app development, what is a Windows Service? Windows Services are kinds of applications that run in the background. They are, most of the time are, non-UI applications. Windows services are usually registered to trigger when the OS boots and is scheduled to run in the background to execute some tasks. Moreover, Windows services can be started automatically or manually by Pause, Stop and Restart commands over Windows services. With these features in your application, you can create long-running apps that run in their own Windows sessions without interfering with other users working on the same computer.  You can easily create your service applications with Delphi and C++. This simple demonstration will teach us to make our service app with Delphi.  What are some examples of Windows Services? Windows auto-update Folder and file scanning SQL Server agent Auto checker for emails Using the Services control app, you can see and control all the available services in your Windows machine. How can I create a Windows Service using Delphi? Install the latest Delphi CE (Community Edition) and start it. Select: File -> New -> Other -> Delphi -> Windows -> Windows Service The TService class accomplishes connection and interfacing with Windows Service Manager. TService defines the Windows service we are developing like event handlers for communicating with the Windows OS. As you can expect, the service must work in the background and need to respond to messages to the OS commands independently. To do this, we need to create a new event on the TService called OnExecute. Service applications should answer the Windows ServiceController commands independently of what it is doing, so we need a background thread to do the actual work. The code above o the OnExecute event waits and handles the ServiceController commands, not real work.  Be sure to check out the official documentation on creating Windows Services using Delphi and C++ Builder. For Windows app development, what are Packages and how can I create them? Delphi has two different types of packages, runtime packages and design-time packages. Runtime packages are meant to be distributed with applications, just like DLLs, to keep down the executable size and prevent spreading duplicate code. The Delphi IDE can load design-time packages. They can contain code to register components with the component palette. Another intention is that write the DLLs that you want to share between your programs and another application in a different programming language.  Check out the official documentation to learn how to create packages and dynamic link libraries with Delphi and C++ Builder here! What kind of Web Server Windows App development can be done with Delphi? Delphi is a full-stack programming language that you can develop: Windows apps macOS apps Android apps iOS apps Linux apps Web apps Embedded apps Except for Delphi’s native frameworks and libraries for Web Server app development, there are lots of free and open-source frameworks that give you the ability to create server/client-focused […]

Modern application development can seem like a minefield even for experienced developers. Choosing the right Windows tools for developers that can guarantee increased developer productivity can be a seemingly overwhelming task.  In most areas of life, productivity is often correlated directly with speed. Unfortunately, some developers buy into this kind of thinking, especially during the nascent phase of Rapid Application Development (RAD). If developers complete a project in half the time expected, they are deemed productive. But in modern application development, speed does not necessarily equal productivity. Does your application meet the needs of the end-user? Is it easy to use? Is it secure? Does it contain unnecessary bloat? The list goes on and on.  Developer productivity depends on many factors, and simply being a fast developer doesn’t make you productive. If anything, It involves building applications in the most efficient way possible from an end-user perspective.  However, most Windows developer tools were built for fast application development. And although a few have evolved over the years to adapt to modern developer productivity, many are becoming less and less productive. Hence the need to define the expectations and reality of Windows developer tools.  Are Windows tools for developers generally productive? The software development industry is constantly evolving. Every new developer making their first foray into the industry will most likely be met with a new tool or framework that’s expected to help them maximize productivity – build high-quality products efficiently. Today, we have more sophisticated and “intelligent” Windows tools that would basically write, debug, and compile large swathes of code for you if you ask them to. Hence, helping developers produce more code faster. Unfortunately, some developers misconstrue this as productivity. However, in reality, writing more code can stifle productivity. And it begins with picking and constructing your toolchain carefully, with tools that enable you to write less code – only what’s necessary to develop high-quality applications. Tools like Delphi, with a low-code approach to developing applications without leaning on huge dependencies, such as libraries that contain more than the needed functionality, are productive. Delphi is capable of enabling productivity without compromising quality. It ticks all the boxes of sane modern software engineering. It offers intelligent code editing, which flattens out that learning (and memory) curve. A low-code wizard creates nicely laid-out, easy-to-understand, cross-platform apps that work on just about anything – Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, or Android. However, other tools like Visual Studio are now not as productive. For starters, it is insanely huge with an unnecessarily high amount of overhead for simply writing code. For not so high-end PCs, this can slow down its performance and ultimately reduce productivity.  There’s also the problem of complex toolchains. With Visual Studio, what Windows UI framework do you even choose? Things can get a bit more complicated when your application needs a user interface, and you need to identify the best GUI framework for your project. On the other hand, Delphi uses the VCL framework for Windows and the FireMonkey (FMX) visual framework for cross-platform responsive UIs.  For more information on how you can increase your productivity with Delphi, check out the tutorial video below. You can download a free trial of RAD Studio Delphi today and see for yourself how it can boost your productivity today.

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Despite the release of Windows 11 back in October 2021, Windows 10 is still the most popular version of the operating system. Although most people will update, many may avoid updating due to software compatibility issues. Therefore, targeting Windows 10 development will currently give you the most extensive customer base, and later on, you can change your development focus to Windows 11. For top-notch application development, one should adhere to the optimum tools and techniques available. Unfortunately, many programmers are not aware of the best practices of software engineering. This gap in knowledge hinders their current and future developments. Let us review the top 10 things most people don’t know about clean code Windows 10 development. 1. Do computer bugs exist? If we press a button on a microwave, the TV will not turn on, and vice versa – unless there is something horribly amiss with your wiring – so it is our mistake and not the mistake of the switch we pressed. Barring physical computer hardware malfunctions, computer bugs, the fault of the computer, do not really exist because a computer is only a collection of switches. A bug is an error in our explanation of the problem to the computer – in essence, we pressed the equivalent of a switch to turn on a microwave when we meant to turn on a TV. Clean code helps us in reducing these human errors, aka bugs. 2. Why is clean coding like painting? It is easy to find and appreciate a good painting, but it is challenging to paint it. Moreover, tools for amateur and expert painters might be the same, but internal skills make all the difference. The same is true for clean coding. It is easy to appreciate clean and extendable code, but it requires much effort to produce it. Also, tools available to clean coders are the same: only internal quality control, and determination are different. 3. Is source code an asset or liability? We regard our source code as an asset, but that might not always be true. For example, many companies with shipped products face all sorts of problems due to their codebase. Some even went out of business due to poor source code. Thus, a buggy, ambiguous and rigid source code is a liability because it is a nightmare to maintain adding to the overall, less tangible, overheads of retaining commercial competitiveness. A clean, maintainable, and easily extendable source code is an asset. 4. Why should untested code be considered broken? It is a crime to open a bridge for passengers without sufficient load testing in civil engineering. The same should be valid for software engineering. Code testing and quality control should not be an afterthought but an essential part of the development process. We should not use untested code in a production environment because it is risky, unprofessional, and inextensible. Instead, we should always assume any untested code is broken – testing then proves otherwise. 5. What is common between clean code and binary search? In binary search, data reduces to half on every step, which helps quickly search the required piece of information. Also, binary search is only possible on a sorted list of items. Similarly, we can easily review most modules in well-written clean code by reading their names and going […]

Click here to save your seat RAD Studio 11 Alexandria has been a significant and very well received release. Landmark changes to the IDE and support for high-DPI 4k+ screens have completely changed the app design experience. Windows 11 provisioning and a multitude of updates ensure our customers can target the latest versions, platforms and hardware. Meanwhile, since the 11 Alexandria release we’ve been hard at work figuring out how to further improve your application development experience, and listening to your feedback in search of bugs to fix and features to improve. What’s more, we’re not keeping our plans for RAD Studio under wraps but sharing it with everyone who cares (that’s you). You’re Invited to the “What Coming in RAD Studio” Webinar On 16 March at 11am US Central Time, join Embarcadero’s Jim McKeeth, Marco Cantu, David Millington and Kyle Wheeler on a highly revealing webinar on the latest in RAD Studio Alexandria. See what’s new in your favorite development tools, and where things are headed.  This is a must-see webinar for all fans of Delphi, C++Builder, and RAD Studio! Click here to save your seat

There are dozens of windows software makers; the powerful tools and programming languages used to create Windows GUI applications. Most of them require you to write thousands of lines to do even the simplest, most basic things such as drawing UI elements. Yes, several of them have their own RAD (rapid application development) tool, yet when you compare Embarcadero’s RAD Studio with other GUI development tools, it is immediately obvious why RAD Studio is a superior RAD development tool. Why should you choose RAD Studio’s Delphi & C++ Builder? Since I started my Windows software-making experience with C++ Builder and Delphi, I believe that most Windows app developers are making problems for themselves by choosing the wrong software development ecosystem.  When the Delphi with its Visual Component Library was introduced to software developers, it showed an accurate, productive tool to create Windows applications. For over 27 years now Delphi is still one of the leading, most productive ecosystems for Windows development. With its intuitive visual design environment and the unrivaled performance of a world-class optimizing native code compiler, you can achieve the best results in no time.   Moreover, the FireMonkey cross-platform framework is also one of the gems in the cross-platform development industry. Why? Because the architecture of the FireMonkey framework provides native development for most major platforms. For instance, you can create Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS applications from a single code base. It is straightforward to access device-specific and operating-system-specific features with APIs. Can RAD Studio 11 really build apps 5x faster than other methods? The RAD Studio 11 release supports High-DPI and 4k+ screens, provisioning for Windows 11, Android 30 API, and the macOS 64-bit ARM M1 processor. RAD Studio 11 – Alexandria is the latest version of the RAD Studio and provides developers with many more functionalities.  To learn more about why you should choose the RAD Studio for your next project, check out this article that analyzes: Are the original tools for Windows development making things difficult? What is the alternative? What is the best Windows development tool alternative to Microsoft? Is it hard to deploy a Windows app to the Microsoft Store? Do I need to use Microsoft tools to develop Windows apps? Did you know how easy it is to design beautiful desktop and mobile app UIs with RAD Studio? RAD Studio’s award-winning VCL and FMX frameworks are the best options in the GUI app development market. With hundreds of visual and non-visual components (packages of ready-made functionality and code) available to Delphi and C++ programmers alike, you can create complex and responsive applications in no time. RAD Studio IDE gives you a great environment to prototype and build applications.  Here, in the article linked below, we show you how to create great Windows apps in 2022. Difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11 app development How to improve Windows apps How to use AI in your Windows apps How to modernize UI and UX with futuristic styles How to update data access pipeline How to use WinUI 3 Are Delphi programs really stable? As Ian Barker, MVP, puts it, “Delphi’s biggest problem is that it is just SO GOOD at being silently successful.” Delphi programs are extremely stable – they run, in some cases for many years, without needing to be restarted coupled with an unparalleled ease of distribution – often just needing to […]

On 12 January Serge Pilko, Embarcadero MVP and founder of Softacom, a world leading Delphi software development services and software solutions provider, published a video of his interview with Alister Christie, author of the legendary “Code Faster in Delphi” and the creator of hundreds of videos that have shown many of today’s Delphi developers around the world how to program and accomplish things with Delphi. Download Code Faster in Delphi for free here Alister also has an upcoming book, “Code Better in Delphi”, scheduled to hit bookstores soon. We have chosen to publish the transcript of their conversation in a three-part series of blog posts, of which this is the third. Read Part 1 here Read Part 2 here Alister Christie And Serge Pilko Talk Delphi, Part 3 of 3 Alister So it’s a fairly easy read, and I’ve been trying to write short books. If you look at the old Marco Cantu books, they’re 800 pages or something like that, especially, they’re huge tomes. And you know, back in the day big books sold, but now I think the trend is for shorter books on targeted topics. So, there’s now books on design patterns and memory management and writing high-performance applications and stuff that are available. So you don’t get this huge book which kind of covers everything and only a little bit of detail. You get these highly targeted books on very specific topics. So you get to learn something in great detail rather than having to sort of work it out or for yourself, which is really good. I think that’s a really positive thing that’s happened over the last… probably starting with Nick Hodges’ books, Coding in Delphi, and then you know, More Coding in Delphi, and then there’s the Dependency Injection book. So, and yeah. You know,[inaudible] has written books and Primož Gabrijelčič has written a couple books and yeah, there’s now [inaudible] on all sorts of topics. So… Serge You’re my hero because you have to be such a self-motivated guy for writing a book because I have a similar dream, but I have such a lot of professional, like routines, like daily routines. Of course I will spend my time with family, relatives. I don’t know how you can do that, especially, but you even have cows and dogs, I don’t have cows… Alister Yeah, I have the advantage that I have a regular job now as well. So I’ve got all the time for tinkering with projects. In theory I’ve got a lot of time. It doesn’t seem to materialize, I seem to be spending a lot of time doing chores and, now I’ve got a two-year-old son, which is, you know, I’ve got a lot of time with him, which is good. Serge Okay. Talking about “Code Better in Delphi”, you mentioned the better cleaner code, but did you have an experience, like a migration like from a Delphi legacy project to up-to-date Delphi because it’s a little bit like migration and the better code and refactoring are similar things, so maybe there was an insight or idea for the book. Alister Yeah. Certainly a bit of code is generally easier to migrate because it’s generally more consistent and, and what have you. So yeah, if you’re doing, you know, if you’re trying […]

There are many benefits of using clean code for native windows development, but increased productivity might be the most important. A productive development tool will save developers time and effort. Moreover, it will also minimize system downtime and customer frustration due to lower error counts. But clean code has a dirty secret. In an interesting article on TechCrunch, “Why productivity gains will define success for developers this decade,” the writer describes developers’ productivity as the number one reason for the success or failure of any native windows development tool. Let us review some key points from this article and the resulting insights. What is common between Schrödinger’s cat and Moore’s law? There should be no link between these diverse concepts, but it is interesting to observe that both Schrödinger’s cat and Moore’s law are dead and alive simultaneously. Moore’s law is alive because RAW CPU speed doubles every 18 months, but it is dead because end users’ software performance is slower and slower. If the complexity of the original problem is not doubling every 18 months, then who is killing Moore’s law? The biggest reason behind this sluggishness is bloated software. For example, a 6KB webpage of yesterday is well over 6MB containing all kinds of files, cookies, and JavaScript libraries ironically called “assets.” First-generation programmers knew bigger was not better, but careless design and relentless resources usage are prevalent today and, in many cases, those early lessons have been unlearned. Development tools like Electron are an obvious example of such methodology, requiring thousands of files and gigabytes of memory to perform a simple task. Everyone hates bloatware, but who creates them? Apart from the deliberately created bloatware, there is only one reason for this much bloatware to exist: Bloated development tools make bloated software. In the article, under the title, is the bloat sustainable we read that there has been an excessive growth in development tools in the last decade. We came a long way from pseudo-intelligent functionality generators to projects like GitHub’s CoPilot. Although AI-assisted coding is in its initial stages, the future looks promising. But all these tools assisting developers also means that programming is much more complex than in the past. We have come a long way from a simple product catalog to today’s complex shopping apps. Unfortunately, all this development has unwanted side effects. Thus many development systems and shippable code are becoming more and more bloated with every new version. If we do not choose our development IDE carefully, we will be part of the problem. How to find the right native windows development tool? The solution to the above problem is very simple. As most bloatware results from bad design and poor development tools, we can move towards the best available. Embarcadero’s RAD Studio is the top development tool to increase the developer’s productivity and is also very tight on quality control. Everything is available for the developers, but the generated output will only contain the minimum code needed for the required functionality. This optimized solution is excellent for performance and productivity and requires easier shipment and reduced maintenance costs. What is the meaning of productivity? This article raised another thought-provoking point under the title: What does productivity mean in software development? Traditionally, most People think that free software is excellent because it […]

It seemed like many people thought Windows 7 was great and Microsoft should stop there. However, Microsoft recognized that what people thought of as their primary computing device was changing. Apple’s iPad and the inexorable rise of the mobile phone meant people were starting to interact with the internet and the new streaming services in ways which threatened Microsoft’s traditionally desktop-bound Windows operating system. Microsoft’s response was Windows 8 which brought with it a new user interface paradigm which leaned hard on the lessons learned targeting mobile tablets: simplified user interface, touch-friendly controls, flatter, simpler UI elements. Windows 8 was to intended to be a new era where non-PC devices such as an XBox would merge with desktops running Windows 8, MS’ own Microsoft Surface tablet/touch friendly devices and the beleaguered and ultimately doomed Microsoft Surface phones. While the idea of “one Microsoft operating system user interface to rule them all” eventually floundered – the Microsoft phones which were hugely loved by their users but failed to ignite enough sales to capture the interest of the carriers – the experience ushered-in some magnificent changes and new technologies that helped thrive with Windows 10 like WinRT (Windows Runtime – Language-Independent Application Binary Interface). This gave rise to a better Windows 10 app development environment for developers.  How did Windows 10 make things better for developers? Applications built with Windows Runtime may run inside a sandboxed environment to allow greater security and stability and can natively support both x86 and ARM. To point out, you can use highly productive development tools like Delphi and C++ Builder to create modern Windows applications that support Windows Runtime among other new sets of features. What is the difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11 app development? Windows 11 operating system promises massive changes with various user experience transformations.  The new Microsoft Store New native features for Windows apps The Fluent Design System and WinUI Advanced technologies for the Game Development industry It seems like a significant number of Windows users are staying with Windows 10 either because they are concerned about change and wish to seek stability, or they are shut out due to Windows 11 having a more rigid set of hardware requirements which many devices cannot meet. How to improve your Windows Apps Before discussing improvement, I would like to discuss Embarcadero’s Delphi and Visual Component Library briefly. With its Visual Component Library (VCL), Delphi programming language brought new graphical user interface development concepts. Using Delphi and VCL, you can achieve 5x faster development and a massive pool of components to thrive in any development field.  By creating with Delphi and VCL, you can make native Windows-based applications with direct access to the hardware. Be sure to check out this article called: What You Need To Know – A Beginner’s Guide To Windows UI Toolkits. Improve your Windows Apps by adding this sophisticated feature which is actually easy to do Start using AI in your Windows applications! AI is one of the most significant trends in the app development industry. You do not need to create new machine learning models to use in your Windows apps. You can use AI APIs from Cloud Computing platforms like Google, APILayer, DeepAI APIs, and other services. Be sure to check out this tutorial to learn how to integrate those AI APIs! Quickly modernize your user interface […]