Develop. Share. Inspire. – GM Update for November 2020

It is already November—time flies these days. Despite the global pandemic, we keep charging ahead. As developers are getting more used to working from home (and some love it), we see more projects picking up, which is exciting. I am especially thrilled that there are more and more public Delphi projects on GitHub, and related discussions on popular platforms, such as Stack Overflow and Reddit, are growing, though not as quickly. I know that we have our own more proprietary ones, which are great, but the more Delphi we put out there, the better!

My themes lately have been simple:

  • Develop brilliant code.
  • Share it.
  • Inspire existing and new Delphi developers.

Have you checked any of these boxes lately? There are about 8K Delphi projects on GitHub. Some 500K+ developers know Delphi, and at least 200-300K are actively developing with it. You do the math!

We recently released Bold for Delphi open source to help contribute to the community, and a fantastic group of developers is now working on the project. Embarcadero is just getting started with open source projects, so be on the lookout for more!

Here are some highlights of our current efforts:

10.4 was an essential release with over 1,000 enhancements and quality fixes. Many of its features were welcomed by both large companies and individual developers. 10.4.1 is a stable and robust version, featuring a faster implementation of Delphi Code Insight based on Language Server Protocol, VCL styles that work great with High-DPI and 4K monitors, extended Apple platforms, and API coverage. It also includes a much improved GetIt package manager and many other features. 10.4.1 adds over 800 quality improvements, including 500+ for issues publicly reported on the Quality Portal site. 10.4.2 Beta is also kicking off soon for Update Subscription customers. It is a great time to upgrade!

With almost 4000 people registered, this was our biggest annual Delphi event. If you missed the live sessions, register now to catch the replays. This year we included many expert panels, including with some of Delphi’s lead architects, a massive hit with everyone! Join and enjoy presentations from thought leaders and check out some of the great perks and discounts available. One of our goals with DelphiCon was to simplify the format compared to previous CodeRage events and we hope you enjoyed it. We are always looking for ways to improve, and your feedback is valuable. By popular demand, a dedicated C++ event is in the works for the spring.

Product management recently updated the RAD Studio roadmap for November 2020. Always great to see what the plans are for the future, and read the commentary from product management around these plans. These roadmaps are based on the direction of the industry, and the feedback we receive from you, our users. Check out the roadmap, leave your feedback, and file feature requests on Quality Portal.

We realize that budgets are tight these days and want to make working with the latest releases more economical. We have a number of attractive global promotions to fit different needs.

We have enhanced the Architect SKU to include a lot of value-added products, from Ext JS and Ranorex licenses to the expanded use of InterBase and RAD Server. If you are looking for the best dollar deal, that is clearly a great one.

If you want to build web apps with Delphi, we offer three great options: IntraWeb, TMS Web, or UniGui. These are proven solutions that work great with RAD Studio. They all have nuances that make them good for different use cases but are each powerful and reliable.

Demand for our Upgrade pricing is at an all-time high. To meet this demand, and help with tighter budget restrictions, we are offering 35% off for all editions. The discount and the Web Pack are exclusive are not available together.

We collaborate very closely with our regional partners and have tailored local promotions, so I encourage you to speak with resellers or our Embarcadero account reps to see what is best for you.

We are bringing back free upgrade consultations. For a limited time, you can speak with our software consultants to develop your upgrade plan. How long will it take? What resources and tools do you need to use? What is the impact on the architecture? What if you want to add a web client or a mobile client? Are there third parties available to help you? These are all valid questions that you can discuss at no charge. Click on the link below to schedule your appointment today.

Free Upgrade Consultations

Cool Free Debugger IDE Expansion for Update Subscription Customers

I am excited to introduce another cool component coming very soon to Getit for all Upgrade Subscription customers: Parallel Debugger.

Many apps today add in multithreading: the days of single-threaded apps where everything is done on the main UI thread are over. You may be using threads through TThread, or through the new Parallel Programming Library, both of which are very popular among our developers. Yet despite parallelism and threading being increasingly important, the debugger interface in many IDEs – not just ours, but all IDEs – is still largely oriented to single-threaded programming: for example, seeing only one thread’s call stack at a time.

This new Parnassus Parallel Debugger IDE plugin is squarely aimed at understanding your app comprehensively when it’s doing multiple things at once. You can examine all parallel execution, see all threads at once and their interactions, with enhanced editor markup, improvements to running and stepping a process, improvements to breakpoints, and more. We believe it adds features not seen in any other IDE. Even if you don’t use multiple threads, some of the enhanced UI may really improve your debugging productivity or understanding of your app’s execution!

The Parallel Debugger comes from the same source as Bookmarks and Navigator, two plugins in GetIt which add improved navigation and other features within the IDE. They’re steadily among the most popular downloads on GetIt. We hope the new plugin will be similarly valued!

You can look forward to more details on the Parallel Debugger soon, such as a detailed description of the features you’ll have when debugging in Delphi and C++Builder, screenshots, and more. We can’t wait to show you!

Much Faster C++ Compilers!

We hear from our customers that the speed of C++ compilation, especially with Clang, is something you’d really like us to speed up. Well, we have something special for you: TwineCompile, a freely available plugin in GetIt (that’s free for all SKUs, including Pro!) which can speed up compiling C++ codebases by up to 50x.

That’s not a typo – as well as scaling the speedup with the number of cores available, TwineCompile has some impressive techniques to make other optimizations. It really can drastically cut down the time it takes to build a C++ app. We love it and really recommend it. It’s available in GetIt today, for professionals too (not just Enterprise and Architect), for free.

Kyle Wheeler and David Millington are working on a C++Builder specific update where they will share some news on new libraries and other C++ specific updates. Stay tuned for that!

This is particularly exciting for me because it is another community-driven project. The creator of PyScripter built a number of awesome integrations between Delphi and Python from RAD Studio. These were introduced in two webinars in the last couple of months with over 4,000 participants. It is a great opportunity to expand the tools available to Delphi developers and introduce Python developers to RAD Studio. The Python developer community is growing very fast, and for many, this is their first computer language (it probably should have been Delphi). RAD Studio is a natural and easy tool for these developers to build powerful native apps.