{"id":653,"date":"2010-08-11T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T22:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/?p=653"},"modified":"2010-08-12T10:10:26","modified_gmt":"2010-08-11T22:10:26","slug":"rad-studio-xe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/653\/","title":{"rendered":"RAD Studio &#8220;XE&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">[Estimated Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\">3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes]<\/span><\/span><p>News is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.embarcadero.com\/rad-studio-xe-preview\">starting to come out about the upcoming release of Delphi<\/a>, RAD Studio XE.  So what can we expect?<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Well, based on what has been revealed so far, anyone thinking that the time that has passed since we were supposed to have received 64-bit support has been well spent is likely to be disappointed.<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s announcement is the first in 3 scheduled previews.  This one discusses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Subversion version control integration in the Delphi, C++Builder and Delphi Prism IDEs<\/li>\n<li>Rapid PHP development added to RAD Studio with RadPHP<\/li>\n<li>Code editor enhancements for searching, formatting and navigating<\/li>\n<li>New debugging features<\/li>\n<li>Modeling enhancements in Delphi<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The next preview will discuss &#8220;Automation and Optimisation&#8221; and the 3rd (and apparently final one prior to release) will address &#8220;Multi-tier, Web and Cloud&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Given that we were <a href=\"http:\/\/edn.embarcadero.com\/article\/39174\">originally told to expect 64-bit support in Delphi 2010<\/a> (that would be the <em>previous release in 2009<\/em>) with a preview in the <em>release before that<\/em> (Delphi 2009, <em>released in 2008<\/em>) the complete and utter lack of any mention at this point of 64-bit support let alone cross-platform features is flabbergasting.<\/p>\n<p>What have they been doing at Embarcadero for the last 2-3 years?<\/p>\n<p>We know that the 64-bit plans were part of a wider compiler re-architecture project which was expanded to encompass what was in my view a misguided ambition to provide a cross-platform compiler.<\/p>\n<p>We also know that <a href=\"http:\/\/edn.embarcadero.com\/article\/39934\">platforms other than 64-bit Windows became the priority<\/a>, in the sense that they would be delivered before Win64 support itself &#8211; some at Embarcadero will use weasel words to argue that this isn&#8217;t a change in priorities, but it&#8217;s results that count for people waiting for technology, not project management semantics.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Note: When trying to find the current Delphi RoadMap, searching the Embarcadero web site for &#8220;delphi roadmap&#8221; yielded primarily a bunch of links to JAPANESE press releases and a handful of information pages, none of which were the roadmap! \u00a0I eventually found the link I needed buried as a link at the bottom of the &#8220;RAD In Action&#8221; unicode migration information page. \u00a0Sheesh)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But, never mind what isn&#8217;t (seemingly) being delivered even this late, let&#8217;s look at what is (or will be) in the box\/download announced so far:<\/p>\n<h2>SVN Integration<\/h2>\n<p>Anybody using SVN that is not already using the entirely free JCL SVN integration (or numerous other integrations, or merely happy with Tortoise) may be impressed.<\/p>\n<p>For the rest of us, this is a big &#8220;so what?&#8221; and perhaps even a &#8220;really? \u00a0it took you this long?&#8221;.<\/p>\n<h2>RadPHP Inclusion<\/h2>\n<p>Firstly, note the capitalisation. \u00a0RAD is an acronym just as much as PHP, so quite what Embarcadero are telling us by dubbing this component of &#8220;RAD Studio&#8221; with the moniker &#8220;Rad&#8221; is up for question. \u00a0Does it mean it&#8217;s almost &#8220;RAD&#8221;, but not quite?<\/p>\n<p>In any event, a similar observation applies&#8230; anyone not already using <strong>Delphi for PHP<\/strong> is unlikely to be interested (hands up? \u00a0anyone?) in finding it included in their <strong>RAD Studio SKU<\/strong> this time around, and anyone that <strong><em>is<\/em><\/strong> already using it might be a little cheesed off and wondering why they&#8217;ve been paying for it separately up until now.<\/p>\n<p>But at least that ridiculous &#8220;Delphi for PHP&#8221; (it was neither the Delphi &#8220;language&#8221; nor, technically, the Delphi IDE) product name is consigned to history.<\/p>\n<p>I suspect this is a case of having to give something away or at least find ways of charging people by a back-door (Q: has pricing for the new, larger, RAD Studio been announced yet? \u00a0I don&#8217;t think it has) that it is proving difficult to charge separately for.<\/p>\n<h2>(Yet More) Code Editor Enhancements<\/h2>\n<p>Seriously, at what point do people start to understand that &#8220;productivity improvements&#8221; come mainly from experience and proficiency, not having to continually configure, tweak, learn and master tools in an IDE?<\/p>\n<p>Some of these may be welcome, but mostly these productivity tools seem to add more and more weight and background processing overhead for precious little <em>provable<\/em> productivity gain.<\/p>\n<h2>New Debugging Features<\/h2>\n<p>These could be useful, depending on what they are. \u00a0For myself I don&#8217;t find myself running into major limitations or problems with the debugger, and never really have. \u00a0Many of the more recent &#8220;improvements&#8221; in this area were fine-tuning of already (long) present features.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully these new improvements will be more substantial.<\/p>\n<h2>Modelling Enhancements<\/h2>\n<p>I have never used the modelling tools in the IDE (it won&#8217;t surprise you to learn that I also have never used the compilers or code editors in my modelling tools either ;)) so cannot really comment.<\/p>\n<h1>Wherefore Art Thou RAD Studio XE?<\/h1>\n<p><em><strong>(or: What&#8217;s In A Name?)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>What does the XE? in &#8220;RAD Studio XE&#8221; stand for or denote?<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, at this stage I have to say that the most apt interpretation is: \u00a0<strong>RAD Studio<\/strong> <em>e<\/em><strong>X<\/strong><em>traneous<\/em> <strong>E<\/strong><em>dition<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">[Estimated Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\">3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes]<\/span><\/span> News is starting to come out about the upcoming release of Delphi, RAD Studio XE. So what can we expect?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[292,111],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1TKYv-ax","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1068,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/1068\/","url_meta":{"origin":653,"position":0},"title":"Info From the World Tour (Hamburg)","date":"22 Aug 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In the Embarcadero forums, Roland Kossow posted his report on the first of the \"RAD Studio World Tour\" events in Hamburg yesterday, reporting on what's new in XE3 and adding some more detail to the \"XE3 And Beyond\" blog post. In a nutshell we have \"FM2\" (FireMonkey 2 - no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/28\/","url_meta":{"origin":653,"position":1},"title":"Tiburon Preview","date":"02 Aug 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A roundup of that part of the Preview I saw of Tiburon - the next release of Delphi from CodeGear.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":671,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/671\/","url_meta":{"origin":653,"position":2},"title":"XE Roadmap Clarified","date":"16 Aug 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A quick post to let everyone know that Allen Bauer kindly answered my direct question in the Embarcadero forums asking for clarification of what \"64-bit implementation\" means in the XE \"Pulsar\" slide of the new Delphi roadmap. The question was ultimately boiled down to this: Does \"64-bit implementation\" in Pulsar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":529,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/529\/","url_meta":{"origin":653,"position":3},"title":"New Delphi Upgrade Policy &#8211; Get in QUICK!","date":"16 Sep 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"If you are using any version of Delphi that is more than 3 versions older than the current version (i.e. Delphi 2005 or older, as of today), the days of upgrading to the latest version will soon be over. I am seriously disheartened by this change in policy. Whether you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":668,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/668\/","url_meta":{"origin":653,"position":4},"title":"New Roadmap; and Be Careful When Choosing Testimonials&#8230;","date":"13 Aug 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's tempting (not to mention completely understandable) to selectively choose the positive comments and not at all surprising that there are no negative comments to be found among the list quoted. \u00a0But you should be careful to avoid potentially\u00a0embarrassing\u00a0credibility gaps. First up and top of the list: I'm very excited\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":950,"url":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/950\/","url_meta":{"origin":653,"position":5},"title":"RAD Studio (XE3 Launch?) Event Announced in NZ","date":"02 Aug 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a few moments ago I received an invitation to register for what I presume to be the launch event of RAD Studio XE3. 28th August is the date for your diary! I have to presume this is the XE3 launch because \"XE3\" isn't actually mentioned. For that matter, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Delphi&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":666,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}