{"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=\"span-reading-time 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=\"span-reading-time 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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[292,111],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-delphi","tag-delphi","tag-xe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1TKYv-ax","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"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}]}}