Delphi

Delphi is an integrated graphic development environment, Integrated Development Environment(IDE), of the company Borland for the operating systemWindows. Since 1995, the complete package consisting of the actual IDE development environment, the Object Pascalprogramming language and the included Visual Components Library( VCL) has been distributed under this product name. Delphi was one of the first tools, with which seriously Rapid Application Development( RAD) could be operated.

The software components of the VCL library could be used substantially more simply and led faster to respectable results than for example as Visual C++ with the Microsoft Foundation Classes( MFC). Visual Basic( VB), which was comparable in terms of development speed and simplicity, on the other hand produced considerably slower application programs that also required a problem-ridden runtime environment. In addition VB enjoyed a relatively bad reputation among software developers due to its roots in the "beginner language" BASIC and a syntax often felt as inelegant.

In the course of the years all components of the Delphi package were developed further, Object Pascal in Delphi Language were renamed and new technologies were adapted. With Component Library for Cross Platform Development (CLX) finally came a cross platform library as alternative to the VCL library, which made it possible to develop also for other platforms than Windows. The Delphi variant for Linux is called Kylix, finds however until today no wide spreading.

The most current versions of Delphi support in the meantime also the .NETFramework of Microsoft and it is to be foreseen that the VCL and CLX libraries will have soon no more practical relevance.