Guidelines for Writing Delphi Components

Over the years, I have used components written by several companies. There are a number of problems that seem to be repeated - this lists a few the are easy to avoid.

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I discuss general coding guide lines in Style_Guides - this page covers additional guidelines that apply specifically to components.


Private Methods

Many of the Bolrand components have private methods. This effectively prevents deriving a new component to fix design errors.

Because of license restrictions, you can not simply fix the broken code and distribute the fixes ... but if all functions are virtual and non-private then it is possible to distribute fixes.

I suggest that NO methods should ever be made private and that all methods should be virtual.



Author: Robert Clemenzi - clemenzi@cpcug.org
URL: http:// cpcug.org / user / clemenzi / technical / Languages / Delphi / ComponentGuidelines.html