Most of these comments are based on using the Delphi 2005 trial (free) version.
If you are not doing web development, do not buy this product - stick with Delphi 5 - it is much faster.
General
  | Delphi 5.0 | Delphi 2005 |
---|---|---|
IDE start time | 2 seconds | 40 seconds |
Runtime memory Neither version loaded | 334 MB available, 210 MB commit |   |
Runtime memory Only the IDE loaded | 320 MB available, 219 MB commit | 268 MB available, 305 MB commit |
Runtime memory Viewer.exe running | 300 MB available, 238 MB commit | 253 MB available, 334 MB commit |
Runtime memory Viewer.exe running with debug dcu's included | 320 MB available, 219 MB commit | 260 MB available, 334 MB commit |
Disk space (bin directory) | 20 MB, 92 files | 101 MB, 485 files |
Viewer.exe size | 624 KB | 907 KB |
Speed | A little slow Images jerk a little when scrolled | Unusably slow Images flash when scrolled |
ASP.NET
Of course, I have issues with the ASP.Net development, (there will be a separate page on this), but in general, it works and there is an adequate amount of on-line help.
Note: The built-in help is less than useful.
Missing functionality
New web units - Indy
TMNHTTP -> TIdHTTP
The Indy component has 4 overloaded "get" methods However, none of them allow data to be written the the hard drive Had to use trial and error (including discovering an Indy design error) to figure out how to save an image to a file.
Using the Indy components, F1 help does not work at all ... it is totally worthless. Instead, you have to manually type the class name (don't forget the initial 'T').
There is an overloaded Get method ... but they don't link to each other. To read all 4 pages, you have to go back to the previous page, do a lot of scrolling, and then click on another overloaded method. (What a hassel.)
procedure TViewer_UIForm.DisplayImagePair; var L_File, R_File : string; begin L_File := 'L2.jpg'; R_File := 'R2.jpg'; NMHTTP1.Body := R_File; NMHTTP1.Get(R_Image); // R_Image is a fully qualified URL NMHTTP1.Body := L_File; NMHTTP1.Get(L_Image);
procedure TViewer_UIForm.DisplayImagePair; var L_File, R_File : string; Image_Stream : TFileStream; stream_2 : TMemoryStream ; begin L_File := 'L2.jpg'; R_File := 'R2.jpg'; stream_2 := TMemoryStream.Create; IdHTTP1.Get(R_Image, stream_2); stream_2.SaveToFile(R_File); IdHTTP1.Get(L_Image, stream_2); stream_2.SaveToFile(L_File); stream_2.Free;
Delphi 2005 code using FileStream
procedure TViewer_UIForm.DisplayImagePair; var L_File, R_File : string; Image_Stream : TFileStream; stream_2 : TMemoryStream ; begin L_File := 'L2.jpg'; R_File := 'R2.jpg'; Image_Stream.Create('r3.jpg',fmCreate or fmShareDenyNone); // bad code Image_Stream := TFileStream.Create('r3.jpg',fmCreate or fmShareDenyNone); // try this IdHTTP1.Get(R_Image, Image_Stream); Image_Stream.Free; Image_Stream := TFileStream.Create(L_File,fmCreate or fmShareDenyNone); // try this IdHTTP1.Get(L_Image, Image_Stream); Image_Stream.Free;
Built-In Help
Delphi 6 - What happend??
Delphi 2005 - this is crap!
Even though Delphi 2005 now uses html help (displayed in the required IE 6 browser) instead of the old Windows help, it appears that the help uses the same rtf files as before - but the instructions for creating a help file are pretty worthless.
Specifically, "Adding component Help files" is missing in the trial version and the other 2 pages are worthless (contain no data).
Using the Indy components, F1 help does not work at all ... it is totally worthless. Instead, you have to manually type the class name (don't forget the initial 'T').
No longer has a separate display window for properties and methods - they display in the same window as the normal help. On the plus side, there is one line of help next to each entry (this is pretty cool).
(But, overall, html help really sucks.)
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Borland Shared\MSHelpSince I use this all the time, this is a major issue
In Delphi 5, it works perfectly
In Delphi 6, it is totally unreliable
In Delphi 2005, you have to select which Delphi help you want - Win32 or .NET