The second book in “Delphi in all its glory” series was released January 2024.
This is the first book in the series.
You can find the printed book on your local Amazon (Amazon.com, Amazon.de, etc) or in electronic format.
Intro and TOC
Audience
Whether you’re a curious novice venturing into the world of coding for the first time or already the user of a different programming language, this book is your gateway to Delphi coding.
The first book concentrates on the exploration of the Delphi language. It doesn’t matter if you never wrote a line of code – we will start from ground zero, but the process will be faster if you already have done some programming in other languages.
Even if you are a (young) Delphi programmer, you could still learn a few tricks from the first book (check the summary).
If you are an old-school Pascal programmer that was always afraid to switch to objects, I promise, this is THE BOOK for you!
The second book is for the more seasoned developer aiming to enhance their craft and concentrates on the more advanced topics, such as libraries and architecture design, compiler’s and debugger’s inner working, proper exception handling and most important safer code.
What will you learn from this book?
This is not the regular “programmer’s manual” kind of book where I show you the basics of programming and keep circling around stupid-simple code examples. While I do kick-start you into programming, the main purpose of this book is to take you to the “meta” level of programming and even deep beyond that. But while study the language as regular, mere programmers, we will learn in the background how to build stable programs through reliable code, how to avoid typical programming pitfalls, why some programming concepts are safer than others, how to turn mondain Delphi features into an error-prevention system…
A second purpose of this book is also to demonstrate that Delphi is the best tool if you want to develop:
Good looking GUI applications
Cross-platform applications
Fast applications (for example data-processing, games)
Business and scientific applications
In parallel with all the above, we will compare Delphi with other languages (mostly C++, C#, R, Java, and Python) to see their merits and pitfalls and to reassure you that Delphi is THE language for you.
I will never ask you in this book to just believe me. I will always try to present hard evidence – scientific articles, proved concepts, read code examples, benchmark tests.
Even if the stakes are high, I promise it will NOT be a bumpy road. The learning curve might be steep in some places, but the book is peppered with code examples, case studies and diagrams that will explain the concepts we study.
Book layout
In the first book we have seen what kind of applications we can do with Delphi, then we dived quite deep into the Delphi language and object-oriented programming, and we saw what is safe to do and what is not, and most important, why. And in the background, we learned about high quality code, because in the end this is the ultimate goal if you want to more reach the Gods of programming.
The “safety first” concept will be strengthened in this book where continue to learn about code reliability, designing sound architectures and preemptive programming. All this, while studying in foreground advanced concepts such as debugging, memory management, proper exception-handling, etc. Oh boy… we will have fun!
Who am I?
I am a senior software architect with almost three decades of experience in programming. I’ve been immersed in the world of Pascal and Delphi since 1995, but I actually started as a Z80 programmer, back in the day when the all 8-bit magic started. My academic background in applied electronics and computer science has laid the foundation for crafting innovative software and hardware solutions.
My expertise spans medical, big data, e-commerce, bioinformatics, and robotics domains, reflecting a passion for versatile creation.
This is my third book, with one more on the horizon.
TOC
1. Intro
2. Table of content 8
3. The Delphi compiler 22
What is a compiler? What is an interpreter? 23
Compiled vs interpreted 23
A reliable compiler 25
The toolchain 27
Executable size 28
Compiler speed 29
From Pas to Exe 31
The compilation order 33
Compiling and running the program 34
DCUs 35
Debug vs Release DCUs 35
The linker 39
Compile vs Build 40
Improving compiler’s speed 41
Remove unused units 41
Rearrange the units in the uses section 42
Unused paths 43
4. Libraries 44
Why do we need libraries? 45
Libraries are not for everyone 45
The four rules of creating packages 47
Library architecture 49
Circular references 51
It is all about aliens and pyramids 52
The anatomy of a package 53
DPK 53
BPL/DCP 58
Project groups 62
Compiler Directives 63
Delphi’s framework 64
The RTL library 64
The VCL library 65
Library paths 66
Environment variables 66
Compiling with multiple Delphi versions 69
Finding files via Library paths 70
Search Paths 79
Under-development libraries 79
Global vs local paths 80
Precompiled files 81
Precompiling our own files 82
The “Package/DCP/HPP output directory” fields 83
Project Paths 84
Recap 84
How to install a library? 86
Installing a library manually 86
Single-file libraries 91
What to do when things go south? 91
Library folder structure 92
Installing libraries via Setup 93
Creating our own installer 93
IDE plugins 94
Installing libraries via GetIt 95
How to uninstall a library 96
Runtime/Designtime libraries 97
Run-time libraries 97
Design time libraries 98
Design time vs Runtime 98
Including a library in our project 99
Linking with runtime packages 101
Drawbacks 102
How does the linker optimize unused code? 104
Experiment calibration 106
Proceedings 106
Extension to the experiment 112
Debugging 3rd party libraries 114
Recompiling parts of the VCL 117
Why libraries are mandatory for large projects? 120
Logic separation 120
The Chaos of Monolithic Projects 125
The Breaking Point 125
The Refractory Ignition Spark 125
A Better Way: Modular Code via Libraries 126
Overcoming Preconceptions 126
Using C/++ libraries in Delphi 128
When you have the source code 128
When you have the DLL 128
Popular libraries 131
LightSaber 134
Proteus 143
About libraries and licenses 157
Meaning of the fields 157
Discussions 159
Conclusions 160
More details 160
The Initialization of packages 161
The Register procedure 163
Building our own visual components 165
5. Automatic compilation 169
Using MSBuild in Delphi: 170
6. The debugger 174
What is a debugger? 175
Preparing our project for debugging 176
Stacks 176
Configurations 178
The “Compiling” page 179
The “Use debug DCUs” field 182
Other settings 184
A picture is worth a thousand words. 184
The “Linking” page 186
The “Debug source path” field 188
Breakpoints 190
Breakpoint properties 191
Relocate the execution point manually 192
Finally, ready to debug 194
Starting the program under the debugger 194
Debugging from a crash point 196
Cannot debug? 199
Fun stuff to do during debugging 200
Hint for geeks 203
Debugging cheat sheet 204
7. Remote debugging 207
How does it work? 207
Install PAserver (on the remote machine) 208
Run PAServer (on the remote machine) 209
Configure the environment (locally) 209
Assign a Connection Profile to the Delphi project 213
Choose which files to deploy 215
Deploying the files manually 215
Start debugging 216
Stability 218
8. Automatic bug logging & reporting 220
MadShi MadExcept 222
EurekaLog 225
9. Advanced debugging techniques 228
Method 1: Attach to process 228
Method 2: Debug with “Run -> Load process”. 229
Method 3: Host application (Recommended) 234
Method 4: External tools 236
Method 5: Start Delphi in “safe” mode 236
Method 6: Use external tools 236
Stupid Windows 10 237
10. Speed up your program 238
Profiling your program 240
Home-brewed method (as cheap as the home-made beer) 240
Third party profilers (aka non-free) 242
Improving the speed 244
Record field alignment 244
CPU Optimization 248
Compared to Julia 249
11. Compiler! Please save my ass! 256
Overflow checking 258
IO checking 259
Range Checking 260
Enabling Runtime Error Checking 260
Temporary disabling range checking 262
Assertions 264
Assert vs Raise 266
Nothing comes for free 267
12. Memory management 269
FastMM 270
1. Dramatic speed increase for memory-bound operations 270
2. Prevents memory fragmentation 270
3. Better memory sharing 271
4. Safer code 271
5. No more access violations 275
Switching FastMM to Full Debug Mode 277
How to read a FastMM leak report? 278
The summary 279
Leaked blocks 279
Advanced topics 283
You create it, you kill it 283
Memory ownership 284
Dangling references 284
Alice loses her preferred book 284
Getting our dirty paws on a dangling reference 285
The root of all evil 288
There are even worst scenarios 289
Do some noise 289
Bruce Willis (and FastMM) saves the day… again! 291
Garbage collectors 293
About ownership 294
Passing the ownership around 295
Summary 297
13. Exceptions 298
Exception Handling 302
Let’s do the “What this code does” game 305
Amateur mistake 306
Keep it real 310
Spit, don’t swallow 311
Good boy, Debugger! 314
Ignoring exceptions during debugging 316
Try/Finally vs Try/Except 318
Raising exceptions 320
14. Windows Messages in Delphi 323
The Windows Messaging System 324
Message Handlers in Delphi 325
Practical Examples 326
15. Programmer’s toolbox 328
Delphi registry secrets 329
Restoring the registry 331
How to start a “mint” Delphi instance? 333
Total Commander 335
SoftPerfect RAMDisk 338
Version control 339
Do we need a repository? 340
Creating a new Tortoise repository 343
Revisions 345
Resolving Conflicts 347
Commit Progress 348
Icon overlays 348
Shelving 349
Normalizers 350
16. Code safety 353
Things that are ok, but dangerous 354
Don’t use pointers 354
Don’t do direct typecasts 355
Avoid threads 355
Avoid TTimer 355
Avoid using unsafe functions 355
Things related to the Delphi language 357
Use strong typing 357
Avoid “with” 357
Use assertions. Abundantly 358
Document your code 358
Follow coding standards 358
Extra care with Interfaces 358
Perform boundary checks 359
Avoid using unsafe functions 359
Handling Boundary Values 359
Dealing with Wrapping 360
Simply “don’t do it” 361
Don’t swallow exceptions 361
Don’t use Application.ProcessMessages 361
Letting the compiler to help us 362
Activate rage checking 362
Activate I/O checking 362
Activate integer overflow 362
Activate compiler hints and warnings 362
Other runtime checks 363
Enable FastMM to check for memory leaks 363
Implement “safety net” for enumerations 363
Use Free instead of FreeAndNil 363
Extra techniques 364
Test program thoroughly 364
Implement Unit Testing for your code. 364
Use a bug tracking tool, like MadShi! 364
External libraries 364
Encapsulate your code 365
Cheat sheet 366
Quantify the source of errors 368
Classification of error types: 368
Program architecture 371
Extra stuff to check for 372
On FreeAndNil 374
A word of warning on Application.ProcessMessages 376
TControl.Perform 378
Safely storing a list of objects 380
Security update 2024 385
17. Advance topics 387
Running a single instance of our program 388
How does it work? 388
Let’s see the code 389
Anonymous methods 391
Capture of Variables 392
Usage 392
Flexible Usage 393
Inline Definitions 393
Analyzing the code above 394
Multithreading in Delphi 395
Delphi’s Multithreading Infrastructure 397
Creating Threads with TThread 397
Thread Safety 398
Synchronization with the Main GUI Thread 398
Using TThread.Synchronize 398
Using TThread.Queue 399
Other synchronization mechanisms: 400
Best Practices for Multithreading 401
1. Plan Your Multithreading Strategy 401
2. Handle Exceptions Gracefully 401
3. Minimize Shared Data 401
Common Pitfalls to Avoid 401
Delphi Parallel Programming Library (PPL) 402
Hardware limitations 402
18. Migrating 32-bit Code to 64-bit: Best Practices and Considerations 404
Alternative paths 405
How to set the LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE? 406
Before you start 407
Upgrading Third-Party Libraries 407
Adding 64-bit Support to the Project 407
Fixing the paths 407
Inspecting the code 409
Choosing the correct data types 409
Typecast from pointer to integer 411
Typecast between Record and TObject 412
WinAPI issues 413
SendMessage 413
Vcl.Controls.TControl.Perform 413
SetWindowLong/ GetWindowLong 414
SetWindowLong: 414
SetWindowLongPtr: 415
Special types 417
Avoid using LongInt 417
Extended type 417
Inline ASM code 418
Functions that return Cardinal 419
Summary 420
19. Deploying our application on other platforms 421
Android 421
Apple 422
Linux 422
Summary 424
20. Being a programmer 425
Change is good… but hard 426
On Technical Debt 433
Rocking the boat 435
So, do you still want to do it? 437
21. All good things must come to an end 440
Where do you go from here? 441
Delphi sample projects 441
Your next big project could be a game 442
About Stack Overflow 443
Fighting bullies on Stack Overflow 443
Ask the artificial intelligence 445
Video tutorials 448
Books 449
My books 450
Already published books: 450
What I have learned in the last 25 years of software development 451
22. Notes and credits 456
Contact me! 456
Disclaimer 456
Source code 456
Be environment-responsible 456
Credits 457