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Paul Lagasse · Guest

Hi.
Recently I bought Delphi 8. I bought it mostly for the Delphi 7 Studio Pro
that was included.
I think Delphi 8 for .NET is a hard sell for the following points:
1) It is very slow developing anything in it. Too slow for me. Too slow
developing and too slow running. A simple WIN32 app starts up in ~1 second.
A .NET app starts up in 3 seconds or longer.
2) Create an app, now tell the customer that they must download the .NET
framework so they can run your app. Nice touch... Ouch!

Anyway, I installed Delphi 7 Pro and was expecting some improvements over
Delphi 6 Pro. Here is what I found:
1) I was real happy that they fixed the datamodule and the ability to
display or hide the component labels on it. Also the fact the you can add
more components past the boundaries and they actually stay in there
positions, instead of drifting back to the visible area.

2) I was not impressed with the time it takes to actually get to edit a
piece of code in the Delphi 7 IDE. Whenever I click on the code part of a
unit, it takes about 15 seconds for it to do the "code completion" thing
before it will let me type in anything. It's driving me nuts. I turned it
off, but then there's no code completion, but it is way faster that way. I
have way more components installed in Delphi 6, all of which are listed in
the library browse path, so don't tell me that that's the solution... Also,
I'm running with 256 megs of ram and a 1.7 ghz P4.

3) I was not impressed with the time it takes to compile my program. In
Delphi 6, if you change one line in one unit, it seems that it would just
recompile that unit, because it would take 1 or 2 seconds to compile. In
Delphi 7, it takes over 20 seconds to compile the same project, even after
changing only one line.

4) Stability issues. I dropped in an image list onto a form, added two
images and hooked up a control to use the images. Compiled, went ok. Then I
decided to take the image list out. I set the control's image back to -1,
deleted the image list and took the comctrls out of the uses clause. I got a
continual ACCESS violation when I next clicked on the object inspector.
After that, I tried to close the project, and one by one, D7 asked me if I
wanted to save each and every unit in the project. Is it possible that
Delphi 7 recompiles every unit every time, and can't distinguish between a
unit that has been changed and one that hasn't? It appears to be the case.
That would explain the long compile times. Or am I wrong? Is there a new
setting I can set in Delphi 7 to solve the long compile times? I've shut off
the 'include debug info', but it didn't help.

5) I noticed that when working with Advantage tables in Delphi 6, if my app
would lock up and had to be killed, I had to also kill Delphi 6 because of
"access is denied" problems. Actually, if the app crashed, you couldn't exit
Delphi 6. You had to kill it. In Delphi 7, you can actually kill the app and
then close Delphi 7. But, when the app locks up, you can't go back to the
IDE and kill it. Those options in the menu are disabled. So you have to kill
it with task manager...

Has anyone out there run into these problems with Delphi 7? Have you tried
the latest update (7.01)? Does it solve any of these problems? I'm too
scared to try the update because of all the bad things I've read about the
upgrade on this newsgroup. I'm thinking of going back to Delphi 6. At least
it was fast, stable and predictable...

Is Borland trying to make Delphi 7 worse in order to promote mass
migration to the .NET. world?

Disgruntled.

Chris Parkinson · Guest

Paul

some of these are set up things.

Paul Lagasse · Guest

Hi Chris,
Thank you for your response. I appreciate it.
I changed the timer in Editor Options, under Code Insight to 0. When I
compile the program and run it, then go back into a unit for the first time
since the compile, it still takes 15 seconds for it to pull up any code
completion... After the first time back in it is faster, but 15 seconds
after every compile is still driving me nuts.

Also, under Project Options, Compiler Messages, the last three [unsafe
type, unsafe code and unsafe typecast], are not checked nor have they ever
been.

While I was in the Project Options, I decided to see if I could remove some
packages that I thought the project did not need. Under Packages, I tried to
uncheck the "Delphi 1 compatibility components". It gave me an access
violation and put the check back in!
"Access Violation at address 00347627 in module designide70.bpl. Read of
Address 00000000". Now the project won't compile. When I check the "Delphi
1 compatibility components" checkbox again, it still won't compile. Same
access violation. Ok, quit Delphi, restart. Now it compiles...

Some other things I've noticed. In Delphi 6, I could cancel a compile. In
Delphi 7, it ignores my cancel and continues compiling. If I hit cancel
right at the start, it does cancel, but if I wait a few seconds and then hit
cancel, it doesn't respond.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions. Anything is worth a try.
Here are the extras that I've installed. Maybe someone can point out some
buggy component packages:

DevExpress EQ Grid Suite 3
DevExpress EQ Grid Suite 4
Advantage TDataSet Components v 7.0.0.3
RX Library 2.75 port to Delphi 7, v1.0 (by Oleg Fyodorov)
ReportBuilder 7.03
LMD Components (came with D7 on companion CD).

Thanks.
pl

"Chris Parkinson" <chris.wible. (AT) wibbleme (DOT) com> wrote

Frederik Slijkerman · Guest

Are you compiling to a network drive?

Frederik Slijkerman

"Paul Lagasse" <IHATESPAMplagasse (AT) rttinc (DOT) com> wrote

Paul Lagasse · Guest

Hi Frederik,
No I'm not. I'm using the standard install to c:program
filesborland... and the projects are all on c:...

Actually, I have Delphi 6 Pro, Delphi 7 Pro and Delphi 8 all installed on
this PC. I wonder if that may be part of the problem...

Thanks for your question..
pl

"Frederik Slijkerman" <idontwant (AT) spam (DOT) com> wrote