Wednesday 28 September 2016

TCategoryPanel refresh issue solved

I have a form with a TCategoryPanelGroup on it with several TCategoryPanels, on one of the category panels is a combox and when the user changes a selected value in the combobox it changes a label caption on the same category panel.

One issue I have had is that when I change the caption of the label it does not refresh correctly and it looks like the caption overwrites the previous caption. I tried various refresh, repaint and invalidates on the label, category panel and category panel group, but nothing worked. The only way I've found to solve the issue is to set the 'DoubleBuffered' property of the form to true.

Friday 2 September 2016

Delphi Vs Visual Studio

This is a comparison between developing software in Delphi XE+ vs Visual Studio 2015 (C#). I’ve decided not to go to in-depth with regards to syntax or run time dependencies of executables. I have experience in both although I have mainly developed web service and WCF services in C#, and mainly developed desktop applications in Delph, so that might affect some of my opinions.

Delphi Pros

  •          Quick and easy to develop desktop applications.
  •          I prefer the form designer, because I find it easier to use.
  •          Quick to compile projects.
  •          I like the code structure of interface and implementation in the same file.
  •          You can develop mobile apps.


Delphi Cons

  •          Code insight is slow and could be significantly improved.
  •          Some areas of the IDE look dated and it needs investment to keep it up to date with its competitors.
  •          Find declaration does not always work, finding the function or procedure is more time consuming than Visual Studio.
  •          Hard to employ developers as there are not many about.
  •          Code insight is slow to update, for example add a new property to a class and sometimes you need to compile to make that property available for code insight.
  •         Unit testing using DUnit feels old and there has been little development of it over the years.

  

Visual Studio Pros


  •          IDE has a more modern interface, like the option for a dark color theme.
  •          Code IntelliSense is great, and I like the ‘potential fixes’ option which is very useful for adding directive or assembly reference.
  •         Unit testing is easy and integrated into the IDE, making it easy to run tests while you are developing.
  •          Debugging services is easier than when I have developed services in Delphi, this might have changed recently in later versions of Delphi.
  •         Peek definition is a nice feature.

Visual Studio Cons


  •         Slow to start-up.
  •          Sometimes freezes and it is best just to wait.