Delphi for .NET Developer's Guide by Xavier Pacheco is the first book about the new generation of Borland Delphi development environment. Delphi 8 is the first version of Delphi that allows programmers to harness the power of Microsoft .NET framework, and bring productivity to the new levels through advanced technologies and application lifecycle management.
The collaboration of author and several contributing writers enabled this book to bring fresh and relevant information in print quickly. I enjoyed this format while reading the book; the mix of styles brought in by different people makes reading moving. At the same time it is in no way disconnected, and the well-structured set-up is definitely felt through the chapters.
Seeing how fast this book was brought to the market, some minor discrepancies and misprints are excusable, do not lower the technical value of the book, and can be overlooked. I haven't noticed any serious mistakes.
The book includes a concise introduction to .NET and to the Delphi language, as well as the more important features of the new Delphi for .NET environment. Such subjects as Assemblies, GDI+ programming, Cross Platform demonstration, Reflection, and memory management are discussed.
Most developers will find chapters on .NET collections, strings and multithreading extremely useful. Interoperability with unmanaged applications, and WinForms programming are also covered.
Multitier development is mostly discussed in the context of web services and .NET remoting. Which are very powerful concepts of the new framework that will definitely progress in the future.
Unfortunately, there are no chapters on the Borland VCL.NET. However, the accompanying CD includes a copy of the Delphi 6 Developer's Guide by Xavier Pacheco in PDF format, which discusses VCL, the ancestor of VCL.NET in great detail. VCL is a time proven extremely well structured extendable library of visual and non-visual components that allows building business class applications in very rapid and clean manner.
Back to the Delphi for .NET Developer's Guide. Out of the several data access technologies available with Delphi, the book discusses the one that fits the .NET framework the best: ADO.NET. This topic is well covered from different sides. There is also a chapter on the Borland Data Provider - the methodology that allows better data connectivity design time support.
ASP.NET is one of the most exciting features of .NET. Built on top of ISAPI frameset, it allows development of powerful web applications and interactive web sites. ASP.NET uses code behind concept of dynamically loaded libraries written in full fidelity .NET languages such as Delphi 8. At the same time ASP.NET provides developers with all the plumbing necessary for scalable session management, statefull and stateless execution, caching, as well as authentication and authorization mechanisms.
ASP.NET is arguably the best-covered subject in the book that surly deserves the attention.
As far as improvements go, perhaps, I would enjoy seeing chapters on cryptography, regular expressions, but at 861 or so pages, this book is definitely a fundamental work, that is a good read and works well as a handy reference.
