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The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
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Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

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Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
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Alpha5V7 - Delphi

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    Alpha5V7 - Delphi

    I know Borland's Delphi is not a "database" program, but can anyone make a comparison between Alpha5V7 and Delphi in relation to developing a desktop application, re. learning curve, ease of use, speed of development, speed of finished application, GUI interface, overall capabilities, and any other comments you care to offer.
    Thank you

    #2
    Delphi is an IDE & is object oriented. There is no OOP whatsoever in Alpha. There is no .net anythng in Alpha. Delphi can code for dotnet, standard Delphi apps or multi-platform CLR.

    Alpha is a dBase file database program. You can create forms, functions & scripts. You cannot create classes, reuse objects or have modules. In alpha you can store user functions on the code page or in a "library". The term ibrary is decieving in that it is just another database whose functions you can call from the current database. Every database is therefore a library. In alpha you cannot have structures. There are "dot variables" which are similar collection in VB. Dot variable are not a substitute for a class.

    You can quickly create a database app with Alpha. Since you cannot reuse forms you must create each one from scratch. You can save and reuse formats of controls.

    The learning curve is high if you want to program it without using action scripting. Action scripting writes xbasic without error handling capabilities. Xbasic syntax is unlike VB or Delphi. xDialog is has a VERY high learning curve. You can use xBasic within xDialog, but xdialog is nothing like xBasic. xDialog is the only way to make unbound forms and custom dialogs. There are a few builders that will make simple xDialog forms, but be prepared to do most of the coding yourself.

    There is no SQL in Alpha but you can code queries.

    In my opinion, if you have an application framework already built in Delphi, use it. You can create consistant-looking forms and controls through inheritance. If you are starting from scratch, Delphi does nothing on it's own. You must code everything from the simplist of tasks.

    Alpha's claim of the best database for non-programmers is debatable but probably true, but if you want a powerful application, you must learn xBasic. many people find it difficul as you will read in the forum.

    You can probably create an application in Alpha 10 times faster than Delphi, starting from scratch.

    Good Luck whatever you do.

    Comment


      #3
      Also, if you are starting out with Delphi I think I read that Borland is looking for a buyer to sell it to. Who knows what that portends.

      Russ

      Comment


        #4
        delphi

        Borland has seriously looking for a buyer for Delphi. The future of Delphi might be questionable. Delphi's strengths were in is strong OOP features and the speed of it's native code. With all of the dotNet stuf in it, it probably performs like VB.net or C#. Delphi has an add-on kit to code for winMobile.Net now.

        Delphi's user base has shrunk, as has Powerbuilders. Powerbuilder is barely alive but just came out with V11 that now has dotNet features.

        I think Delphi will be around for a good while.

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