Mega Code Archive

Components

Try Danny Thorpe's "Delphi Component Design". Though some of the information is dated ( for instance OLE ), IMHO, it's still the best text you can find on the subject. "Mr. J. M. Perry" wrote: > Does anyone know of any information regarding component construction? > > Jon Perry Danny Thorpes &quotDelphi Component Design" A review by Robert Vivrette - RobertV@compuserve.com Ever since I started programming in Delphi, I have had the opportunity to go through quite a number of books on the subject. Most have been good basic reading, but only a few stand out above the rest. Delphi Component Design by Danny Thorpe is one of this latter group. You won't find too many example programs or cool new component designs within its pages, but you will learn quite a bit about what goes on inside Delphi. The author, Danny Thorpe, is an R&ampD engineer on Borlands Delphi development team, which makes him imminently qualified to write about detailed Delphi internal concepts. While most books go into showing you how to design new components or explain things the Delphi on-line help left out, Delphi Component Design takes a different approach. Rather than telling you this is how you do this, Danny explains why it is done that way and the details of how it is achieved. Part 1 of the book covers Analysis and Design. There is a discussion of the Delphi Programming model as well as how we got to that point through the various languages that came before it. There is also a high-level discussion of component design. Sometimes we develop a component only thinking about the immediate need, but Danny explains where the real power of components comes from, and how you can retrain your thinking to develop extensible and reusable ones. Part 2 of the book covers some of the implementation details of component design. Chapters include Virtual Methods, Polymorphism, Exceptions, Run-Time Type Information, Streaming, Messaging, VCL Subsystems, OLE and COM interfaces, and Optimization Techniques (my favorite). I learned far more than I really wanted to about Virtual Methods here! Occasionally, Danny will illustrate his point with a few lines of assembler. It really helps knowing what is going on behind a few Object Pascal statements! Part 3 wraps up the book with a discussion of Design-Time Support Tools, including Delphis Open Tools Architecture, Property Editors, Component Editors, Experts and Add-in Tools. As mentioned earlier, my favorite chapter is the one on Optimization Techniques. I have always been a fan of learning better, faster, and more efficient ways to accomplish something, and this chapter did not let me down. In fact, my copy of this chapter is riddled with little post-it note scraps stuck to most every page… Not many Delphi books make me want to mark a section to come back to later! In this chapter, he discusses things such as Window handles, memory management techniques, string management, as well as some Plain Old Dirty Tricks. The String management section was particularly an eye opener and after reading it, I jumped back into a few of my applications to change the way I had worked with Strings. Currently, there are only 3 books that I possess that I consider to be indispensable works. The first is the Win32 Programming API Bible, then Ray Lischners Secrets of Delphi 2, and now Danny Thorpes Delphi Component Design. While the first two are primarily reference works for me, Dannys book has been more of an educational work… One that helps me think beyond the scope that I programmed in before. If you are a newbie to component design or to Delphi, many of the topics discussed will likely go over your head. However, if you think youre hot stuff and know all there is to know about Delphi… buy this book. It will give you a renewed sense of humility… If you want to learn about the inner workings of Delphi, you need look no further than Delphi Component Design.