Common thought: Delphi is old!
Being the Product Manager for RAD Studio (Delphi, C++Builder, and Delphi Prism) is always interesting, and not a day goes by that I don't hear somebody make the statement that Delphi or C++Builder are OLD. When I have the opportunity to talk to the person making the statement, usually by the end of the
conversation the person I'm talking to has a very different opinion of Delphi and C++Builder.
One of our current challenges with regard to developing applications with Delphi and C++Builder is that the entire community must stand up and let anybody, who will listen, know that, Delphi and C++Builder are cutting edge languages, tools, and environments with which you can build any application on the
Windows platform. Delphi developers are not cutting edge developers… really? Along with the fact that many developers think that Delphi and C++Builder are old, there is also the perception that the developers are old and out of touch. Again, we as a community need to dispel this rumor and let people know that we understand cutting edge concepts, tools, and approaches. The areas that seem to resonate with managers and the outside
developers revolve around language and tools. Now, anybody who has used Delphi or C++Builder in the past 10 years knows that the IDE itself is up-to-date and in many cases leads with new functionality like the new IDE Insight that allows you to find any feature or function within the IDE with a few keystrokes. As for
the language, we are not going to focus on that particular issue in this write-up, but it may be written about in the future. Here, we focus on the advanced tools found inside the IDE that help developers build better software, faster, period.

Why would I use these tools in Delphi?
This usually spawns two (2) questions: what are these tools you speak of and why would I use them? The exact tools focused on in this write-up include UML Visualization, UML integration, Unit
Testing, static code analysis with both Audits and Metrics, and finally Refactoring.

This leads to the second question: why would a Developer use these tools? The answer can be broken down into a few categories, this first being better communication. It has been said that a picture is worth a 1000 words; it can also be said that a picture can explain a 1000 lines of code. So, using a feature like UML Visualization allows more developers to communicate better with the code.