Since the development of Delphi language for programming started in 1995, several versions of the application have being developed over time. The different versions were developed over time, with newer versions being improvement of the former versions. Here are the different versions of the programming language that has been developed.
1995 to 2004: Early years of Borland
Borland Delphi
Delphi 1 as it was later referred to as, is the first version of Delphi that was released in 1995 for Windows 3.1 which was a 16-bit machine. In terms of tools for Rapid Application Development, Delphi 1 easily passes as an early instance. Windows’ Turbo Pascal evolved into Delphi, with support for Windows. Object Pascal has always being used as the programming language for Delphi. It is still being developed as the language underlying its object-oriented nature.
A year later, Delphi 2 was released with Windows 32-bit environment support. It however still had the Delphi 1 incorporated in it, so that it could still be used for creating applications for Windows 3.1 16-big.
By 1997, Delphi 3 was launched, which came with new compontents for VCL, covering the Common Controls for Windows 4.71 version including Toolbar and Rebar. A number of tools were separated from TDataset architecture. They include COM through interfaces integration, component packages, architecture of MIDS three tier, Active Forms, WebBroker, Statistical graphing Teechart components and DecisionCube, component templates, component packages, code insight technology, DLL debugging and BDE.
Other Delphi versions that were released in the early Delphi years include Inprise Delphi 4 in 1998, Borland Delphi 5 in 1999, Delphi 6 in 2001, Delphi 7 in 2002 and Delphi 8 in 2003.
2004 to 2008: Later Borland Years
Borland Developer Studio, Delphi 9 or Delphi 2005 comprised .NET and Win32 development in a particular IDE. This version comes with the ability of live data design-time manipulation in a database. The IDE is also very much improved. There were some issues with stability, however, which led to a lot of criticisms.
A more stable version of the Delphi 9 was released in late 2005 as Borland Developer Studio 4.0, Delphi 10 or Delphi 2006. Turbo Delphi and Codegear Delphi 2007 was developed in 2006 and 2007.
Embarcadero Delphi 2009
The Tiburon, Delphi 12 or Delphi 2009 was developed in late 2008 and came with a number of extra features including RTL, which gives full support for Unicode and a complete VCL reworking. Anonymous methods and generics were also added for native development in Win32.
On 25th of August 2009, version 13 was skipped when version 14 was developed. The version was code named Weaver. It came with a number of new features including debugger visualizers, formatter for source code, touch gestures and screens, Direct2D support for Windows 7 as well as new run-time type information (RTTI) compiler.
Other versions of Embarcadero Delphi include XE, starter edition, XE2, XE3, XE4, XE5, XE6, XE7, XE8, 10 Seattle and 10.1 Berlin.
Conclusion
Several versions of Delphi programming language have being developed over time, with each one featuring new featured and support for more platforms. Delphi programming language can now be used to program on different platforms including Android, iOS and Windows as well as on different processors include X86, MIPS and ARM.
There are several programming languages that are currently in use all over the world for developing different type of application for different platforms. One of such prominent programming language is Delphi programming language.