Delphi uses Free Pascal for their iPad support

August 6, 2011

Finally there's some more news about the new Delphi version, which will be called Delphi XE2. As expected, there is no VCL support for OS/X. All existing applications have to be re-written using the new Firemonkey library. So Lazarus will remain the only VCL-compatible option to develop for OS/X.

But what really was a surprise, is to see that Embarcadero also supports Firemonkey on the iPad. But that means they need to have an ARM-compiler. This mystery was solved by a comment from Michael Swindel. Embarcadero will uses the Free Pascal compiler for it's iPad support.

Patches are welcome

This is very good news. It does show that even Embarcadero consider Free Pascal to be a mature, stable compiler. Above that due to Free Pascal's gpl-license they are not allowed to alter the compiler without publishing the source-code. So maybe we will see some Free Pascal patches send in by Embarcadero employees. They are really welcome!

3 comments:

• hsn , on 22 February, 2012 at 20:41 said:

  Good job Embarcadero. This may be a good strategy to revive the glory of Delphi. By some means they need to make Delphi more popular. It is sad when people praise .NET's RAD features which had been present in Delphi since mid 1990's. Most developers have not heard of Delphi and many who heard that name thinks that it is an interpreted language like Visual Basic. Embarcardero should promote Delphi as the only RAD for Win32 and should build some framework for Device Drivers also.

• Shayne , on 16 April, 2012 at 11:36 said:

  i do wish Embacardo would realise that what actually killed Delphi's market share was that because it was impossible for student developers to afford delphi (without piracy) , their only option was dot net. And no, versions that have the ability to use open-source controls removed does not count. That was just an abuse of the open source community, and being disrespected like that as a student developer of open source delphi controls, was the last straw that drove me over to lazarus.

   

  Still I suppose this is a step in the right direction.

• saeed , on 12 July, 2013 at 15:01 said:

  To Embarcadero heads:

  High,

  This is a very good step and it may be succesfull if you think more wisely about software product competition. Surely closing the way for selling to some thousands of iranian delphi developers using the pirated versions is not wise. You may never realize the fact that there are many delphi programmers who are using the pirated version just for the problems they deal with like banning from purchase or the high price or the like. You are letting your compettitors like MS to run as fast as possible.

Post comment

Your email adress will not be published. The required fields are marked by *