Migration from Delphi to which 64 bit compiler? 3

[MatthewBragg]

I have a Delphi 6 app with about 100 VCL forms and 80 plain old api dialogs inherited from Borland Pascal. It has just a few third party components, nothing too unusual, no database. I am looking for the easiest way to convert it to a 64-bit application. Absolutely not interested in .NET or the project management stuff Borland/CodeGear are so keen on. But 64 bit will soon be essential.

It's a long time since I used any other programming environment and I love Delphi but it looks like I'm going to have to leave the Borland fold... or am I? I could wait a year for a 64 bit compiler but not longer. Any suggestions what an old Delphi hack would find easiest to switch to?

 

[whosrdaddy]

matthew, no need to leave!

read this:

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/259-codegear-puts-64-bit-on-the-roadmap.html

-----------------------------------------------------
What You See Is What You Get
Never underestimate tha powah of tha google!

 

[DjangMan]

64-bit/Commodore appears to have been pushed into mid-2009.

 

[TonHu]

My advice?: Just wait for the Commodore release to happen.
If you really need the 64 bit 'power', like huge amounts of memory, or large registers etc. then you wouldn't have been developing in Delphi for a long time.
For any standard app there is no need to switch to 64 bit as the turn-over to x64 for commonly used Windows OS's is going to the the best part of 5 years from now. Yes, the hardware is there and very capable, but no, nobody needs a x64 version of word or excel for the plain vanilla documents and spreadsheets.

All together: Just wait and see, but as allways: Be prepared...

HTH
TonHu

 

[roo0047]

Holy Itanium Batman!%#!
Daddy advised my D7 was getting a bit stale but I've had no reason to upgrade. I think I can hold off for just a little bit longer now. Good news!

Roo
Delphi Rules!

 

[MatthewBragg]

Thanks! for all the replies.

Some of my users (unlike me) have time to read the IT press so I tend to assume perhaps wrongly that they know what's going on. When they request a 64-bit version of my app I'm assuming that it's because they're anticipating all sorts of additional goodies akin to what followed the 16bit to 32bit step up. More number crunching power, memory, and security aren't necessary for my app but I'm interested to know what else might be available in the 64bit API that doesn't already exist in the 32bit world. I have trawled the net but can't really find anything useful amid the huge volume of stuff. The killer of course will be new Windows versions that fail to run 32 bit apps properly. Any clues anyone about (a) 64bit goodies and (b) any MS plans to exit from the 32bit world?

 

[DjangMan]

I can't speak to the extra goodies in a 64-bit API.

DOS is still around. 32-bit will be supported for a long, long time. The only 32/64-bit compatibility issue I've come across has to do with ODBC connections. System DSNs used by 64-bit apps are different than the one's used by 32-bit apps. The workaround is to create duplicate DSNs and you're past that issue.

 

[Demid2]

DjangMan, there are more compatibility issues than only ODBC connections. I've met that OLE DB provider for Microsoft Exchange 2007 exists only as 64-bit library, so now I'm also looking for any 64-bit compiler that I can use to build my projects written on Delphi 7. I'm sure that there are more examples of incompatibility than we can imagine.
As a development environment 32-bit Delphi is still good and there is no need to replace it with 64-bit one, but the 64-bit target _must_ be available.