Delphi Programming Tips & Tricks

The Delphi 13.2 update has just been released. Ever since the 13.1 update and the new LLVM-based Windows ARM compiler, the LLVM toolchain has entered a cycle of rapid development and improvements. 13.2 continues that trend with a completely revamped 64-bit Linux compiler, which can now be integrated with the 64-bit Delphi IDE. The new Linux compiler is based on LLVM 20, just like the Windows ARMEC compiler, and the debugger format has been upgraded from DWARF v2 to v4, resulting in more complete debug information. The new LLVM toolchain also brings two very important improvements: IR optimizations for better performance of compiled applications, and parallel compiling — parallel code generation — for those two newest LLVM-based compilers: Linux and Windows ARMEC. Of course, turning on code optimization slows down the application building process, but this is where parallel code generation steps in and gives a significant performance boost. Parallel code generation is a configurabl...

There is no better feeling than creating a brand new code repository. For a brief moment, you will have a nice, clean slate without bugs of any sorts, without hacky workarounds, with none of the sauceless spaghetti and half-baked features you never managed to fully write and maintain, but which eventually turn your codebase into a technical debt obstacle course. But that joyous feeling does not last too long. Bit by bit, and sometimes by leaps and bounds, that nice, clean codebase will start to go south, acquiring some, if not all, of the dreadful issues every developer fears. This kind of deterioration is inevitable. No matter what you do, no matter how careful you or your team are, the growing complexity will take its toll. Yes, the more careful and experienced you are, the slower the decline, but anyone claiming they have a perfect codebase is either delusional or has never worked with large-scale systems in production. At some point, small bugs and issues accumulate, the archite...