| Selection of Delphi Books |
This list includes only the best of the heaps of books on Borland Delphi that are presently available. If you wonder why all these book have such high ratings: I just did not bother listing the bad books as that would only be a waste of my and your time. Borland Delphi is the tool used at JGsoft to produce fine software such as EditPad, HelpScribble and DeployMaster.
If you feel like buying one of the books, simply click on the title to add the book to your shopping cart at Amazon.com (based in the USA) or at Amazon.co.uk (based in the United Kingdom), two huge on-line bookstores. They offer very sharp prices and make sure that the books will be shipped to you as soon as possible. For best services, buy from Amazon.co.uk if you are living in Europe and from Amazon.com if you are living elsewhere. If you change your mind about buying the book, or wish to order another one as well, just hit the back button of your browser to get back to this page.
Delphi in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference by Ray Lischner
561 pages - Published by O'Reilly & associates, March 2000
$ Buy "Delphi in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Delphi in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference" from Amazon.co.uk
While most Delphi books cover the VCL (Visual Component Library) and all of its specialized components, Delphi in a Nutshell focuses on the Object Pascal programming language and core units such as SysUtils. It contains very valuable information that any serious Delphi developer needs, but is unfortunately not covered at all in most other books. The opening chapters discuss the Object Pascal language and its implementation in Delphi, with detailed information on RTTI (Run-Time Type Information) and the Delphi object model. There is a chapter called "concurrent programming" that discusses threads in deep; a difficult subject most books just mention briefly. The last and largest chapter of the book is an extremely detailed reference to Delphi's core units such as System and SysUtils, describing keyword, directive, function, procedure, variable, class, method, and property. The parameters, return values and even error conditions of functions and procedures are explained clearly.There is only one problem with this book: the binding. You will use the reference material in this book so often it will start to fall apart quite soon.A must-have book for all Delphi developers. Buy it now!
Mastering Delphi 5 by Marco Cantù
1120 pages - Published by Sybex, October 1999
$ Buy "Mastering Delphi 5" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Mastering Delphi 5" from Amazon.co.ukCertainly one of the best books available for anyone who is interested in using Borland Delphi, for both beginners and intermediate users. The author takes the time to teach you the necessary basic skills you need to build successful software, while the last chapters in the book give you a good introduction to more advanced programming topics like DDE, OLE, component building, undocumented features, etc.Even if the book is aimed towards beginning and intermediate users, advanced Delphi programmers can still learn a lot from it. This (and the size of the book) makes it clear how good the book is.All the author's points are illustrated with examples of which only the key parts are listed in the book. The book does not come with a CD-ROM, but all of the example source code can be downloaded from the Internet.A highly recommended book for any Delphi developer. Click on the title to buy it.
Mastering Delphi 4 by Marco Cantù
1328 pages - Published by Sybex, 1998
$ Buy "Mastering Delphi 4" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Mastering Delphi 4" from Amazon.co.ukThe Delphi 4 edition of this book is still available. Mastering Delphi has been a bestseller series since Delphi 1.
Delphi 5 Developer's Guide by Steve Teixeira, Xavier Pacheco and David Intersimone
1200 pages - with CD-ROM - Published by Sams, December 1999
$ Buy "Delphi 5 Developer's Guide" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Delphi 5 Developer's Guide" from Amazon.co.ukD5 Developers Guide is probably the best book there is for the more seasoned Delphi developer. While the book starts out with an introduction on Object Pascal and the VCL (which a seasoned developer is already familiar with), the value of this book is the in-depth coverage of more advanced topics like the Win32 API, DLLs, multithreading and synchronization problems, shell programming, COM, building ActiveX controls, DCOM (distributed COM), MTS (Microsoft Transaction Server) and Delphi's CORBA support. Database topics include ADO (ActiveX Data Objects), client/server development, WebBroker, NSAPI and ISAPI Internet Applications, thin client applications and MIDAS, Borland's solution for multi-tier database development.If the book is not thick enough for you, the accompanying CD-ROM contains 11 extra chapters on more specialized topics.
Delphi COM Programming by Eric Harmon
500 pages - Published by MacMilland Technical Publishing, January 2000
$ Buy "Delphi COM Programming" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Delphi COM Programming" from Amazon.co.ukIf your Windows application needs to interact with the operating system or other applications, you do not have much choice other than learning Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM). Most books on COM focus on Visual C++ or Visual Basic as the development tools, but this book is written for the Delphi developer. Delphi is a powerful tool and very well suited for building COM-based applications and components.The book teaches you COM basics, COM interfaces, Windows shell extensions, DCOM (distributed programming), ActiveX controls, and much more. If your Delphi app needs COM, do not look further and buy this book.
Delphi Developer's Guide to OpenGL by Jon Q. Jacobs
450 pages - WordWare Publishing, June 1999
$ Buy "Delphi Developer's Guide to OpenGL" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Delphi Developer's Guide to OpenGL" from Amazon.co.ukOpenGL is a 3D graphics library that is part of Windows 98 and later versions. If you ever wondered how the Win98 "3D Text" screensaver was made, OpenGL is the answer. But when you go shopping for a book on OpenGL, you will find that (almost) all of them provide only sample code in C, which is unpleasant if Delphi is your way of life.Then this book will come to your rescue. It teaches the basics of 3D graphics rendering and how you can add 3D to your Delphi application using OpenGL. Basic topics like OpenGL drawing on a Delphi form and lightning types (specular, diffuse and ambient) are clearly explained. Then the book dives deeper in more advanced subjects like fog, transparency and mapping textures to surfaces. It also has a good chapter on "picking", that is, allowing the user of your application to manipulate 3D objects, selecting ("picking") them with the mouse.The book assumes that you have experience with Delphi, but not necessarily with OpenGL or other 3D libraries. If you want to become an OpenGL expert (using Delphi), you will probably want to buy a more advanced OpenGL book after reading this one. Once you know how to use basic OpenGL in Delphi, you will not have any problems implementing the examples from other, C-based OpenGL books in Delphi.
Advanced Delphi Developer's Guide to ADO by Alex Fedorov, Natalia Elmanova
500 pages - with CD-ROM - WordWare Publishing, June 2000
$ Buy "Advanced Delphi Developer's Guide to ADO" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Advanced Delphi Developer's Guide to ADO" from Amazon.co.ukIf you want to use a Microsoft database such as Access or SQL Server with Delphi, ADO (ActiveX Data Objects, Microsoft's standard for database communication) is the way to go. Delphi 5 Enterprise contains many ADO database components that work just like the old BDE components, so if your task is simple you will not have any trouble. However, if your application is quite complex and/or it depends heavily on a database, buy this book to get the most out of ADO. No need to rely on any Microsoft documentation, which is of course ignorant about Delphi.
| Older but still interesting Delphi books |
Though all the books below carry an older Delphi version number in their title, they are still interesting even if you use the latest Delphi version. Any book written for Delphi 3 or later is still useful, as there haven't been any earth-shocking changes to Delphi since that version.
Teach Yourself Delphi 4 in 21 Days by Kent Reisdorph
918 pages - Published by Sams, June 1998
$ Buy "Teach Yourself Delphi 4 in 21 Days" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Teach Yourself Delphi 4 in 21 Days" from Amazon.co.ukThis book is aimed at beginning to intermediate Delphi developers. It starts out with the basics of Object Pascal programming and the Delphi 4 environment. Then it moves on to real Windows programming and also covers more complicated subjects like creating/using DLLs and ActiveX controls, graphics and multimedia programming, Internet programming.An excellent tutorial that will give you a solid foundation and get you on to speed with Delphi.You can read this book online at http://www.informit.com/product/0672312867/. If you prefer the printed version, buy it right away from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk by clicking on one of the links above.
Delphi 4 Unleashed by Charles Calvert
with CD-ROM - 1400 pages - Published by Sams, October 1998
$ Buy "Delphi 4 Unleashed" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Delphi 4 Unleashed" from Amazon.co.ukWritten by a member of Borland's technical support team, Delphi 4 Unleashed is one of the most popular Delphi books. It covers about anything you need to know about programming with Delphi. Both beginners and advanced programmers will enjoy the many information presented in this book.The book is clearly written, but the editor could have done a better job. Nevertheless, if you need a good and complete reference on Delphi, put Delphi 4 Unleashed on your shelf.
Delphi 4 Bible by Tom Swan
with CD-ROM - 953 pages - Published by IDG Books Worldwide, August 1998
$ Buy "Delphi 4 Bible" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Delphi 4 Bible" from Amazon.co.ukWritten by the best-selling author Tom Swan, this guide is packed with over 100 example applications (full applications, not snippets). The complete sources are on the included CD-ROM.With step-by-step instructions and expert advice, it teaches you how to take the full advantage of Delphi 4. Much attention is paid to user interface design, which other books often sorely lack.
The Tomes of Delphi 3: Win32 Core API by John Ayres et al.
includes CD-ROM - 750 pages - Wordware Publishing, December 1997
$ Buy "The Tomes of Delphi 3: Win32 Core API" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "The Tomes of Delphi 3: Win32 Core API" from Amazon.co.uk
The Tomes of Delphi 3: Win32 Graphical API by John Ayres et al.
includes CD-ROM - 800 pages - Wordware Publishing, March 1998
$ Buy "The Tomes of Delphi 3: Win32 Graphical API" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "The Tomes of Delphi 3: Win32 Graphical API" from Amazon.co.ukTo be able to let your applications make use of the full power of the operating system, you need to be able to access its core functions directly, without any framework setup by your development tool. In this case, this means directly calling the Win32 API routines which reside in various DLLs.Therefore there are many good books available that cover the Win32 API. However, most seem to ignore the fact that not everybody likes or uses C++.The Tomes of Delphi series also cover the same topic, but all function imports, example code, etc. is presented as 100% pure Object Pascal code which you can directly insert into your Delphi projects. While they were written with Delphi 3 in mind, they are equally useful if you are using any later Delphi version.These are must-have books for any serious Delphi developer. Click on the titles to put them in your shopping cart.
Hidden Paths of Delphi 3 by Ray Lischner
includes CD-ROM - 350 pages - Published by Informant Communications Group, 1997
$ Buy "Hidden Paths of Delphi 3" from Amazon.com
£ Buy "Hidden Paths of Delphi 3" from Amazon.co.ukHidden Paths of Delphi 3: Experts, Wizards and the Open Tools API covers Delphi 3's Open Tools API, a misunderstood and completely undocumented, yet very powerful aspect of Delphi 3 programming. Using the Open Tools API, you can write property editors, component editors and experts that integrate into the Delphi IDE. Included on the accompanying CD-ROM are tools and utilities for working with the Open Tools API.If you write VCL components or utilities that work with Delphi, use the Open Tools API to integrate your tools into Delphi. This will make your software easy to use and give it a professional image. But do not bother to even try without the valuable information presented in this book.Note that this book does not replace Ray's previous book: Secrets of Delphi. In Secrets of Delphi, the Open Tools API is only one of the many subjects. The book is meant for advanced developers. Rating: 9 out of 10
If you feel a particular book of great quality, is missing in my selection, feel free to drop me a message.
| Page URL: http://www.jgsoft.com/bookdelphi.html Last Modified: 07 June 2001 | Copyright © 1999-2001 Jan Goyvaerts. All rights reserved. |