Originally shared by tim anderson
Originally shared by tim anderson
Delphi and RAD Studio 2015 roadmap: no Universal Apps? http://bit.ly/18OaWsZ
http://bit.ly/18OaWsZ
Delphi and RAD Studio 2015 roadmap: no Universal Apps? http://bit.ly/18OaWsZ
http://bit.ly/18OaWsZ
Not exactly a glowing article, is it.
ReplyDeleteDavid Millington From what has been presented, I think the article is pretty realistic. There are, after all, two pages of disclaimers on the roadmap, and as little as that roadmap offers, clearly, there are no promises in it.
ReplyDeleteI understand very well the costs and risks in committing early to a new Windows initiative. On the other hand, holding back will generate no excitement.
When the roadmap was introduced, I read it, and was bothered by the disclaimers -- and their position of dominance in the document, but even more by the weak and sometimes sloppy language in the roadmap itself. Why so much wiggle room in the language, when the disclaimers declare the document to be of no real meaning?
As far as I know not being able to build universal apps with Delphi at this point is because MS does not provide the necessary bits outside of Visual Studio. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Runtime#Delphi
ReplyDeleteStefan Glienke It's not a dependence on Visual Studio. You don't need to be inside VS to build a WinRT app. You can either target IL and .net. Or you can build an unmanaged app that links against the MS runtime. Even then, I'm not sure how viable it would be to make another unmanaged compiler spit out WinRT code linked against the MS runtime.
ReplyDeleteSo for third party tools vendors IL is really the option that is available. And as we all know, Emba gave up on their .net compiler. I guess if they wanted to support WinRT they'd need to resuscitate it.
But why would they invest time and effort into WinRT which is not yet mainstream? There's a much bigger case for WinMo.
Delphi is still the best Win32 (and Win64) development platform. That's still important, but unfortunately in short order that will be pure legacy. It's difficult to make a serious argument that the future of Windows will have anything to do with Win32. Those of us who have hitched our wagon to the Delphi IDE will either be left out in the future or have to move on to other tools, it would seem.
ReplyDeleteDavid Millington Not really a glowing roadmap either. This is exactly kind of article one can expect based on this roadmap.
ReplyDeleteQT can compile as WinRT App last year。And QT is native C++ compiler like delphi. QT support MS WRL , so their app acceptable by Ms store.
ReplyDeleteIt seems EMBT still hope wrapping win32 api like VC++ RTL does. I know this is easier way to let Delphi can target WinRT apps. However, MS disagree it.
AFAK，WinRT is just a COM based framework base on Win 32 API.
Sam Shaw Qt is not a compiler. Qt is a cross-platform library. Presumably these Qt apps for WinRT are being compiled by the MS compiler.
ReplyDeleteDavid Heffernan，I know that. I just try to say that delphi components could be native ABI compatible to WinRT framework without .NET IL.
ReplyDeleteSam Shaw No they cannot. Read Allens quote in the wikipedia link I posted earlier.
ReplyDeleteSam Shaw No, that's not true. In fact I'm not aware of any unmanaged compiler other than the MS compiler that can target WinRT.
ReplyDeleteDavid Heffernan , Stefan Glienke Thank you. According to the information, seems the only way to let delphi WinRT apps acceptable by MS store is let delphi RTL depends on VC++ RTL, which can surroagte some calls, like VirtualAlloc ? However, even this is true the only way can do, why not just depends on it? AFAK, delphi in IOS, it depends on objetive-C runtime to route the simula style method to small talk style message/receiver.
ReplyDeleteSam Shaw That's a good question. RTLs are complex beasts, though! Perhaps Marco Cantù can answer...
ReplyDeleteI know I'd like to be able to write Metro apps and tiles, if it was possible in Delphi.
Sam Shaw I really don't think it's easy to do. If it were, surely there would be other unmanaged compilers targeting WinRT. And even if you could target it, what toolkit would you use. You wouldn't use VCL or FMX I guess because it would only make sense to use the native platform UI.
ReplyDeleteDavid Heffernan Would there be? (I'm asking, not arguing.) Is there a meaningful market for WinRT? Is the product alive and well? I'm asking because I simply haven't followed it. Busy with desktop apps.
ReplyDeleteBill Meyer Would there be what? At the moment WinRT is a pointless platform. Perhaps Win10 will change that.
ReplyDeleteWin10 is a strange OS. If you don't have the public preview installed, fire up a VM and try it. It's Windows 8 + a hybrid start menu + Metro apps in windows, with incredibly ugly window manager chrome. It feels like it's made of lego blocks and the UI gives me a feeling of "ouch, sharp corners" like I'm about to step on a Lego brick.
ReplyDeleteStrange, bizarre, hybrid and not cohesive at all, doesn't seem to fix anything introduced by Windows 8 that I (an admittedly brief user of Win8) can see.
That said, Metro apps are common on it, and are now first-class citizens. It would be a very strange situation for Delphi, which until a few yeas ago was famous as Windows-only UI-creation-focused app development system, to not support a key UI on Windows.
David Heffernan Would there be other unmanaged compilers targeting it? I'm questioning the assertion in your earlier post.
ReplyDeleteYou can built to WinRT through MinGW-64. The work for that was done collaborating with the VLC video player folks. I gather it involved a lot of rewriting fundamental layers to remove 'illegal' API calls, and they link to the VC runtime.
ReplyDeleteSo it is possible, and, now someone has managed it and the required changes are in public view, probably a lot quicker to do for another compiler the second time around.
Bill Meyer I'm sure Delphi would support WinRT if it were easy to do.
ReplyDeleteDavid Millington I don't think it's ever been in doubt that it is technically possible. But it's quite a stretch to have to link to another compiler's runtime. Much easier for a C++ compiler to link to a C++ runtime. Surely more effort for Emba to hook up a Delphi to a C++ runtime than it was for the gcc devs. And I don't think that the Emba compiler devs are as capable as the gcc devs.
I'm still not sure what to think of the roadmap as it is really thin. Using a different RTL is not viable, so there is a catch-22 for WinRT that will not be resolved anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteNot terribly willing to add extra info on the roadmap, given it was the result of some balancing act. On the specific criticism about "vagueness" in Windows 10 support, I'd like to ask Tim Anderson (and others) if Microsoft has unveiled any API support for the new coming features. Microsoft has been eager to explain what's in the product, but NOT how to program against it. At this point we don't even know what a "Universal app" is in precise technical details. And we don't know if any new API will be available for Win32/Win64. The SDK is not public, how can we explain how we'll support it? Microsoft has promised to unveil information at BUILD, so we could as well update our roadmap after their announcements.
ReplyDeleteHas anything changed in Win10 since Win8 RT compiler restriction?
ReplyDeleteWin10 doesn't exist yet. Perhaps there will be a change re WinRT. Frankly though that would seem unlikely.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that http://mashable.com/2015/02/04/windows-rt-dead/
ReplyDeleteUniversal apps are based on new Windows Runtime, not its half-cousine Windows RT.
I guess, we shall wait and see :)
So... what is the difference between Windows Runtime and Windows RT? WinRT was afaik a version of Windows that only supported apps using the runtime. Even if WinRT is dead, the runtime lives on because (I think?) it is the basis for Metro apps...?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Runtime
ReplyDeleteSo - yes, the Windows Runtime still exists.
ReplyDelete