Powerful Grid Component for Delphi
- By Matt Stephens
- January 28, 2006
A war is being waged on the GUI toolkit front. The Java camp (quite rightly) makes lots of noise about how powerful Java is becoming on the desktop. In the non-Java world, open source toolkits abound; and of course .NET excels at Windows integration, allowing the savvy developer to create some very slick native UIs with not a huge amount of effort.
But for all that noise, Borland Delphi developers just smile and quietly get on with it. They’re buoyed by the confidence of their “industry secret”: they’ve got the best IDE on the market, and the slickest UI components by far. And yet, Delphi just seems to slip beneath the open-source-obsessed industry radar.
For example, DevExpress’ ExpressQuantumGrid Suite (see the screenshot) provides a capable Grid and Data Editor library. It allows you to do some amazing stuff without writing a single line of code.
If you’re a Swing developer (like me), try downloading the Quantum Grid demos. You’ll be surprised!
I find it fascinating that, after all these years, Delphi continues to provide the most powerful desktop experience, and yet remains eclipsed by all the noise and kafuffle surrounding the other platforms. It reminds me of the school nerd, the quiet one who – while the brasher kids were making all the noise – went on to get the best grades, get the highest paid job (though probably not as a Delphi developer, it must be said) and live in the uptown neighbourhood.
Hold that thought - more about this in my next blog entry...