Customer Reviews

Mastering Delphi 7

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's right that it's not for a complete new comer, it's somewhat based on its previous versions. Because there's not a lot of Delphi books(not like C#... so many of them) for Delphi developers, it's still a very good book you can get for Delphi, it gives readers basic introductions to the new features of Delphi7... very concise introductions, as well as some "old" features but author wanted to highlight.

This book is probably the most exhaustive material on delphi programming...it contains at least 300 examples scattered throughout 25 chapters..apparently though this book is full of code snippets that had me printing code on paper just to get through one chapter(and a chapter contains an average of 15 examples chapter 2 had 19 examples and Chapter 7 had 33 examples)that by the time you finish a chapter youll be exhausted...me on my part it got me on spending at least 20 minutes printing codes on paper due to all the snippets of the examples on this book..the chapter on Client/Server Programming with dbexpress is kinda cloggy....since it presented a convoluted approach to dbexpress..and in order to be able to atleast understand the examples specifically on triggers and stored procedures you should have at least read the TEACH YOURSELF INTERBASE documentation kit that came along with interbase...this chapter focuses more on Interbase Express rather than DBExpress so it kinda makes the substance of the chapter incoherrent...For People wishing to dig deep into DBExpress i suggest ya read another book...DELPHI/KYLIX DATABASE DEVELOPMENT by ERIC HARMON
The examples specifically on creating triggers is erroneous:

Create trigger set_cust_no for customers
before insert position 0 as
begin
new.cust_no = gen_id(cust_no_gen, 1);
end

cantu forgot about the termination statement issue on trigger statements on SQL Servers he should have written

set term ^;
Create trigger set_cust_no for customers
before insert position 0 as
begin
new.cust_no = gen_id(cust_no_gen, 1);
end^
set term ;^

if ya wanna go up to speed in the book i suggest reading(Chapter 2,3,5,6,7,8,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22)
Chapter 2 focuses more on the object oriented programming on delphi on the class level

chapter 8 focuses on oop on the form design level

Chapters 13 - 19 focuses on database programming

Chapter 20 - 22 focuses on Simple object access protocol, XML and internet and server-side programming using sockets and TCP/IP

overall the book has not one complete code...everything is a snippet which would ultimately eat away a lotta time..youve gotta download the code on www.marcocantu.com and use a printer. In conclusion youll end up spending more money printing the codes than buying this book...But still its the best book around on delphi..but youve gotta be extremely patient and determined if ya wanna learn delphi programming because a chapter of this book will get you very very exhausted

This is the best general purpose Delphi Book on the Market. Mr. Cantu again shows that he knows Delphi as he continues this series of books.

Ignore what adiv says; every review he writes is negative.

If you are serious about Delphi programming you need this book!

Im from the Philippines and I really like Delphi...I just keep on wondering why the hell doesnt delphi kick the living daylights out of Visual Basic!!!....I hate Visual Basic with the utmost intensity!!!.....
Well I kinda got out of leage there but heres what I think about this book....
1. This book is advisable only for persons who have been exposed to at least more or less the simple control structures in C or Basic or Pascal
2. This book isnt for newbies a background of Pascal is needed to get the job done.
3. The author's arrogance pisses me off.. A good example would be
Page 518 on the Data Aware Example...The author wrote "The program has some code to fill in the table with random values. This code is tedious and not too complex, SO I WONT DISCUSS IT HERE...(IT IS FORGIVABLE FOR PEOPLE WITH PROGRAMMING BACKGROUNDS LIKE ME BUT FOR NEWBIES.... WELL MY GOD WHERE DOES HE PLAN TO DISCUSS THESE...I SURE HOPE IT WONT BE IN THE MARSHALL ISLANDS!!!)
4. Thankfully his arrogance is redeemed by the availability of free e-books on his website www.marcocantu.com look for the books Essential Pascal and Essential Delphi
5. The book all in all is a good referrence....given the notion that you know C or Pascal
6. For Delphi programmers we dont have much of a choice but go for Marco Cantu because the availability of referrences on delphi is very scarce.
7. I gave it 4 stars because..I must not review this solely on my perspective but on the perspective of people who are just beginning to learn programming..THE BOOK SAYS FOR ALL LEVELS HELL YES FOR TWO LEVELS MAYBE INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED BUT NOT HONESTLY FOR BEGINNERS..

To cover all the reviews so far, they all have a bit of truth in them.

The book is not for the absolute beginner, but then no one book can cover it all. The book is basically for anyone that has learnt to move past the "hello world" program and understands normal programming theory (variables, loops, records etc), and really wants to get involved in "real world" programming.

This book teaches use of multiple forms in applications (how many single form applications, really exist in the real world, except for beginners books), differences in the use of Delphi Database Architectures, the use of the JET engine for access to Excel, etc., the use of Web Services and a little more in depth on Rave etc. as well as an introduction to .NET programming

If you are an absolute beginner programmer(nothing wrong with that), then another book may be more suitable, but if you are already across several languages, then this book is probably what you need to move to the next step.

Yes it is true, that the absolute basics have diminished with each book, but how many ways can you write the if...then loop, and I still have my Delphi 2 and 3 books for the basics (if I hit a mental block).

Anyhow, I hope this makes it a lot clearer, like all his previous books, it is well written and another welcome addition to my library.

This book is more of the reference type, not one you should try reading page by page as a tutorial. If that is what you are looking for, I recommend any beginner to check out 'Delphi in a Nutshell' , by O'reilly. Mastering Delphi 7 seemed to perfectly explain the IDE(Integrated Devlopment Enviornment), but over a course of about 800 pages. I dont think that the Delphi programming language was discussed enough in this book, it was more like a in depth way of explaining every feature of Delphi 7, the program.

yesterday I received the book by international shipping. As I have read the first 14 pages I am really satisfied with the cost that I pay. Thanks to God (to create such a man), thanks to marco and thanks to amazon of course.

I bought this book soley for the purpose of learning dbexpress - which hooks delphi up with a relational database management system. Delphi dbexpress accocomplishes this by setting up a collection of some six objects, which must have various flags, options, fields and parameters set and which must be correctly linked. Mr. Cantu fails to mention any of these flags, etc., gives only the sketchiest examples of code, and provides us with suplementary 'code' which apparently fails to either compile or to give us the details on the states and linkages of the objects. One more week of flailing and hacking my way through the dbexpress morass, and I should be able to write a much better tutorial/reference than has Mr. Cantu -- for all the respect he has in the field. It is possible that writing one definitive book on delphi, which does so much in so many different arenas, is simply too formidable a task.

a good book for the newcomer and better trained. I have bought it some weeks before and have it beside my projects laying on the table. It is over the whole themes and into the deep of borlands evergreen compiler a good help in my opinion. I don't have to regret my purchase - think so. My own projects do profit from it. My last project was to make some control for a radio pll program and I think some hints from this book came me to the right time :-) Look to my project at http://www.peter-geisler.de if you want. I have some older books beginning from delphi 2 then delphi 5 and 6. OOP is now in version 7 the rule. To learn OOP but you have to read one or some more other books too, I suppose.

I bought this book for getting one step further in delphi. But it took me ten steps further. Adviced to who need to real mastering in delphi.