Customer Reviews

Sams Teach Yourself Delphi 4 in 21 Days

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I purchased Delphi 5, and also the Developers Guide - but found it difficult to actually program in Delphi. I have a very strong programming background in procedural languages, but not in C or C++ or any other OO paradigm, and the Delphi manual and Delphi 5 Developers guide are far too advanced for beginners. This book was very easy for me to understand, and although I think that the subject matter simply cannot be mastered in 21 days this was the only book that was able to explain many of the reasons why (and how) you would use the different VCL components. Although there are many cases where more complex examples would have helped, I think that it was appropriate for the author to ignore them. This is obviously a beginners book. I would have preffered some more details on some of the more "odd" language features such as the typecasting, the use of "AS" and "IS", peculiarities of creating classes, etc, as well as some more info on the Object Pascal language and some programing conventions that may help to reduce coding errors - the syntax is particularly odd in its use of semi-colons, a fact that Borland admits in its own documentation as one of the prime reasons for intorduction of program 'bugs'.

One of the nice features of the book is the end of chapter tutorials. I did them and found the they did re-inforce the chapters, and also provided additional stimulus. You are encouraged to use the on-line help, and it does help. There is no way to progrm in Delphi without it. In order to really follow along you must interact with the software.

The book does not come with a CD, you must download sample code from the Internet, which is a bit of a bother.

In summary a very good book. The examples and text work for Delphi 5 as well as Delphi 4. I think that any beginning Delphi programmer should have this plus an advanced book, and they should be ready to take on most projects.

An ideal book for anyone who wishes to begin learning Delphi (version 4, 5 or 6). I an experienced Visual Basic programmer and purchased Delphi 5 hoping to use the on-line documentation to learn Delphi but found it too advanced and not an ideal learning environment. (On-line help tends to be a great reference tool but it's always hard to learn from.) I then purchased the Delphi Developers Guide, which seems to be regarded as the best book on the subject. Although a superb book in its own right, its not aimed at beginners. I have now completed the Sams Delphi 4 in 21 days, and let me say, its a terrific book for beginners, which teaches in a lesson format, which is actually surprisingly easy and fun to follow. Dont be put off by the Version 4 title either, all the lessons work just fine in Delphi 5.

This book is good if you have a particular application in mind - as the author himself states.

It provides clear examples but could be improved with the addition of some CD-interactive software. Reisdorph really emphasises the basics of Delphi and his attempts to ensure that his strategies are understood are quite impressive.

However, the book is geared toward an INTERACTIVE and EVOLUTIONARY learning. Although one could develop a basic ability to use Delphi as a platform in conjunction with C (and derivatives) or Prolog, for example, the book as a helpful description of the potential manipulation of Delphi as an entity is rather poor.

Buy this book if you want to

a) work quickly and intensively to get the Delphi basics

b) use Delphi for a project which must be completed soon and on a relatively basic level

c) get a quick grounding of Delphi so that you can progress on your own more investigative initiative once you have read the book

d) get some good ideas of how to use the software you've just bought and don't want to wade through the manual.

This is a very good book, excelent writing, but not for beginers; you need to know the fundamentals of object oriented programing (OOP), although the author takes a chapter to explain objects and classes, it is not enough, you need to understand, or at least have an idea of the concept of objects and inheritance to comprehend better how Delphi works.

Besides that, the author explains in a very well manner how the intefase of Delphi works, how to start making your first applications and how to make them fast!, application debugging, project managing, user interfase and database interfase are very well explained; also it covers some basics on creatting visual components and the internet, which is explained in a good manner, not too deap but fair.

So, I recomend this book to get acquainted with the Delphi rappid application developping interface (RAD) and to get to know the basics of visual components; then, after a while, get Masters or Developers edition and continue learning more indepth.

This book is the best Delphi book i've seen. If you are a beginner in Delphi programming you don't need those Unleashed and Developer books, cause they are for advanced users only. This book takes you step by step in the world of Delphi programming and it teaches you all you need to know about Delphi and Object Pascal.When you finish with this one you'll probably have a good idea what those advanced books are all about...

I was pleasantly surprised the author wasted no time inteaching the fundamentals of Object Pascal. Instead of making you gothrough 5 chapters just to learn about 2 or 3 topics, he hits you with it at a pretty quick pace. This book includes almost everything in Delphi, except for some advanced topics, etc. I'm overall very impressed. The only reason I gave the book 4 stars is because it is somewhat misleading about who the book is for. It says it assumes no prior programming experience but, in my opinion you'd have much more of an advantage in reading this book by knowing some basic programming concepts & terminology. To make a long story short, I do not regret the money I spent on this book. Thank you.

At first I was very exciting of learning delphi. Although I studied turbo pascal at past and I know about coding in pascal programming it was still impossible for me to make programs at delphi after this book. The writer must change the name of the book as "Teach Yourself Delphi 4 in 21 Weeks" and then he must make the book contain more details about programming.

I have been programming in Delphi for a year and a half now. I started out with really bad books and the quirky Borland manual. I snagged the book the moment it came out. The book does very well in the explaining department. The IDE is explained very well and so are OOP fundamentals. After you finish the book, the VCL help (F1) should be enough. When you want to jump to windows API programming, the win32.hlp is an excellent (free) tool. I really recommend this book if you are just starting off, with a wee bit of programming knowledge.

If you're looking for a good book to introduce the IDE for Delphi 4, then this is the book for you. If you want to learn Object Pascal, don't buy this book (fortunately I learned Pascal a few years ago). I pleased with how the book was written, I was able to scan through the book in four or five days.

For people that are familiar with both Visual Basic and Pascal this should be a fairly easy read. Additionally, the book highlights some of the different features available in Delphi's Visual Component Library.

If you want to know how to make forms look good, this is the book for you! If you want to learn Object-Oriented Pascal, look elsewhere!

I write code for a living. Most of the people who tell you this book is great, are non-professionals who are "playing" on their computers in their basements. As a "pro", I can tell you that if you want to do this for a living, you have got to have a thorough understanding of the underlying code. Just being able to create forms with buttons and drop down lists ain't gonna cut it in the real world. Learn O O Pascal elsewhere, keep this book as a reference.