Delphi is a powerful and versatile development environment. Its main programming language is Object Pascal. The story of Delphi goes back to the mid-1990s when Borland created it. Delphi quickly became q preferred tool for developing Windows applications. It was suitable for small utilities to complex enterprise software.
Delphi conquered the hearts of developers for producing fast, native code with a rich set of components. It became especially popular for business applications because they demanded high performance, robustness, and ease of maintenance.
Today, companies still rely on Delphi. While these applications are still robust, they face growing pressure from advancing technologies and changing customer expectations. However, companies struggle to stay up-to-date because the software is not easily integrated with modern services or responds to new regulations.
If the software wasn’t updated to comply with modern standards, it can become increasingly expensive and difficult to support. This puts the business at risk. The risk grows when key team members leave the company. Delphi software upgrade allows companies to use their strong code bases and also add new functionality. By doing this, they improve the performance of software and extend its lifespan.
In this article, we are going to talk about what you should know about Delphi modernization.
Why Modernization Matters for Your Business.
Here’s a list of reasons why modernization is critical:
#1 Reducing Technical Debt
Legacy applications often have small issues, shortcuts, or outdated components – all these things are considered technical debt. It is harmful to the business because it makes ongoing app maintenance more difficult and more expensive.
Technical debt accumulates over time. It adds complexity and slows down your business's ability to develop and implement new features. It also drains 10-20% of IT budgets from new initiatives into remediation.
Modernization offers an effective solution to pay down the technical debt. It is the way to ensure apps’ easier maintenance, faster delivery of new functionality, and a more stable platform for future growth.
#2 Extending Application Lifespan
Legacy code and components can cause bottlenecks as your data grows or your business evolves. When you update those components and optimize their architecture, your application is enabled to handle larger workloads, respond faster, and provide a better experience for users.
Also, modernizing lets you extend the lifespan of your application. Rewriting everything from scratch can take months or even years. But with modernization, you can retain your proven business logic and add new technologies. This allows you to breathe new life into your software.
#3 Adding Modern Features to Stay Competitive
Today, the market dictates that software be more adaptable and connected. You might need mobile access, integrations with third-party services, or new APIs. For this, a modernized application is much easier and more flexible.
As a result, without creating a completely new application by rewriting, you meet market requirements and customer demands by modernizing your applications.
#4 Improving UI/UX
To retain users and improve productivity, you should think about UX (user experience). Difficult and outdated UI prevents users from being productive. By adding convenient controls, a clear and consistent design, and a responsive and adaptable layout, you make your app easier to use.
Considerations When Modernizing Your Delphi Application
How to Upgrade Third-Party Components
One of the first things you need to do when modernizing your Delphi application is take a close look at your third-party components. They can be a big dependency, but might have fallen out of maintenance. They can also not be compatible with newer Delphi versions.
In this case, you should start by making a complete inventory of all components your application uses. Check whether the vendors still provide updated versions, or a community might still support them.
If you have the source code for a third-party library, the process is often simpler. You can simply rebuild it against your new IDE and compiler. If not, you might need to find alternative components. Also, newer Delphi versions simplify Unicode migration via automated tools.
Updating Your App to Unicode
Today’s software is expected to serve various customers, for example, of different nationalities. Unicode lets you handle all of these gracefully with a single standard character representation. Without Unicode, your application may break when it parses, displays, or stores text in a non-English script.
To understand if you need Unicode migration, ask yourself these questions:
- Do you need to support multiple languages or character sets?
- Are your users experiencing problems with character representation?
- Are these components, routines, or databases that are not Unicode-safe?
But if your app is only in English, and you have a very clear character set and don’t experience any problems with character representation, a Unicode migration might not be necessary. But for applications with international user bases, Unicode support can bring future growth.
Database Modernization
The Borland Database Engine (BDE) was a powerful solution for many years, but it’s been deprecated for over a decade. This can bring drawbacks, such as no Unicode support, no support for 64-bit systems, poor performance, and security concerns. Without fixes and patches, there may be vulnerabilities that compromise your application’s data.
A modern data access framework is FireDAC. It is a powerful solution designed to provide high performance and ease of use. It allows you to connect to a wide range of databases, including Oracle, MySQL, SQLite, and more. Migrating BDE to FireDAC improves query speed by 30%.
Updating Middleware
Middleware is a communication layer between your application's business logic and its clients. Often, this is where your application handles data exchange, business rules, and service orchestrations. If you update your middleware, you get:
- Extended functionality to other platforms. Simply put, your users will be able to access the services on smartphones, tablets, and more.
- Improved performance and scalability.
- Interoperability. You can connect your app with databases, messaging queues, and enterprise services.
Final Thoughts
Modernizing your Delphi application is more than a technical refresh. It allows you to increase its value, adaptability, and competitiveness. Instead of rewriting the app from scratch, modernization allows you to reuse your existing code, extend its functionality to new platforms and business opportunities.
This process requires expertise, planning, and testing, but the result is worth it. Modernization is a way to future innovations.