Delphi is Borland's rapid application development environment for Windows 95/NT based on Object Pascal. Although the Delphi tools take a lot of the hard work out of application development one still needs to know Object Pascal to understand what is going on and to be able to create efficient systems. After a chapter introducing the IDE and tools there are chapters introducing Object Pascal basics (in effect procedural/modular programming), OO concepts (classes and the run-time library) and error handling. The Delphi Component Library and application development is then described. There are then sections on database development, extending components and OLE and ActiveX. The final section of the book is entitled 'advanced topics' covering graphics programming, threads, DLL programming, developing applications for the WWW, sharing code with C++ and accessing the Windows API libraries. There is plenty of detailed discussion with example programs to support the concepts covered. Each chapter finishes with a summary (which one can read first to find out what is in a chapter). The CD contains the example code, various tools and HTML versions of four QUE books (but no Delphi - you will have to buy that).

A very comprehensive text for the experienced programmer who wishes to learn Delphi and use it to develop complex real-world programs (and interface these to existing code). Too large (and expensive) for a set student text but useful in the library as background reading and to support final year or postgraduate projects using Delphi.