2

I hope that this question gets clear to everyone.

What I find great about Delphi is that with RAD (rapid application development) we can pick components and put them directly to the form and connect them to other components and methods.

It's so good that when I need to make an application that share information I use a remote online database server, but I don't make a Web site. I use zeos library and make a Delphi application.

But it is become dangerous as my clients are beginning to ask for use with tablets and smartphones.

What I hate about Web is the hard manual development of the interface and connection with the controllers.

But I might be wrong as there could exist great tools and Delphi like ide to work as fast as the real Delphi.

*Does anyone experience that? *

I tried rad php xe but I find it very complicated to code as you have to mix php and javascript in the same files and does not have a good mvc structure.

Dreamweaver is full of bugs and does not have a debug

PhpEd has good code control but does not have interface editor.

So,How to make a master-detail database Web site as fast as making the same with Delphi. Which visual IDE should I use?

pnuts
  • 58,317
  • 11
  • 87
  • 139
NaN
  • 8,596
  • 20
  • 79
  • 153
  • 1
    This question is not appropriate for StackOverflow. This site is for [specific questions](http://stackoverflow.com/faq#dontask), not general discussion or software recommendations, and it's definitely not for "How can I make a web site fast?" questions (that's entirely too vague). Sorry, but voting to close as not constructive. – Ken White Feb 27 '13 at 18:37
  • 3
    Can't this be moved to programmers.stackexchange.com? – Leonardo Herrera Feb 27 '13 at 20:11
  • @Leonardo: It's off-topic there as well, according to the [FAQ](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/faq). This is a discussion question which asks for opinion and speculation ("What's the best IDE for ...?"), and those types of questions are generally off-topic at most SE sites. It's important to check the guidelines for a site before voting to migrate things there. – Ken White Feb 27 '13 at 23:05
  • 1
    Well, Ken, I did. Actually, asking about tools is allowed here - including what to use. It says you shouldn't ask others about their favorites, or opinions. In programmers they are explicit in say that if you are asking about tools you should ask here - so I think you are overzealous on this. Sadly I cannot revoke my vote. – Leonardo Herrera Feb 27 '13 at 23:37
  • 1
    @Leonardo: The site is for *specific questions about actual problems* (see the [specific FAQ statement](http://stackoverflow.com/faq#dontask). It also specifically mentions that "What's the best" type questions are not appropriate here (in the same specific section). This question asks "What's the best IDE...?", which is clearly a "what's the best" question, and is clearly not specific. :-) But OK; we can agree to disagree here. – Ken White Feb 28 '13 at 02:06
  • 1
    I suggest c# and asp.net – Warren P Feb 28 '13 at 02:58
  • That's a good answer, Warren. – Leonardo Herrera Feb 28 '13 at 03:10
  • I just found Embarcadero HTML5 Builder that comes with Delphi XE3 – NaN Mar 02 '13 at 01:50

3 Answers3

3

There are a number of large and small considerations to make when developing a website, that differ from making a desktop application. It's easy to imagine a RAD IDE environment that allows you to drag and drop components onto a page, and have the work done for you to convert it into a website that responds to requests, but it in general this will hide a lot of important properties of the website that have a big impact on its operation and performance.

A website is hosted on a webserver (or several webservers), generally serves concurrent requests for multiple users, and streams content to a web-browser that renders the page on screen. Any self-respecting modern website will also use smaller AJAX requests to add data to an existing page, and use client-side scripting for validation and navigation. Not to forget alternate views for the visually impaired, mobile devices, or other applications that want to hook up to an API.

The truth is a platform that does all this for you could exist, but in my opinion will underperform, produce overly large pages and will have made important decisions for you, you will run into as soon as the applications gets more complex, or needs to perform under a certain load.

There is a reason cutting-edge web-developers work close to the code (HTML, JavaScript, CSS...) and even prefer to have pieces of code and server-side logic in the same source files, like PHP,ASP,Cold Fusion,Ruby,Python... I wanted to combine this with the speed and power of the Delphi compiler and started http://xxm.sf.net/ that enables you to create both small and huge projects, keep in close touch with the code that constructs the response for a request, and lets you choose how and where you host the website.

I hope this in part answers your question, though you did not ask for ways to make a master-detail website with Delphi.

Stijn Sanders
  • 35,982
  • 11
  • 45
  • 67
3

DevExpress offers beautiful grids and other controls in case that's what you are looking for. It's not for Delphi but ASP.NET.

Leonardo Herrera
  • 8,388
  • 5
  • 36
  • 66
  • 1
    Agreed c# and asp.net is the best. – Warren P Feb 28 '13 at 02:59
  • Interesting. But concerning to Microsoft... I will need to use IIS, Windows and Silverlight, right? – NaN Feb 28 '13 at 13:42
  • Silverlight is a different beast. Windows is almost unavoidable. I think it is possible to deploy ASP.NET to Mono (so it can be used under Apache) but I have no idea how reliable is that. There are also some free IDEs. – Leonardo Herrera Feb 28 '13 at 16:10
  • 1
    If you want a cross-platform non-windows-only solution then look at Python and Ruby instead. They are fantastic Web-development languages. None have heavy-weight IDEs like Delphi or Visual Studio which is what you said you wanted. I am not a big PHP fan, but HTML5Builder is fantastic if you want to go with PHP. – Warren P Mar 01 '13 at 00:52
1

I suggest Delphi using IntraWeb. I've used it in the past, and it worked fairly well.

I suggest looking at the thread Alternatives for IntraWeb in Delphi? as a starting point which also discusses IntraWeb like products.

A description of IntraWeb from that thread:

Intraweb is a framework for developing web applications using Delphi/VCL. In the IDE you design and code using Delphi language and components. Intraweb's engine generates HTML pages using JavaScript/Ajax and those pages look and behave more or less like Delphi forms and components, but in the browser context. An Intraweb application is deployed using a webServer of some sort, which serves up those pages to browser based clients. – Mikey May 21 '11 at 6:09

You would, of course, have to host the app on a Windows server, since the code that Intraweb creates will only run on Windows.

Community
  • 1
  • 1
Dennis
  • 51
  • 3
  • Only for 1 to 500 users. Not for 1000 or 500000 simultaneous users. – Warren P Feb 28 '13 at 02:56
  • It is nice but limited for user numbers. And we need some solution that works over linux on contracted shared servers adn they don't allow executables :( – NaN Feb 28 '13 at 13:23
  • I don't have experience with more than a few users, but the [atozed website](http://www.atozed.com/intraweb/Management/index.EN.aspx) does say, "Whether you have 10, 100, or 100,000 users IntraWeb can handle the load." Nothing I can do about the Linux / no executables restriction. – Dennis Feb 28 '13 at 19:32