Is Delphi suitable for COM add-ins?

[Nick Hebb]

I was wondering whether anyone here had used Delphi for doing COM add-
ins. If so, is it a viable option? Are there any problems with it or
anything I should know before investing any time looking into it? I
recall reading a negative comment about using it for COM add-ins, but
it wasn't very specific.

Thanks,

Nicholas Hebb

 

[dsfs]

Hello Nick,

To my mind Delphi is the best platform for developing COM add-ins. Just have
a look at my signature

Regards from Belarus,
Eugene Starostin

 

[Nick Hebb]

Hi Eugene,

I've seen your product before, and I've always thought it looked
interesting. I currently use VB6 for COM add-ins, and after reading
all the problems .NET developers have on this forum, I'm glad I stuck
with it. But VB6 isn't going to be a viable option forever, so I'd
really like to know what it is about Delphi that makes you say it's
the "best platform for developing COM add-ins."

Are there any known issues that Delphi developers have to work around,
or is it as seamless as VB6?

Thanks,

Nicholas Hebb
BreezeTree Software
http://www.breezetree.com

 

[dsfs]

Nick,

There are a couple of points very important for me:

1. Native Win32 code. Fast and compact.
2. Easy deployment.
3. No additional assemblies and .net framework. Welcome to a new dll-hell on
..NET.

As for known issues I know one, your add-in is unmanaged so you have to
treat more carefully Office COM-interfaces to prevent your hostapp from
crashing (it is this that exception trapping is invented for).

Please note this is just my opinion. Sure, there are many others.

Regards from Belarus,
Eugene Starostin

 

[Sascha Trowitzsch]

Hi,

I developed some VBA-COM-Addins using VB6 and also some in Delphi.
The advantage of Delphi is that it's less limitated in functions, it's
faster and has the possibility to use a whole world of embedded (free)
components without the necessity to deploy more than one dll.
On the other side it is much more complex to program for COM in Delphi. VB
makes it much easier to handle the OLE data types. In Delphi you have always
to cast the OLE types of parameters or results to delphi types.
For addins where the UI is not so important and where the limited amount of
functions does not matter I keep on using VB6.

Ciao, Sascha

 

[Nick Hebb]

Eugene and Sascha,

Thanks for the replies. I don't know Delphi, but I may decide to take
it up based on your feedback.

Nicholas Hebb
BreezeTree Software
http://www.breezetree.com