Object Pascal Handbook

What Hacker News says

1. fuzztesterMar 2025
   Which Delphi version(s) can the book be used with?

   I like Delphi and FreePascal and Lazarus and have used all of them a little, now and then, to create some small personal and paid business apps, Delphi in multiple versions with gaps between versions, from 2 onwards until the 'Berlin' version, IIRC.

   And yes, thanks, Marco, for making this book available. I had bought a copy of one of your Delphi books around the 3 to 5 version timeframe, cannot remember which version right now.

   Also, I had downloaded your Object Pascal Handbook a few years ago, which is a great resource, because we devs need to know our programming language well too, not just the IDE or the libraries, which is what some book authors focus on. Thanks for that too.

   Need to set aside some time to do some more Pascal work for fun and profit.

   Show morethread
2. chadcmulliganJan 2022
   Compared to the others you mention Delphi is streets ahead. There's a free download at https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/free-dow...

   Here's some resources to get you started

   There's a free book here: https://lp.embarcadero.com/Object-Pascal-Handbook-2021

   and another here (pdf) (probably the best to start) https://www.marcocantu.com/edelphi/EssentialDelphi_1033_2020...

   There's intro videos here https://www.embarcadero.com/resources/videos

   They have a YouTube channel here, that has a lot of more in depth stuff https://www.youtube.com/c/EmbarcaderoTechnologies

   There's some books by Nick Hodges (former delphi product manager) 'Coding in Delphi' and 'More coding in delphi' for more advanced stuff

   The negatives with delphi are its been poorly marketed for years, and it costs money to use, though the community edition is available now. Object pascal is a bit dated imho, but what makes Delphi powerful is the components, there's 2 the VCL which is the original in windows only, then fire monkey which is the new cross platform one.

   If you want to see components have a look at tmssoftware.com for some drag and drop components, you can even make web applications with Delphi with their web components (they cross compile to javascript)

   Show morethread
3. gompertzSep 2021
   If that's what your looking for, I find books that are adopted as university textbooks are best. i.e. C Programming Modern Approach by KN King, Object Pascal Handbook by Marco Cantu. Generally I'm staying away from O'Reilly, No Starch Press etc.. They all feel like books created by pasting a bunch of blog posts together. University texts are usually twice the price, but IMHO worth it - they are made for teaching knowledge, not just sharing it.
   Show morethread
4. doozyOct 2017
   For the better or the worse, Delphi has become the defacto standard Pascal implementation. Free Pascal aims to be compatible with it and Lazarus is pretty much a clone of Delphi 7. If memory serves right, neither Cantu's Essential Pascal book, which is a brief introduction to the language, nor his comprehensive Object Pascal Handbook cover the VCL but focus on the language itself.

   You may want to ask these questions in the Free Pascal community, this stuff is too uncool for the HN crowd.

   Show morethread
5. anta40May 2015
   http://cc.embarcadero.com/item/30018

   Object Pascal Handbook by Marco Cantu

   Available to registered users of Delphi XE8, RAD Studio XE8, C++Builder XE8, and Embarcadero All-Access XE This promotional item are available on XE7 purchases made after January 1, 2015 and for XE8 purchases made after April 7, 2015.

   That's the link, I guess.

   thread