My Top 3 Delphi wishes


Accepting Nick's blog invitation, I hereby submit my Santa wishlist for
Delphi:
I limit myself to three main themes:

1) Improved IDE Configuration Management / Versioning control:
The key point here is for the user to be in control of key aspects
of the IDE that affect the compiled output. In particular, library paths
that point to specific versions of component sets (which could be
'upgraded' many times within the average 12-18 month primary
duty period of a particular Delphi IDE version), or
even the RTL/VCL itself (think of bug fixes in update packs).
Furthermore, with the current practice of 'hotfixes', the
configuration management of the IDE is under mounting pressure.
Being able to go back to earlier configurations to support
older software releases is becoming increasingly difficult.
Some more aspects of this need are reflected in the following
two QC reports:
a) General patch rollback / interop issues:
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=10702
b) Include Delphi Configuration Manager:
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=10703

Theme 2): Improved compiler support for safe coding practices
Using compiler-assisted analysis, I would like to see "sharper"
outputs during compilation in terms of accurate and useful hints
and warnings, for example regarding potentially dangerous
duplicate identifier usages and unintentional "scope brittleness".
Another thing - false or useless warnings and hints
should be avoided or made optional, e.g. the "
Furthermore, I miss better support for exception handling
e.g. a propagation path analysis.
This theme is covered by e.g. the following QC reports:
2a) Uses clause cleanup function
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=1600
2b) Support for detecting duplicate identifiers
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=1615
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=8770
2c) Uses clause bloat to be avoided
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=7174
2d) Exception path analysis tool:
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=1556

Theme 3): Fixing Class Completion
The "magic wand" Ctrl+Shift+C has run into some new
trouble lately, and some long-standing nuisances also need to get fixed:
3a) Class completion option: No alphabetical method insertion
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=30283
(with associated issues:
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=24391
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=23222 )
3b) Class completion fails if a method has nested type declarations
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=26485
3c) Class completion fails for default parameters
http://qc.borland.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=2269

That's it... the Top-3 :-)

--
Kristofer



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