HTML5 Builder for Delphi Lovers

HTML5 Builder is currently the best technology for those who have a Delphi background and need to create for a PHP/HTML environment with occasional JavaScript, plus it’s free inside your RAD Studio subscription.

Whether you’ve purchased my book or not, please feel free to Email me your migration experiences.  In a year or so I may do a second and expanded edition and will benefit from your stories.

I’m hearing from people that the hardest part starting up is learning or dealing with PHP.  First of all, the language is nowhere near as typed as Object Pascal, so you are more likely to make mistakes the compiler cannot detect.

Also, $value is different from $valuue is different from value with no $.  Small typos like those are easy to make but the compiler treats them as different uninitialized variables or a constant. Delphi would catch such mistakes in an instant and give more insight in the error message.

Those new to C like languages often make the if (a = b ) mistake, where the if statement can assign b to a.

Control-D reformats both Delphi and HTML5 Builder code, but Embarcadero simply will not reformat PHP if it has an error in the code, … whereas with Delphi that is how you FIND forgotten BEGINs and ENDs.  I hope a future version fixes that oversight.

There is one area I wish to comment on and direct you to a different product:  If you are writing a pure javascript application with little or no PHP, like an HTML5 mobile app, I would recommend against HTML5 Builder and redirect you to a little gem called Smart Mobile Studio.  It lets you write in Delphi-like Object Pascal, and it compiles to pure and fast JavaScript. 

HTML5 Builder javascript programs are a pain to debug, but SMS’s Object Pascal.  There are lots of examples, but little documentation.  There is a book available, but it is incomplete and hasn't been updated in over 3 years.  I don’t have any monetary interest in it, but I found it was very useful for a project that was taking too long in HTML Builder for JavaSciprt.

Keep in touch.