A Look at Borland C#Builder from the Delphi Developers View

Transcription

1 A Look at Borland C#Builder from the Delphi Developers View A Borland White Paper August 2003 By Corbin Dunn, Research and Development Engineer, Borland Software Corporation

2 Contents Introduction... 3 The user interface... 3 Creating a new application... 4 Model view... 8 The tool palette... 9 Object Inspector...11 Code editor...12 Database development...13 The data explorer...14 ASP.NET applications...15 Debugger...17 Integration with Java...18 Integration with other solutions...19 Conclusion... Error! Bookmark not defined. 2

3 Introduction With the release of Microsoft Visual Studio.NET, development for Microsoft Windows has taken a new turn. To promote security and reliability, Microsoft is encouraging developers to write managed code for the.net Framework. At first glance this looks to mean an entirely new programming model, and there s even a new programming language, C#. Borland C#Builder is the first complete development solution for the.net Framework from Borland. C#Builder combines a first-rate IDE for both Windows Forms and Web Forms development with links to Java and a broad range of enterprise databases. For Borland Delphi developers that are accustomed to writing native Windows applications there is much to like in the C# language. While the language superficially resembles C, it has been designed to be accessible to new programmers. Similarly, Borland has designed C#Builder as an easy to learn and easy to use tool. Many of the features from Delphi will be familiar, including the approaches to application design, the code editor, and the debugger. Other features are appropriate for C# and the.net Framework, such as the streamlined Tool Palette and the new Model View. This paper discusses C#Builder from the perspective of a Delphi developer. What s different from Delphi, and what s the same? The user interface When C#Builder is first loaded it looks quite different from Delphi. There s no blank user interface. The long list of components across the top of the screen is missing. The Project Manager initially blank is displayed at top right with a new tool palette below it, also blank. 3

4 Initially, C#Builder displays a Welcome page in the center of the screen. This gives one-click access to resources such as the Borland Developer Network, newsgroups, and sample applications. It also includes a full C# tutorial for developers new to the language and a Getting Start guide to C#Builder. Figure 1: Borland C#Builder gives one-click access to tutorials and other resources Creating a new application While the initial impressions may be quite different from Delphi, the approach taken to development with C#Builder is very similar. When a Windows Forms application is created with File New, these similarities become obvious. A blank user interface is presented, with the properties for the form displayed in the Object 4

5 Inspector to the left. The Tool Palette now at bottom right displays visual components that can be placed on the form using the familiar drag-and-drop or double-click. At the bottom of the central pane are tabs to switch between the Design view and the Code for the form. Like Delphi, each form has a unit of source code associated with it. Unlike Delphi, the initial properties for the form and the components in it are set through this same unit of source code there s no equivalent to Delphi s DFM form file. Developers familiar with Borland JBuilder will have seen this approach already. At top right the Project Manager shows that this new application currently consists of the source code unit for the Windows Form and an AssemblyInfo file. Windows Forms C# applications do not have an executable project source file rather, a static Main method is included in the form designated as the start-up. The AssemblyInfo.cs file contains copyright information, version information, a code signature and other general information about the application. 5

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7 Figure 2: The Borland C#Builder IDE includes Live Tools, displaying live data from ADO.NET connections Like Delphi, an Object Repository is available to create standard forms and applications. If we choose File New to insert a new form, C#Builder creates a new unit of source code and adds it to the Project Manager in the same way as Delphi. With two forms in the application another difference between Delphi and C#Builder becomes apparent. By default, C#Builder uses one single window divided into a group of panes; Delphi, by contrast, has a separate window for each form in the application. C#Builder uses tabs at the top of the central pane to switch between each form. This approach makes it immediately obvious which unit of source code belongs to which form. It also makes the screen display much less cluttered. 7

8 Our outline of the C#Builder interface merely describes the default layout of the C#Builder windows. If preferred, the IDE can be undocked, and like Delphi the desktop arrangement can be saved. Different layouts are available for application design and for debugging. Model View An important new innovation is the Model View. This is located in a tab underneath the Project Manager at top right, and gives a symbolic view of the logical structure of the application, based on the C# class hierarchy. For large applications with many source code units this view can be easier to navigate than one based on file names. Figure 3: The Model View is a logical view of an application The Model View is the launch pad for the Code Visualization capabilities. This looks further into the code and creates a Unified Modeling Lanuguage, or UML -style model of part or all of the 8

9 application. This greatly assists documentation and understanding of the code, and can serve to be a useful check on the structure of the application. Figure 4: Code Visualization creates a UML model view of the application The model is displayed in a central pane, and it s possible to navigate through the source by right clicking on individual elements in the view. The tool palette By default, below the Project Manager and Model View is the Tool Palette. This has been substantially reworked from Delphi and is now much easier to use, especially when large numbers of components are installed. 9

10 C#Builder uses the standard.net Framework, so any.net components can be used, no matter what language they are designed in. This means that C#Builder developers can use any third-party component that is compatible with the.net Framework SDK version 1.1. Figure 5: Two views of the Tool Palette, showing how it is extremely configurable The palette is extremely configurable, allowing the individual developer to customize it to suit their needs. Palette buttons and categories can easily be dragged around to place them in a more convenient order. Category colors can be individually customized, and for expert users button captions can be turned off to save space and time. A new Search option at the top of the Tool Palette incrementally filters the list of components displayed. If the name of the component is known this makes it much easier to narrow down a search. A further significant benefit of using the.net Framework components is that the Microsoft help for the class library is available directly from the C#Builder user interface. This includes extensive 10

11 C# code samples and cross-references, each of which is as appropriate to C#Builder as it is to any other.net Framework SDK development tool. Object Inspector This improved help extends to the Object Inspector as well. This broadly resembles the Delphi version, with items grouped in categories and those changed from their defaults marked in bold. However, each property and event now displays a one-line explanation at the bottom of the Object Inspector, which is especially useful when using a new component for the first time. Figure 6: The C#Builder Object Inspector includes additional help 11

12 While Delphi has always been able to include Component Editors on right-click context menus, C#Builder also includes links to these at the bottom of the Object Inspector. This makes it clearer to see what editors are available. Code editor One area that will be immediately familiar is the code editor, but this too has changes that make it even easier to use. All the familiar features and keystrokes (including F9 for run with debugging ) are available, together with the standard Borland syntax highlighting, now updated for C#. CodeInsight remains, although it has naturally been updated to understand the C# language and provide the same abilities previously seen for Delphi, C++ and Java. It also supports HTML so it is especially useful when combined with the new visual Web Forms designer. Figure 7: Two views of the same code: on the right, Code Folding has been used to hide the detail of some methods 12

13 An important new feature is code folding. The developer can now collapse a portion of code, temporarily hiding it. This provides a general outline, similar to the interface section of a Delphi unit, and provides the developer with a clearer view of the source. Other changes are subtle but no less important. Rather than the begin and end of Delphi, C# uses C-like braces; the editor automatically highlights opening and closing pairs making it easy to check for mismatched pairs. The same feature is used to identify opening and closing braces, quotes and parentheses. Syntax errors are denoted by red wavy underlines, as in Microsoft Word because C# is case-sensitive, this can provide immediate feedback to prevent simple mistakes! The new Tool Palette in C#Builder changes depending on context, and when code is displayed a set of Code Snippets are available. These are simple code extracts that can quickly be selected and dropped into the program especially useful, for example, remembering the C# syntax for a loop. Database development The approach to creating applications, then, is broadly similar to that used for Delphi. Applications are built of units of code, which may optionally be used for Windows forms. The significant differences are in the component library and, in particular, the way that the components are put together for database access and Web applications. Rather than the different Borland database technologies, database access from C#Builder uses the standard ADO.NET technology with, optionally, additional.net components provided by Borland. The first major difference encountered by Delphi database application developers is that there is no equivalent to the DataModule. Rather, non-visual components that are used for data access are placed in the bottom margin of the visual designer. Here they appear as separate icons so their properties can be set as if they were located on the form. In another major difference from Delphi, the components on a form are by default marked as private and are therefore not accessible by objects on other forms. This suggests that database 13

14 handling is best done in a set of centralized public methods on one single form, which are then made available to other units of code as necessary. Borland C#Builder includes all of the standard ADO.NET database components. However, one drawback to these is that they are closely tied to Microsoft SQL Server and do not make it easy to link to other databases such as Oracle, IBM DB2, or Borland InterBase there is no simple dialog to configure the connection string for these links. A second drawback is that live data is not available at design time instead, the developer works blind. To make life a little easier, the Borland Data Provider (BDP) comprises four components (bdpconnection, bdpdataadapter, bdpcommand and bdpcommandbuilder) that substitute for ADO.NET equivalents. When used with Windows Forms components they deliver live data to the designer, so the developer can see exactly what s going on. A full set of dialogs is provided to configure links to databases, including connections to any ADO.NET data source. The Data Explorer The BDP uses connections that are defined through the Data Explorer. This pane, under the Project Manager at top right of the interface, gives an easy to use interface for browsing data on different servers. The browser can drill down to tables, individual fields and indices, and also lists stored procedures and views. 14

15 Figure 8: The Data Explorer works for all Borland DataProvider compatible databases An especially convenient feature is the ability to drag and drop from the Data Explorer to a Windows Form or Web Form. This automatically places BDP components on the form and configures them to point to each other. ASP.NET applications Perhaps the biggest difference in the user interface of C#Builder is the approach taken to Webbased applications. In place of the different Internet server technologies seen in recent versions of Delphi, C#Builder uses the Microsoft ASP.NET classes in the.net Framework. 15

16 The ASP.NET system manages a great deal of the interaction between the Web browser and the server. An URL is translated to a Web form, which is defined by an.aspx HTML file that is preprocessed and delivered to the Web browser. Additional custom program code can be included in a code-behind C# language file, which is run at the server when the Web form is delivered. C#Builder makes ASP.NET very easy to program. A full graphical Web form designer can be used to lay out Web pages using either a grid layout or the more standard HTML document-style layout. The HTML that is generated is standard, with the addition of extra tags for Web Forms HTML components that are pre-processed at the server. When designing a Web Form, C#Builder makes these HTML components available in the Tool Palette as if they were regular.net Framework components. The properties of these components (and the other HTML elements) can be set using the Object Inspector in the familiar way. Figure 9: Creating an ASP.NET application 16

17 Alternatively, the code editor can be used to directly edit the HTML mark-up. The code editor includes CodeInsight for HTML, helping prompt for the more obscure tags and options. Pairs of tags (such as <p> and </p>) are highlighted in the same way as pairs of braces in C#, helping to track down syntax issues. The two-way nature of the HTML designer makes it possible to switch between layout and HTML mark-up seamlessly and quickly. All the latest Internet Explorer browser extensions (including CSS2 layout) are supported in the visual designer so making C#Builder a very effective Web page designer in its own right. Like other.net components, HTML components have properties and events that can be defined in the Object Inspector. Program code can be defined against the events in the code-behind C# source code. The Web Form shows three tabs on the bottom of the editor, so C#Builder makes it very easy to switch between the form, the HTML, and the code-behind file. Debugger Delphi developers will feel at home with the C#Builder debugger. Although it works with the.net Framework Common Language Runtime rather than Win32, the features of the debugger are broadly similar to those in Delphi. All the familiar features are available including breakpoint groups, conditional breakpoints, conditional exception handling, and breakpoint actions. In a breakpoint, the Debug Inspector works in the same way as Delphi, and tool-tip expression evaluation is available in the source code. The debugger supports multiple threads, helping solve the more difficult programming problems. It can attach to remote processes on different machines, and can be used to debug ASP.NET applications by hosting the application on either a local or remote IIS server. 17

18 Integration with Java While not a piece of the user interface, Borland C#Builder Enterprise is shipped with a developer license for Borland Janeva. This is a powerful middleware solution for client-side application development for.net systems that need to communicate with J2EE or CORBA applications. Wizards to create C# header files for J2EE archives are included with C#Builder, as are tools to automatically convert CORBA IDL into C#. When linked with the appropriate Janeva assemblies an application can refer to Java or CORBA objects as if they were part of the.net Framework. Janeva handles the appropriate marshalling of objects between the J2EE or CORBA servers and C#. Figure 10: Borland Janeva allows CORBA and J2EE applications to be used from C# Under the hood, Janeva is a 100% managed code solution it is an implementation of Borland Enterprise Server VisiBroker Edition in J#.NET. No direct calls to Windows are made, so applications that use Janeva inherit all the security and reliability features of the.net Framework and can be signed accordingly. 18

19 Integration with other solutions Borland recognizes that C#Builder is likely to be just one of the pieces of software used by developers to build applications for the.net Framework. It is designed, therefore, to have many points of integration with other systems. First, C#Builder imports and exports complete Windows Forms and Web Forms projects to and from Microsoft Visual Studio.NET. This means that teams of developers can use the powerful capabilities in C#Builder to supplement the work under way by other teams; it also makes it possible to shift quickly from Visual Studio.NET to C#Builder. Secondly, C#Builder integrates directly with solutions from Borland and from other vendors for different steps of the application lifecycle. For instance, a pane can display requirements from Borland CaliberRM right in the user interface. Menu options are available to check a project out of or into source-code control systems and change management systems such as Borland StarTeam. Figure 11: The integration with Borland CaliberRM shows the close relationship with other products in the lifecycle 19

20 Finally, C#Builder provides a direct link with Borland Optimizeit Profiler for the Microsoft.NET Framework. This powerful application profiler can identify performance issues and memory problems with.net applications. The integration with C#Builder makes it possible to profile an application during development, saving time and delivering a better product. Conclusion Borland Delphi developers will quickly find themselves at home with Borland C#Builder. Many of the features of the two solutions are the same, from editor keystrokes to the approach to development. However, C#Builder has been designed to take advantage of the unique features of the C# language. It works very closely with the Microsoft.NET Framework SDK technologies such as ADO.NET and especially ASP.NET. Unlike other development solutions, Borland C#Builder helps developers create.net Framework applications that work closely alongside technologies such as Java and with databases like IBM DB2 and Oracle. It also includes links with modelling tools, requirements management solutions, source code management utilities and application profilers. To Delphi developers, the result is a powerful combination a programming environment that is familiar, but which works with the latest Microsoft standards for programming, can include thirdparty components, and has links to Java and beyond. Made in Borland Copyright 2003 Borland Software Corporation. All rights reserved. All Borland brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Borland Software Corporation in the United States and other countries. Microsoft, Windows, and other Microsoft product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. Corporate Headquarters: 100 Enterprise Way, Scotts Valley, CA Offices in: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States