.NET, 32 Bit, and 64 Bit in Delphi

While this is not really new anymore, I just feel like I have to write about it again. The longer I think about it, the more excited I do get. Honestly, I can't hardly wait for a native 64 Bit compiler anymore, but we all will have to wait I guess a little longer.

Currently I am listening to the 24 hours of DeXter with Danny Thorpe. Now, looking at the roadmap just published in more detail and the information that accompanied it, that Borland has given green light for a Unicode VCL... Wow! I can't wait anymore...

Since 2000 I am part of a team developing a web content management system, which is totally running Unicode support. Thanks to the browsers that support UTF-8 we did not have to worry much about that side of live. But creating some offline clients... well there are controls and components out there, that are especially targeted for such environments, but we did not want to create a whole part of our system on third-party components on that scale.

Back to Dannys part. He said, that they would like to create a Unicode VCL especially for the 64 bit compiler. There are problems when taking the current VCL applications that do not support Unicode, so they have to find a way around that. So they probably will support the current VCL as-is and have the Unicode VCL for 64 bit applications. Yet, you will be able to take that application and compile it for 32 bit targets. Now, I think that sounds exciting, doesn't it?

Don't forget, Borland has given green light for a Unicode VCL development. Now, I guess they need the resources. Are you willing to get me over there? Helloooo....!