This Moonsoft Masterclass to be held on 6th April, 2005 in Helsinki, Finland.

Why Should I Attend?

Like it or not, .NET is not going away. If you are unclear as to the significance of .NET then you should know that it is the heir apparent to the Win32 API. Just as developers were obliged to move from DOS programming to Win16, and then from Win16 programming to Win32, developers will need to move from Win32 programming to .NET. The next major version of Windows, code-named Longhorn, will expose all new features using only .NET APIs (currently referred to as WinFx) and Win32 will be supported for legacy applications only.

Delphi 2005 Borland's first version of Delphi to allow developers to target both the traditional Win32 platform as well as the Microsoft .NET Framework. The Delphi for .NET compiler is capable of generating safe, verifiable, secure managed code that runs on the .NET platform. Moving to .NET is a platform shift that takes a bit of adjustment in the same way that moving from Delphi 1 (for Win16) to Delphi 2 (for Win32) did.

This Masterclass looks at what issues you might bump into when trying to port your current Win32 applications over to .NET using Delphi 2005 and, where possible, how to overcome them.

What Will I See?

This is an outline of the planned agenda (not necessarily in the order listed):

• What is the problem?
• How will I get anything working?
• How have Borland helped?
• What will work?
• What won't work?
• How about this?
• Answers:
• Conditional compilation
• VCL.NET
• Namespaces
• Namespace prefixes
• Unit classes
• Class helpers
• Strings
• BDE
• dbGo (aka ADOExpress)
• dbExpress
• InterBase Express
• Destructors
• Finalization sections
• Typed/untyped files
• RTTI
• CHASM née BASM
• Pointer manipulation
• Direct memory access/manipulation
• 3rd party components
• WebBroker
• WebSnap
• IntraWeb
• ASP
• DataSnap
• BizSnap
• Decision Cube
• Web Services
• Automation
• COM programming
• Win32 API calls
• Custom DLLs
• The piecemeal approach
• COM Interop
• Platform Invocation Service
• Unmanaged exports

What Will I Know When I Leave?

Attendees will leave this Masterclass aware of what efforts the Borland R&D team put into supporting .NET in Delphi 2005 to help move as much legacy code onto the .NET platform as possible. You will also have a good idea of what will and won't work without taking too much time and trouble, and in the cases of things that will not readily port over, what alternatives are required/available to get the job done in a .NET system.

And you might see a couple of tricks that help make the new Borland Developer Studio IDE a little more welcoming.