Discover algorithm performance, high- and low-level optimizations, and the internal behavior of programs written in the Delphi language

Key Features

• Discover external programming libraries that will speed up your programming and code
• Learn to integrate external libraries into Delphi programs
• Build fast Delphi applications using concurrency, parallel programming, and memory management

Book Description

Performance matters! Users hate to use programs that are not responsive to interactions or run too slow to be useful. While becoming a programmer is simple enough, you require dedication and hard work to achieve an advanced level of programming proficiency where you know how to write fast code.

This book begins by helping you explore algorithms and algorithmic complexity and continues by describing tools that can help you find slow parts of your code. Subsequent chapters will provide you with practical ideas about optimizing code by doing less work or doing it in a smarter way. The book also teaches you how to use optimized data structures from the Spring4D library, along with exploring data structures that are not part of the standard Delphi runtime library.

The second part of the book talks about parallel programming. You'll learn about the problems that only occur in multithreaded code and explore various approaches to fixing them effectively. The concluding chapters provide instructions on writing parallel code in different ways – by using basic threading support or focusing on advanced concepts such as tasks and parallel patterns.

By the end of this book, you'll have learned to look at your programs from a totally different perspective and will be equipped to effortlessly make your code faster than it is now.

What you will learn

• Get to grips with algorithmic complexity and learn how to recognize it
• Use tools to determine program runtime behavior
• Speed up programs by doing less instead of more
• Discover the internal workings of Delphi data structures
• Gain an understanding of Delphi's memory manager
• Find out how to write low-level parallel programs with TThread
• Use parallel patterns from the PPL and OTL libraries to write fast code
• Include external code, written in C or C++, in Delphi programs

Who this book is for

This book is for all Delphi programmers. Whether you're a beginner or an accomplished programmer, you will find something interesting. Even though the focus is on the latest Delphi release, the code uses only standard Delphi syntax without syntactic additions from the latest releases, and most of it should compile and run in any Delphi from XE7 onward. If you're using an older version of Delphi, don't despair! Most of the concepts in this book do not depend on a specific Delphi version and will be useful for everyone.

Table of Contents

1. About Performance
2. Profiling the Code
3. Fixing the Algorithm
4. Don't Reinvent, Reuse
5. Fine-Tuning the Code
6. Memory Management
7. Getting Started with the Parallel World
8. Working with Parallel Tools
9. Exploring Parallel Practices
10. More Parallel Patterns
11. Using External Libraries
12. Best Practices

About the Author

Primož Gabrijelčič started coding in Pascal on 8-bit micros in the 1980s and he never looked back. In the last 25 years, he was mostly programming high-availability server applications used in the broadcasting industry. A result of this focus was the open source parallel programming library for Delphi―OmniThreadLibrary. He’s also an avid writer and has written several hundred articles, and he is a frequent speaker at Delphi conferences, where he likes to talk about complicated topics ranging from memory management to creating custom compilers.