Since the start of the RAD Studio XE2 World Tour the word is out. Delphi XE2 will have 64-bit compiler, support for OSX and iOS applications with their new FireMonkey GUI framework and LiveBindings. If you haven't read the detailed RAD STUDIO XE2: Launch Event Report yet - now is the time to do it.
When I heared about some built-in data binding architecture for the first time I was very excited. It was just a headword on the roadmap for Project "Wheelhouse" but now we know it will be coming with XE2!
Unfortunately there have been much more informations and speculations about the 64-bit compiler, the support for other operating systems and the FireMonkey framework than for those LiveBindings.
On the official Embarcadero forums there has been some discussion about what to expect. WPF and Cocoa have been mentioned. It has also been mentioned in Auckland that there will be some expression engine to do more than just simply add the TCustomer.LastName property to some TEdit.Text but use some kind of scripting. How will this work? Will there be some designtime support for it to make sure you don't have typos in it (one of the major drawbacks in my current implementation)? Also will the whole binding architecture be supported by new language features to make it save at compile time (like property references or built-in change notifications)?
Lots of questions but only few informations (yet). But we can guess, speculate and wish. So please feel free and leave a comment about what you expect from LiveBindings in Delphi XE2.
LiveBindings is a new name (and may be a bit of polising) to the concept (Open Wire) that has been professed since ages by Bion the creator of VideoLab and similar products.
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So basically I am not that thrilled except for the fact that now all Delphi developers will flock around LiveBindings (oops! Open Wire) which they had been ignoring till date. It was surprising that even VCL developers never looked closely at Open Wire but they will start looking at this concept under a microscope (so to say) and try to integrate it in their component, why? because the so to day GODS of Delphi have said so.!?!?!?!?
LiveBindings is similar do dotnet property binding. Openwire implements special input and output pins as object properties that enable a piped stream processing. The concepts are totally different.
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