Delphi High Performance: Master the art of concurrency, parallel programming, and memory management to build fast Delphi apps

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.

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