.NET 2.0 for Delphi Programmers explores .NET from a Delphi programmer's viewpoint, and it is ideal for Delphi programmers moving to .NET. It presents the core concepts of the .NET world in terms you are familiar with. This book will help you with Delphi for .NET as well as C#.
Apress publishes migration books for both VB 6 and C++ programmers moving to .NET. Consider this the Delphi installment of Apress migration books! There is ample coverage of C# as well as Delphi for .NET inside this newest addition.
It’s rough being a Delphi programmer. We know we have a wonderful, productive environment—
but jobs are few and far between. We know that we can write any sort of application with
Delphi—yet Delphi is seen as a GUI builder and a database front-end. We’ve all seen (or at least
heard of) systems where the ‘interesting parts’ are written in C or C++, in DLLs, and Delphi is
just used for the GUI interface. We may know C++ and have significant Win32 experience—and
yet not been considered for C++ jobs because we didn’t know MFC or ATL.
.NET changes that. All .NET languages use the same Framework Class Library (FCL). Learn
the FCL—in any language—and you’re a .NET programmer. “Learn once, work anywhere.”
What split the Windows programming world into mutually incompatible Delphi shops, VB
shops, and C++ shops was never the languages themselves. Picking up any particular language
has always been easy. The barriers to entry have always been the different libraries. Using a
different language meant learning a new library. Learning a new library meant that every little
thing required a documentation search; your productivity was near zero for weeks on end. But
with .NET, once you learn the Framework Classes, you can easily move from project to project
and from job to job.