Although I've flirted with other languages, all of my shareware applications (HomeSite, TopStyle, FeedDemon) were coded using Borland Delphi.
One of the great things about Delphi is that there are so many
excellent third-party components and tools available, many of which
were just honored in Delphi Informant Magazine's 2004 Readers Choice Awards. Since I get a number of emails asking which tools I use, I figured I'd highlight some of the winners that I rely on.
TopStyle and FeedDemon both use the excellent ExpressBars and ExpressQuantumGrid component suites from Developer Express. Developer Express is one of few companies whose products I would buy without even trying them out – they're that good.
I use FinalBuilder
to automate the creation of each TopStyle and FeedDemon build, and I
wouldn't live without it. Likewise, I wouldn't live without AQTime, which I rely on for locating performance bottlenecks in my code.
Notably absent from the awards is the superb InnoSetup installer. Even though InnoSetup is free, I gladly donated to the developer since his work has saved me a lot of headaches. [Nick Bradbury]