We just promoted Oxygene to the “master” branch for the upcoming Fall 2011 release (also known as Embarcadero Prism XE2). The result of
git log release-mar11..master
is an astounding 3054 lines of commits that have gone into the build since we RTM’ed Delphi Prism XE Update 1 in March! The first line in the change log is
4433a2c - New files for newcompiler. (Carlo Kok) (10 months ago)
indicating that this release sees the fruits of over ten months of work (actually even more, as work on “new compiler”, as it was called back then, was started in a separate repository, and was only brought into the main “oxygene” git repository with commit 4433a2c) from the team.
Over 1000 (1137 to be precise) of these commits have been made in the past 6 weeks alone, and 429 of those in the past couple of weeks alone.
The team, including our Chief Compiler Engineer Carlo, as well as Brian, Viktoria and Alexander, has done an amazing job and burned the midnight oil on more than one occasion in order to deliver a quality release, and it has been a tight struggle at times due to a deadline not being under our control, but we have made it and we believe we have something great for you in store with this release.
The final bits are building now, after which they will be handed off to our friends at Embarcadero, who will work on integrating them with the rest of their product launch for RAD Studio XE2 and standalone availability of Prism XE2. It is not my place to announce final availability of the finished Embarcadero products to customers, new and those on SA, but the product should be in people’s hands very Soon™.
“Prism”?
As you might have noticed already, we have slightly changed the branding on the product for this release. After three major releases of the product with Embarcadero under the “Delphi Prism” banner, we have mutually agreed to drop the “Delphi” portion of the name and simply call the product “Embarcadero Prism”. For one, “Prism” is what most of us have been referring to the product already as short form; but more importantly, I think dropping the “Delphi” moniker helps both sides and avoids a lot of confusion. Prism and its Oxygene language are not Delphi, and we believe the new naming will help Delphi stay Delphi and will help Prism and Oxygene go the path they need to differentiate themselves from Delphi.
As part of this branding change, we are also moving the “Oxygene” name more into focus again, with Oxygene being the shared language that drives both Prism and “Cooper” (more on “Cooper below); we are also working on a brand new Oxygene Language Wiki and a new website for the Oxygene Language, both to be revealed later this month.
What’s Next?
We might have RTM’ed the first release of Prism XE2 and our new “Oxygene 5” compiler for .NET, but we still have a lot of work ahead of ourselves. After getting a bit of a breather this next week, the team will dive back in and we will continue with our weekly beta cycle to drive the product ahead. We are also shooting for monthly “stable” update releases for the next few months, as we prepare for the release of “Cooper”.
Ideally, we would like to put updated releases in customers’ hands at the end of September, October and November, respectively; each of these would be minor releases focusing on quality, stability and bug-fixes, without major new features on the .NET side.
So, What About Cooper?
As you probably heard by now, “Cooper” is the code name for our project to bring Oxygene to the Java and Android platform – not via compatibility libraries such as MonoAndroid but as a true Java compiler.
“Cooper” shares the same code base with “Oxygene for .NET” as it ships in Prism XE2. It’s the same compiler code, it’s the same IDE integration – obviously with some extra stuff for Java specific features (such as reading JAR files, debugging Java processes, or packing up Android executables) and some missing stuff for .NET-only features (such as the WPF designer or ASP.NET). In fact, it’s not just compiled from the same code base, it is the exact same binaries – if you install Oxygene for .NET (i.e. Prism XE2) and Oxygene for Java on your system, they will become one single install of Oxygene.
Prism has always been Embarcadero’s solution for .NET and the replacement for Delphi for .NET, and as such, Prism XE2 as we finalized it today will contain the “Oxygene for .NET” portion of the product only. “Oxygene for Java”, as the final product will be called, will be a separate product, available directly from us at RemObjects Software, when it is finalized later this fall. (When we do ship “Oxygene for Java”, along with it there will also be an official update to Prism XE2 that brings the .NET product onto the same level, and will include any bug fixes and enhancements we have made to the shared parts of the product, between now and then).
For those of you interested in Oxygene both for .NET and Java, worry not: Starting with the day of general availability of Prism XE2, we (RemObjects Software) will have both Prism XE2 itself as well as a pre-order for “Cooper” and very attractive bundle pricing for both available for world-wide sales on our secure online shop at remobjects.com/shop.
Stay Tuned
So, as you can probably tell, we are very excited by this upcoming release of Prism XE2, and by what we have in store for Oxygene for the rest of the year. Stay tuned to this space for more information, as we get closer to GA of Prism XE2.
