Earlier I wrote about the new Delphi roadmap and mentioned some features I considered interesting for the upcoming XE8 version. Today, Delphi XE8 was released and in the New Features list, another one caught my eye that I think is potentionally even more promising: the GetIt Package Manager. Every time a new Delphi version is released, there are two main reasons that block me from updating immediately as soon as it comes out: the first being the need to move all my settings and paths over to the new version, since they are were in no practical way migrated either explicitly or implicitly. The second is the need to wait until all third party libraries and components that I use, release compatible versions, and go to each of their sites to check and download and install.

For the first issue, it appears the new XE8 includes a new Settings Migration Tool (thanks to Bob Swart for pointing this out in his excellent Delphi Development Essentials book). And if this new GetIt Package Manager lives up to what its name promises, and all of my favorite component vendors start using it, the latter task will become a lot less tedious, and it would be a lot easier to keep up with the latest Delphi versions. (Which is worth it, since it’s been a long time since we’ve seen so many new features with each release.) Also looking forward to the IDE improvements and modeless context-sensitive refactorings and see how they work out in practice. Will report back as soon as I had the chance to play around with them.

[Edited 13-04 to include reference to Settings Migration Tool]