Delphi High Performance: Master the art of concurrency, parallel programming, and memory management to build fast Delphi apps, 2nd Edition 9781805125877, 1805125877

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Contributors
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: About Performance
Technical requirements
What is performance?
Different types of speed
Algorithm complexity
Big O and Delphi data structures
Data structures in practice
Mr. Smith’s first program
Looking at code through Big O eyes
Summary
Chapter 2: Profiling the Code
Technical requirements
Don’t guess, measure!
Profiling with TStopwatch
Profilers
Summary
Chapter .3: Fixing the Algorithm
Technical requirements
Writing responsive user interfaces
Updating a progress bar
Bulk updates
Virtual display
Caching
Memoization
Dynamic cache
Speeding up SlowCode
Summary
Chapter 4: Don’t Reinvent, Reuse
Technical requirements
Spring for Delphi
Enumerations, collections, and lists
IEnumerable
ICollection
IList
Other interfaces
TEnumerable
Stacks and queues
Trees
Red-black trees
Sets and dictionaries
ISet
IMultiSet
IDictionary
IBiDiDictionary
Summary
Chapter 5: Fine-Tuning the Code
Technical requirements
Delphi compiler settings
Code inlining control
Optimization
Record field alignment
Assertions
Overflow checking
Range checking
Extracting common expressions
The helpful CPU window
Behind the scenes
A plethora of types
Simple types
Strings
Arrays
Records
Classes
Interfaces
Optimizing method calls
Parameter passing
Method inlining
The magic of pointers
Going the assembler way
Returning to SlowCode
Summary
Chapter 6: Memory Management
Technical requirements
Optimizing strings and array allocations
Memory management functions
Dynamic record allocation
FastMM4 internals
Memory allocation in a parallel world
Replacing the default memory manager
Logging memory manager
FastMM4 with release stack
FastMM5
TBBMalloc
Comparing memory managers
There is no silver bullet
Fine-tuning SlowCode
Summary
Chapter 7: Getting Started with the Parallel World
Technical requirements
Processes and threads
Multithreading
Multitasking
When to parallelize code
The most common problems
Never access the UI from a background thread
Simultaneous reading and writing
Sharing a variable
Hidden behavior
Synchronization
Critical sections
Other locking mechanisms
A short note on coding style
Shared data with built-in locking
Interlocked operations
Object life cycle
Communication
Windows messages
Synchronize and Queue
Polling
Performance
Third-party libraries
Summary
Chapter 8: Working with Parallel Tools
Technical requirements
TThread
Automatic life cycle management
Advanced TThread
Setting up a communication channel
Sending messages from a thread
Using TCommThread
Implementing a timer
Synchronizing with multiple workers
WaitForMultipleObjects
Condition variables
Comparing both approaches
Summary
Chapter 9: Exploring Parallel Practices
Technical requirements
Tasks and patterns
Variable capturing
Tasks
Exceptions in tasks
Parallelizing a loop
Thread pooling
Async/Await
Join
Join/Await
Future
Parallel for
Pipelines
Web spider
The filter stage
The downloader stage
The parser stage
Summary
Chapter 10: More Parallel Patterns
Technical requirements
Using OmniThreadLibrary
Blocking collections
Using blocking collections with TThread-based threads
Async/Await
Join
Future
Parallel Task
Background Worker
Initial query
Pipeline
Creating the pipeline
Stages
Displaying the result and shutting down
Map
Timed Task
Summary
Chapter 11: Using External Libraries
Technical requirements
Linking with object files
Object file formats
Object file linking in practice
Using C++ libraries
Writing exported functions
Using a proxy DLL in Delphi
Summary
Chapter 12: Best Practices
About performance
Profiling the code
Fixing the algorithm
Don’t reinvent, reuse
Fine-tuning the code
Memory management
Getting started with the parallel world
Working with parallel tools
Exploring parallel practices
More parallel patterns
Using external libraries
Final words
Index
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