Would it be safe to rely on DeHL for new projects?

Question

I've been browsing the DeHL repository on GoogleCode, and it looks really good to me.

• Many interesting features that make basic programming tasks easier; Some neat things that are in the DotNet FCL, but are missing from the Delphi RTL can be found in this library;

• Coded in a modern way, making good use of new language features;

• Each class, record type, member function and parameter is documented in such a way that it'll show in the code completion of the Delphi IDE;

• Well-organized and clean code;

• Plenty of unit tests;

• Open source and Free;

Basically, it looks like this library should've been included with Delphi, as part of the RTL.

One major drawback: The project has been discontinued. :-(

Now my question is:
Would it be safe to rely on this library for future projects, and use it as a base framework to build upon?

Basically I'd like to hear from somebody who's actually used this library whether or not it's worth it to invest time in getting to know this library, and why.

Answer 1

IIRC the project was discontinued because it was an over-engineered first attempt and a lot of its features turned out really messy and bloated. You should look at Alex Ciobanu's second attempt, which is simply called Collections. It contains most of the interesting features from DeHL, but leaner.

Be careful, though. It still makes heavy use of generics, which will make your binary size really big if you use it a lot, because the compiler team hasn't implemented a way to collapse duplicate code yet.