A Clarification on RAD Studio Versions Numbering

[DP News-Robot]

As announced when Embarcadero released RAD Studio, Delphi and C++Builder 11 Alexandria (see this blog post), the product now has a different version numbering scheme compared to the 10.x series. Let me clarify.

First, RAD Studio has two different types of release, major releases and minor ones. The core difference is not based on marketing, the amount of new features or anything like that. The main difference is in the binary compatibility with DCU files (compiled Delphi units) and BPL files (compiled component packages). Minor releases maintain binary compatibility, so the same third party component or code you have build should keep working as is, without recompiling. Major releases have compiler Delphi or RTL changes that break the unit compatibility, requiring recompiling all binaries.

With this difference in mind, over the past few years, we released major versions with a double number like 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and 10.4. They were followed by minor releases like 10.2.1 for 10.2 or 10.4.2 for 10.4. Each major version generally has 2 or 3 minor releases following it, maintaining compatibility. There were reasons for this choice, including both Microsoft and Apple staying on macOS 10 and Windows 10 for many years.

As announced in the 11 Alexandria release time frame, we have now changed the numbering scheme, to use only the first number as a major release number. So 11 was a new major release followed by 11.1 and now 11.2, both minor releases. In fact, the full name of the last release is " RAD Studio 11 Alexandria Release 2 ". When we'll have a new major release we expect it to be called 12 or 12.0. I hope this clarifies the fact that RAD Studio 11.2 Alexandria is a minor release, while 10.2 Berlin was indeed a major one. We believe that going forward the new numbering scheme will be easier to understand.



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