Ok, there are characteristics where c++ has the advantage, but I’m not talking about that now.

Delphi has properties! They are great if you are in the process of creating a new library. Why? Because when you start you can just set a bunch of variables public, you do not need to implement setter and getter functions. Later you can decide to make some of those variables private, and create properties and setter functions for them (checking, limiting range, do stuff on change). Usually you do not need to write getter functions at all.

private
FPosStart,FPosEnd:integer; /// ...
protected
procedure SetPosStart(value:integer); /// ...
published
property PosStart:integer read FPosStart write SetPosStart;


The main advantage here is not that we do not have to write getter function.
Imagine that the library is used extensively (by you, or others). AFAIK in C++ a change like this would break compatibility. Code would have to be changed to PosStart() / getPosStart() and setPosStart(…) form ‘… PosStart’ and ‘PosStart = …’

In Delphi constructors are inherited. It’s not a big deal, I did not even realize it until now. I’m reading Large Scale C++ Software Design about cyclic dependencies, levelization, mutually dependant components. It suggests not to write constructors that convert between classes, but rather write separate converter class with static methodes. But that does not seem very objectum oriented to me. It reminds me of itoa() and stuff like that. It works but still… So, I was wondering why not create descendant classes (or ancestor classes) and implement an additional constructor in the descendant class, that converts form the ancestor classes. It’s a little more typing but not much… or so I thought, then I realized that I needed to reimplement all the ancestors constructors… which is not the case in delphi. It’s a rather common practice to use your own descendant classes of standard controls from the start, just in case you will ever need to add some functionality. It’s easy, and cheap.
TMyCollection = class(TCollection) end;