As a Pascal dialect, the Oxygene language in Embarcadero Prism combines modern language features with a clear and readable language. Its basic elements are easy to learn, yet going forward, it will reveal many highly advanced and powerful features.

On the other hand, Oxygene is integrated into the Visual Studio Shell, a very powerful IDE ("Integrated Development Environment"). Delphi Prism makes it very easy to create different kinds of applications, starting with command line tools and not ending with Silverlight-enabled web applications.

Oxygene is a language for the .NET framework. When you write a program in Oxygene, you write a .NET program. Oxygene offers all the possibilities the .NET framework does. When you can do something in C#, you can do it in Oxygene too. (But in most cases, you can do it in Delphi Prism much more elegantly. ;-))

So, this crash course needs be a crash course for some .NET basics, too. For example, all things related to the GUI are not special for Delphi Prism, but will be the same in all .NET languages. The Delphi Prism syntax does of course only work for Delphi Prism, but many things used in the language are part of the .NET framework. The syntax is the main thing that's special for Delphi Prism. But that makes a whole world of difference!

You can download a trial version of Prism from the Embarcadero Website. The trial expires after 30 days, that should give you enough time to go through this article ;-)

To run the setup, you'll have to mount the ISO or burn it to a DVD. There are many programs to mount an ISO file, a free one which runs on Windows Vista, too, is "Virtual Clone Drive". After you mounted or burned it, run the "Install.exe" and follow the instructions.

In most cases there's no need for changing the setup options. The part when the VS is installed can take some time if it needs to download other .NET framework bits that are not contained in the setup file. The status won't change during that process. Even if it might appear that way, it does not freeze.

The Prism Primer: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Part 7 – Part 8 – Part 9