DSP

Dimeric Server Pages (DSP) combine the convenience and flexibility of web development tools such as ASP and JSP, with the speed and robustness of Delphi. DSP allows you to build web pages that contain embedded Delphi code. This code is not interpreted -- it is compiled. There are many advantages to this approach, including

• Strong Typing - Take advantage of Delphi's type system, to find errors at compile-time instead of run-time.
• Native Code - DSP applications are compiled by Delphi, so they enjoy the same performance as other Delphi applications.
• Leverage Existing Code - Build your web application using any Delphi code units at your disposal, including reusable business logic you may have from other projects, or even third-party libraries.
• Integrated Debugging - Use Delphi's debugger, including breakpoints, exceptions, call stack, single-stepping, etc., to debug your DSP applications.
• Mix Code and HTML - The overall philosophy of DSP, as with ASP and JSP, is to have a web page that mixes code and HTML. This is easier to develop and maintain than other approaches to web development.

Several production web sites, including an online securities trading site as well as this site have been built with DSP (note that the URL ends with .dsp).

Resources

• The DSP Tutorial is a good introduction to programming in DSP. If is a step-by-step introduction to the basic features of DSP syntax and programming.
• WebLink is an example DSP application that also uses VDB for database access. DSP ships with full source for WebLink; you may download it separately: source and binary.
• The DSP Online Documentation is a good reference for DSP syntax and library reference.
• The DSP Syntax Guide (PDF) is a good reference for general DSP page syntax and for the syntax and use of the many DSP directives.