What is the easiest/most effective way to learn Delphi?

Question

I am totally new to programming and I have chosen Delphi as the programming language that I would like to learn.

I basically want to build tools that will fill and submi

Answer 1

If it were possible I would love to go to school to learn the language but it seems like there are no schools in the US that teach it.

Here is a pretty extensive list of schools that teach either ObjectPascal(Delphi) or procedural Pascal. If you are enrolled as a student somewhere you can get an academic license for Delphi XE Professional for ~$99. Keep in mind that you can't develop commercial applications with the academic license.

So.. My question is how do I go about becoming an expert Delphi programmer without having any "Real Teacher" to guide me? How did you guys learn?

Language syntax isn't terribly difficult to master, especially with the hand-holding most IDEs give you. Learning the Delphi library (RTL/VCL) will take much longer. Not that its very difficult (just the opposite). There's just so much it has to offer. I've only been using Delphi for about 5 years but I know developers who have been programming in Delphi since version 1 that are still surprised by features they just weren't aware existed.

But even learning the library isn't what sets great developers apart from the rest. Its design skills that are the hardest to master. Knowing when to use inheritance and when to use composition. Knowing when to choose polymorphism or a conditional statement. Learning design and architectural patterns and learning when they are appropriate and when they are not. Learning how to go from identifying a problem to implementing the solution. Writing code that is easy to test and easy to maintain as new requirements arise.

Some of these skills you can learn from reading books or from a mentor. Others can only be learned through experience.