Is there, or is there ever going to be, a conditional operator in Delphi?

Such an operator isn't part of the current Delphi version because it wasn't part of the previous version, and demand wasn't great enough to justify the cost of adding it. (You'll find that explanation applies to lots of features you wish you had in lots of products.)

Delphi provides a set of IfThen functions in the Math and StrUtils units, but they have the unfortunate property of evaluating both their value parameters, so code like this will fail:

Foo := IfThen(Obj = nil, '<none>', Obj.Name);

To really do it right, there needs to be help from the compiler. Within the Delphi community, I sense a general dislike of the C-style syntax using a question mark and a colon. I've seen proposals that would use syntax like this:

Foo := if Obj = nil then
         '<none>'
       else
         Obj.Name;

Part of what makes conditional operators so attractive is that they let you write concise code, but Delphi's style of writing everything out makes the above unappealing, even if put all on one line.

It doesn't really need to be in the form of an operator. Delphi Prism provides a compiler-magic function Iif that only evaluates one of its two value parameters:

Foo := Iif(Obj = nil, '<none>', Obj.Name);

You asked why a feature like this wouldn't have been added along with all the other language features added in Delphi 2009. I think that's your reason. There were plenty of other language changes going on that already required delicate handling; the developers didn't need to be burdened with even more. Features aren't free.

You asked whether Delphi will ever have such a feature. I'm not privy to Embarcadero's planning meetings, and I had to send my crystal ball away for repairs, so I can't say for certain, but I predict that if it ever would have such a feature, it would come in the form of Delphi Prism's Iif function. That idea shows up near the end of the discussion in Quality Central, and an objection is made that, as a new reserved word, it would break backward compatibility with other people's code that already defines a function with the same name. That's not a valid object, though, because it wouldn't need to be a reserved word. It could be an identifier, and just like Writeln and Exit, it can be eligible to be redefined in other units even though the one from the System unit is treated specially.

Ok. WTF code of the day :)

How to get something that mostly acts like a ternary/conditional function.

program Project107;
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses SysUtils;

type
  TLazyIfThen<T:record>=record
    class function IfThen(aCondition:Boolean;aIfTrue, aIfFalse:TFunc<T>):T; static;
  end;

  class function TLazyIfThen<T>.IfThen(aCondition:Boolean;aIfTrue, aIfFalse:TFunc<T>):T;
  begin
    if aCondition then
      Result := aIfTrue
    else
      Result := aIfFalse
  end;

begin
  WriteLn(
    TLazyIfThen<Integer>.IfThen(
      True,
      function:Integer begin result := 0 end,
      function:Integer begin result := 1 end
    )
  );
  ReadLn;
end.

Yeah, it's more or less useless, but it shows that it can be done.