Thank all for your input into Delphi, Delphi 2005, .Net, VS.Net etc.
Interestingly I haven't hear comments about Java except for Darren's
statement -
Java is probably going to end up like Delphi compared to VB in the end. A
fine language that has a lot of positives, but ultimately its main advantage
is that it isn't MS and that doesn't carry you far. It does have some
powerful companies backing it and I don't think it is going anywhere, but it
didn't get the foothold it needed to be truly competitive.
One on the things that bothers me is, Will Microsoft become the present
day
IBM? What I mean by that is IBM would bring out a computer/os model only
to
abandon it two years later (mainframe and/or PC). Thus far Microsoft has
kept OS's backwards compatible; but are we on the verge of that no longer
being the case?
I don't think so. MS has a cash cow with windows and office. They aren't
about to upset the apple cart. They instead rely on obsolesnse to get the
job done. Most companies rotate hardware on a three year cycle and
completely rotate out hardware on a 5-7 year cycle. So as long as MS keeps
a new release of windows coming every three years they know in 6 years there
won't be many machines around that can load an old OS.
Are we on the verge of resorting to Open Source? Or are we going to either
continuing paying Borland for upgrades or Microsoft for new languages?
Outlook hazy. I think MySQL and OpenOffice have a good future ahead, but I
don't think any open source languages are going to take off (save for Java
which I think maintains then declines). Business app products are licensed
to the user and/or installation. If you are a 50 user installation, would
you rather pay 300 bucks a workstation for office or nothing? Development
tools are different. First, most independant developers can readily get
there hands on "questionably legal" copies of an IDE and most companies only
need to license a handful of IDEs which is usally a minor budget item so
there is no significant cost savings to move to an open source system in the
dev world.
Perhaps a more simple question is. "Can one do with Java what one can do
with .Net?" Again I admit my ignorance; so that is why I've turned to you
Pretty much any modern language can do anything any other language can do.
COBOL can build robust windows apps, but I wouldn't suggest it. Java to me
was always a pretty good web development language, but wasn't a very good
language as a whole. It does have some great stuff in it.
folks. I have a second motivation. My oldest son has expressed interest in
learning a programming language and I don't know what to suggest to him.
Know what you now know but you were just getting started what would you
do.
Start him off with vb.net. It is probably the easiest language to write in.
Once he learns conditionals and structures, he will be able to pick up new
languages very quickly. It pretty much goes and IF is an IF is an IF...
once you know one you know them all. Picking up new languages is generally
learning the quirks and shortcuts.
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