That's exactly the point I was trying to make...that new technology
isn't always needed or better! It's pushed by those in charge as a means to
producing new cash flow! The history of all manufacturing and product sales
backs this up. The real question is not whether it's better or not, but
whether or not we have to subscribe to it in order to stay vital.
No matter what we do business will eventually pick up on whatever
comes along. I remember a few years ago when I never even saw a windows
client in an office. 5 years ago the Hershey medical centre in Pa., had all
NT boxes, and now they're all running XP Pro. It's inevitable! And if
Microsoft doesn't feel that they're selling new fast enough, they'll either
drop the Win32 API so we have little choice but to embrace it or they'll
come up with another new fancy name and start selling it!
But you can be sure of one thing, and that is that new technology
builds on the old, and so if one ignores what's new for too long he'll find
himself in a position of playing the catch-up game that he can't possibly
win! As I said before, I've had two of my clients ask me about .NET. Not
because they're worried about staying current, but because their computer
vendors are pushing XP now with rhetoric like, "And it's NET ready!" These
people have absolutely no need for it but it becomes a key-word that plagues
them. And sooner or later they will have a NET app running whether they
want to or not anyway, so what choice does one have but to keep up and learn
it? We can complain all we want about it but it's there and we're going to
have to learn to live with it just as we will when Microsoft comes out with
the next big thing! Hell I remember discussions like this on America Online
when Win 3.0 first came out! The DOS camp was going nuts! But I bet not
one of them uses it anymore! I also have a friend who programs for
companies in L.A., and up until just two years ago the ONLY language he knew
was Basic! There were still enough legacy apps around to keep him busy.
But when I talked to him only a month ago he was telling me that his
business has fallen off by over 60% in just the last two years. And he
didn't prepare for it!
In any case I think this thread is getting a bit old because there
simply is no use in discussing it's value or whether we are going to have to
contend with it or not...that was a topic almost two years ago! The
important thing now is how each of us plans to blend it into our toolbox.
And what tools WE are going to use in order to do so!
>From "Robert Meek"
Personal e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
dba / "Tangentals Design"
Visit us at: www.TangentalsDesign.com
Home of "The Keep"!
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-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Cameron Cole
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 4:18 PM
To: Delphi-Talk Discussion List
Subject: Re: Ignorance
> I was under the impression that .NET included automated versioning
> so that this can't happen. And the promise that all newer version will
> support older programs was given as well!
Already busted. A security patch was put into the Whidbey framework that
busted a friends app pretty seriously. They have spent probably four weeks
working around the issue.
> It's not just a matter of the American buyers always wanting the
> greatest and latest! I seriously believe that the constant rush into new
> technologies are just another way of causing a rush of new cash flow!
Quasi interesting story. About five years ago I interviewed for a job at
large corporation here in Atlanta. I got in and they told me they were
building a new healthcare app using leading technology... namely
ASP/jscript/html/SQL. I turned them down because I knew the users would
take one look at browser based app and compare it to the functionality of a
standalone exe and they would be toast. Two and half years ago they call me
again, now the are porting what they have written to vb.net and writing more
in webforms. Not interested... still going to have performance issues and
the same set of problems. Well caught up to the IT VP a few months ago and
to get performance up to snuff they were rewriting several critical parts in
winforms running over the net and he was going on and on about how cool the
technology is. I didn't say anything, but the healthcare app I worked on in
2000 ran over the internet using a 3 tier setup on Delphi. It is still
being sold, it is wicked fast, runs on all WinX platforms, incredibly
modular allowing for system changes very quickly and very pretty (we hired
artists to do the front end). Here they are 32 million dollars later with a
product that is just now catching up to a product written 8 years ago. The
technology they use doesn't offer their customers any significant advantage
either. They went web because it was the hot thing to do like a lot of dot
bust companies did not because it was the best technical solution.
Most companies aren't selling new tech. They are selling the same ole
product they have been selling for 10 years. Many companies decide to start
using new technologies when the old ones do what they need and often better.
I was consulting with a company just the other day that wrote their app in
Foxpro. They were asking me what .net would do for them. I told them the
interface might look a bit prettier when they were done, but their database
app would basically be the same, probably run slower, require more hardware
to run and in some cases they would need to upgrade the OSes of some
customers. If they had some cracked foundation and needed to rewrite it, I
would have told them to look at .net. However, they just wanted to be
"current" for no practical reason except hype.
Most customers using business apps could care less what it is written in.
They want to know feature for feature which product is better. How many
people care what their virus scanner is written in? Unless of course they
have to download a 30mb .net install on top of the antivirus program.
> If this were not true, Borland wouldn't have rushed D8 and then
> D9 out the door while they were both still beta products! They know they
> have to compete to stay in business, but with them it's always too late
> and
> not good enough!
Borland sells software development tools... any change in the industry is
obviously going to be supported by them since it increases revenue. Have
apps gotten any fundamentally easier to write since Delphi 3? Sure some
nice features, but are you building significantly better products that
couldn't be written in Delphi 3 just as good? For Win32 the answer is
likely no. MS has a point building a better mousetrap to build web apps,
but lets not start kidding ourselves about how much better .net development
is over the old RADs. At best it is a marginal improvement and I bet on
several fronts it is a step backwards.
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