Robert, I am making a note of the book you mentioned and will be seeking it out. I, too, have often read (or read portions of) books on design that were somewhere between pompous diatribes and overly theoretical and complicated proposals that made me immediately speculate on whether the author had ever had a successful software project. If there is one out there that actually approaches the process from the idea of "user oriented" rather than "let's make the perfect design and the user will just have to deal with it", I want to read it.
You sound like you also remember the days when Borland was all about "of programmers, for programmers, by programmers" and making the best tools rather than being driven by marketing deadlines. I have never understood why Borland didn't do better marketing but I never expected them to accept such poor marketing as they have had of late . . . and such poor management as to chase the idiotic deadlines that marketing was giving them. Just this morning, I over heard a discussion between two of my co-workers . . . about moving from Delphi to C# using Visual Studio. Part of the reason I accept the job that I am now at was that they were using D6 and doing some interesting things. Now, I am facing the possibility ( more likely "probability") that another Delphi shop is going to be assimilated. I keep thinking about the days when Borland's compilers were making MS's look like a VW Bug compared to a Corvette . . . and wondering what ever happened to those guys who were doing that. What I keep asking myself (because nobody _else_ seems to care) is, why didn't Borland perfect Kylix? Think about it, would you rather switch to Dot-Net or Linux? As you said, Microsoft seems to have the feeling that it really doesn't matter what the end users want because, since "Microsoft is the only game in town", they'll take whatever they can get and they'll like it. The media and corporate management (as well as a lot of developers) have bought into that and now go wherever the MS wind blows. The only thing is, there is an awful lot of "legacy code" out there that relies on the Non-Dot-Net OS . . . is MS really going to try to force all that to be converted and, perhaps more important, is Corporate America going to swallow that? I remember being told that I might as well not learn COBOL because it was "a dead language" that wouldn't be used for much more than a couple of more years . . . and that was in 1969! ;-) You know, I am actually beginning to look forward to getting out of the profession in a few years . . . Respectfully, Ralph D. Wilson II Web Site: <http:thewizardsguild.com> Systems Analyst Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> San Antonio, TX 78259 Alt Email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> H: (210) 497-2643 M: (210) 387-7744 "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A.C.Clark __________________________________________________ Delphi-Talk mailing list -> [email protected] http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi-talk
