Rob,
Again I have to say first that no one should take what I say as
anything but my own opinion. I certainly don't what great people like
yourself getting mad at me because of what I've said here or elsewhere! <g>
For me, having discussions like this are important because unlike many of
you I don't have any programmer friends or peers with whom I can communicate
normally. The Internet is my ONLY source of feedback! I've never worked in
a programming shop, never worked alongside another programmer, and most
likely never will. And I know I always seem to be taking the devils
advocate's position, but I have a purpose in doing so. Only by taking the
high ground or the obtuse viewpoint can I get back from guys like you the
kind and level of feedback I'm looking for. Besides, it's a lot more fun
then simply agreeing with people because I actually do! <g>
Now let me answer your questions one at a time.
I don't find anything in Delphi 2005 that is any better than what
Delphi 7 offered me! The reason I switched was that the hype surrounding
D9, after the fiasco that was D8, the ONLY way I had of finding out for sure
was to actually use it! Besides that I had entered into the renewal fee
contract with Borland the year before which meant I could upgrade at a set
price from year to year, which at the time I did so seemed to make sense to
me. I was wrong. What can I say? Only that I was taken across two years
in a row, and that even with the patches and turning off unneeded features
D9 still doesn't come close to offering the performance of D7! I simply
couldn't bear NOT using something again that I'd paid so much for. It goes
against my nature.
Delphi's implementation of .NET is not at all compliant to
Microsoft's standard. You only have to look at how namespaces and units are
linked in to realize that. In fact with having written only one project in
.NET as of yet, I can say without hesitation that Delphi's implementation is
an overt act of abuse to .NET because it actually has a degenerative effect
on coding for .NET! In other words, it takes away from some of .NET's
better and most fundamental abilities! They would have done so much better
to stay compliant and rebuild a VCL from scratch that was optimized for
.NET, and I believe that's exactly where they'll end up if they can stay in
business long enough. Again bad management!
What really IS an Enterprise feature? I had to do a lot of thinking
on this one because as you obviously know I've never been involved in
writing what one might call an Enterprise-level application! <g> But I do
consider Together to be such a feature, and unless and until someone can
show me how, when, and where it might be a help to me or other developers
like me, I also consider ECO to be one. What I do not consider to be an
Enterprise level feature set anymore even though Borland obviously does, are
all the cool dB features you don't get in the Pro version of Delphi! To me,
it's an either all or none situation when it comes to databases, and Delphi
forced me into a 3rd party solution that I should not have had to invest in
at this time.. Just using what is given, the TClientDataSet in an embedded
application, is a resource hog and very slow when compared to what I can do
with a full-blown C/S model like Nexus in the same application!
The next two questions I'm answering in reverse order: There was as
I said earlier nothing in the press about D8 that prompted me to upgrade. A
stupid move on my part wanting to stay current I guess. But at least with
D9 they did promise that the shortcomings of their D8 .NET implementation
were fixed...an out and out lie I found out...and delivered with an unusable
IDE until 6 months after it's release to boot!
As to what language features I wanted, that one really doesn't know
until after the fact as well...at least not in this late stage of the IDE.
Other than some minimal problems I've had with class completion and code
complete/insight I thought the IDE was rather good! But now that I've seen
what Chrome has done with Pascal and what improvements they have made to the
IDE, I can tell you. How about inline local variables that allow you to
also initialize at the same time? How about the try...except...finally
block, or the "using" keyword? What about the new assert methods that make
testing your methods so easy and without third party solutions? How about
code insight that also includes dynamic class completion with the proper
naming and syntax so that you merely have to click on it instead of
remembering three key shortcuts...and the same for providing things like get
and set methods? How about a multipass compiler that not only takes full
and compliant advantage of .NET but also allows you to include unit names
and/or namespaces while making the circular reference a bad memory? And
there is so much more! One of the things I really like that they have only
just started work on is an implementation that will allow you to add a
specialized library designed to make aspect-oriented programming possible in
ANY .NET environment. You write a new [aspect] class, give it a name, then
add it's name inside of brackets to the beginning of any class you have
written and that class is now a new class which takes advantage of both the
original and the aspect class! Instead of writing ancestor classes, which
you many times find you can't do correctly unless you write the entire base
class over, now one can simply add the functionality wanted, only when and
only where it's needed! How cool is that? Borland will never add that to
Delphi because they'd have to rewrite the entire compiler!
Your last question, about how I came up with the 600 upgrade fee I
think I pretty much already answered, however just to reiterate, if you buy
a current Pro version of Delphi, you are guaranteed any new versions at that
price if released within a calendar year of the original purchase. With
Borland dumping everything but the kitchen sink into the Delphi IDE, I
figured the cost of upgrades was going to escalate a lot more than that, so
I took a chance. It was, as I've already admitted, a bad decision! <g>
from: Robert Meek at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
dba "Tangentals Design" home of "PoBoy"
freeware Windows apps and utilities
located at: www.TangentalsDesign.com
Proud to be a moderator for the
"Delphi Programming Lists" at: elists.org
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Rob Kennedy
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2005 3:08 PM
To: Delphi-Talk Discussion List
Subject: Re: Delphi 2006 Announced...moved from Delphi List
Robert Meek wrote:
> Well I believe mentioned that at least once or twice myself as have
> others. First, I believe Delphi 7 is still the best IDE they ever
> created, despite the fact that it took a couple patches to make it
> so! Now that D2005 if running fairly well it too I can live with and
> I will continue using it for all Win32 work.
If Delphi 7 was so much better, why do you use Delphi 2005? What
features does it have that makes it your preferred tool in spite of
Delphi 7's superiority?
> I haven't used it myself, but I understand it's C# personality is
> quite good too. But the idea of a VCL for .NET, especially when it
> requires a non-standard implementation worries me.
There's been a VCL for .Net ever since there was a Delphi for .Net. It
was released with Delphi 8, and you have an updated version on your
computer with Delphi 2005.
What do you mean by "non-standard implementation," anyway?
> As for upgrading, Delphi would have to become what it once was, and I
> doubt that is going to happen. What I mean is that you must be able
> to buy a Pro version that isn't overloaded with Enterprise
> features...
What is an enterprise feature? You obviously don't mean the features
included in the enterprise edition but not the professional edition,
since the professional edition will never include those enterprise
features (or else they wouldn't be enterprise features anymore!).
> especially when they could do so much better adding some of the
> better high-end features of their more expensive versions first.
Like what?
> They would be much more appreciated than things like ECO and
> Together!
I'm excited to see what ECO can do in the professional edition.
> Also they would have to up their Delphi IDE with new language and
> editor features that make sense rather than the kinds of things they
> mentioned for D2006!
What language and editor features do you want?
What were the features you saw in Delphi 2005's advertising that made
you decide to order it? And what about Delphi 8?
> Having looked at each of these as carefully as possible I haven't
> found one that is worth a dollar let alone 600!
Where have you seen that it will cost $600?
--
Rob
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