Well I appreciate your thoughts as always, and I consider what
you've said as a kind of personal validation. I KNOW I say too much too
much of the time, but I don't do so as a means of trying to be heard above
any others, it's just the way I am...raised in a Russian family where
everyone yelled around the kitchen table! <g> nuff said on that subject....
One thought that just crossed my mind as I was reading all these
posts here this afternoon, is that a lot of people are thinking or at least
saying, that Delphi, like so many other technologies, has lived out it's
time, and that as much as we may like it, we have to be realistic and move
on. At the same time others have made reference to how the Web itself has
become the new and most enabling platform for communication.
Considering these thoughts, I wonder how many years Windows, at
least as a "more than it should be OS" itself, has left to it?
I've always been a firm believer that thoughtful consideration by a
select minority has a greater influence on the direction of reality than
mass actions necessarily do. I believe it so deeply in fact that I even
gave the premise a name when I was only about twelve! I called it then, the
"My Doctrine of Imagination", but these days I prefer to think of it as a
group of generalized theorems that allow me to rationalize my belief that
reality is merely the bi-product of imaginative and cognitive design.
Most futurists will probably agree that the idea of a worldwide
communications net like or unlike the web we have today had been given
consideration long before the dawn of the computer age. You only need to
read a few old volumes of sci-fi to know that much! But beyond that mere
fact, it has also been the generally held consensus that this
"communications net" would be maintained and/or controlled by some
supra-intelligence or primary brain centre that will, as all things do by
nature, eventually get out of our control. Now if any of this is to become
true, and I believe it will, Windows is already an outdated concept, and the
tools required to work with and thru it are also doomed to nostalgia or Mr.
Peabody's wayback machine. Even compilers are outdated as a very concept if
you really begin to consider these things. In their place, human-readable
and writable, actually speakable in any language "scripts" will be used by
anyone and everyone to do SQL-ish like endeavors that haven't yet been
"programmed", ( perhaps an outdated word? ), into the heart of the system.
And more than likely, each new one that is, no matter it's relevance to
anyone else, will become an immediately and publicly accessible part of that
system!
Even the programming technologies used to handle machinery and any
critical operations will be a natural part of this ever and all encompassing
system, and so people like you and I will not even exist! Instead, our
types will probably be working in areas with more exotic acronyms like,
"EEPJMDSPPL", which as we all well know stands for, "externalizing our
experiences of personal journeys through multi-dimensional shifts in past
and present lives"!
The point I'm trying so vaguely to make here is that the life or
length of time any tool we use is considered practical or even useable at
all is of little or no consequence worth worrying over. I and many others
use Delphi over all the other alternatives, ( and it is very important you
consider everything we can use as but a mere alternative ), not necessarily
because it's better than any of it's competitors, ( that itself is merely a
matter of personal opinion and the methods we prefer to use ), but because
we WANT to...for any number of reasons...all of which can be argued over
till hell freezes over! The main and most important consideration we have
is that we all use a tool that allows us to program for the Windows OS!
Microsoft has announced time and again that Win32 is a thing of the
past. Whether you believe this to be good, bad, a necessary evolution in
technology, or merely a means to economic ends, doesn't matter either
because most of you would end up unemployable were some new innovation
replacing it was suddenly dropped upon us from above without reason or need!
If MY income were based solely upon the necessity of staying
technologically current I wouldn't be here. Instead I'd be deep into NET
2.0 because Microsoft, who is at the center of our world, demands that of
us...or at least will as soon as they can! As long as Windows will support
Win32 exe's I'll continue using Delphi, even if 2006 turns out to be the
last of it's line, and I'm more than positive that no matter what happens a
lot of good people will continue making it or it's components and libraries
better until it is no longer practical or feasible.
At the same time, I've already made a foray into the world of NET,
and although I can't say I like it or enjoy it the way I do working in
Delphi, it beats the hell out of Java as far as I'm concerned! So if the
sky does fall I'm getting ready for it! And who knows...maybe the future is
already upon us! Maybe there's a 5 yr old kid out there right now forming
new ideas in the back of his devious little mind that will throw us all for
a loop yet again! Personally, I welcome change...it's an absolute necessity
to happy living under all circumstances, and so the awe I felt on Wednesday,
and the depression that quickly followed it, have both disappeared as
quickly as the cup of coffee I've been drinking while writing this, and
tomorrow is still scheduled to come soon after midnight....
from Robert Meek dba Tangentals Design CCopyright 2006
"When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion
that the gift of Fantasy has meant more to me then my talent for absorbing
positive knowledge!"
Albert Einstein
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 3:13 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Borland sells out...again!
Robert,
> As this IS the Delphi-Talk list, we like to leave discussions as
> they are without intervention, and knowing Alan thru the lists for as many
> years as I have, I think I can say without doubt that his comments were
not
> made without great thought and that his political views, thought slightly
> OT, have not been given without him feeling their relevance to the current
> topic. ( Geesh that was a long sentence! No proper writing instructions
> please! <g> )
Thanks, but I have to admit that there was probably more emotion than
careful
thought involved in my response to you (and there is no doubt an element of
truth in the one personal criticism, so no apology needed or expected). And
yes, the political comments were most definitely OT, and I apologize for
that.
I think the reason I included it was that I see these events at Borland
occurring in a larger context, and was trying to articulate that context.
Further, Mr. Shipman's criticisms on open sourcing Delphi make a lot of
sense
to me as well as the suggestion made elsewhere that open sourcing Kylix
would
make much more sense than trying to do it with Delphi. In the latter case
there is already a strong open source Linux community. Many of us in the MS
Windows development arena are much less used to that approach.
Finally Robert, I must admit that in reading your many posts over the years
I
have often found myself attracted as much to the nontechnical, personal
aspects as to those that are totally on topic. Keep them coming, friend!
Best wishes,
Alan C. Moore
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