> I'll grant you that WinForm Apps do seem clunky compared to > Win32, BUT, Delphi 1 seems clunky when compared to D6 as well!
Consider this. C# was released in 2001 and it is now 2007. By comparison Delphi evolved much faster and much better. As a language and as an interface. Don't get me wrong, any product backed by M$ is going to do well. By most accounts C# hasn't been the success most people thought it would. It hasn't cut into Javas base, not one of M$'s big products has been converted to it, the "VB Classic" crowd hasn't flocked to it and lastly C++ programmers still don't see the point and continue on their path. Personally, I am still waiting for my reason to leave other than "M$ built it so you should come". At this point if I did jump ship, Java is looking better to me. At least that is an open language that won't crumble the minute M$ introduces some new XYZ language. BTW, I never trust a language that can't or didn't write itself. ASM, C++, Delphi all can write themselves. Past that it starts getting ugly. > Win32 and Delphi will be around for a long time, but anyone who > doesn't explore newer technologies and make themselves familiar with the > cutting edge is I believe kidding himself, because nothing ever stays the > same, and whether you choose to accept it or not, we are being pushed into > a > whole new way of looking at, using, and designing applications. Programming changes for sure, but Borland has been there since day one and it is pretty amazing that the code written in the 80s can still be compiled using their product today. I trust in Borland (or CodeGear now) as they have supported us little guys from day one and while the road got rocky for a couple years they didn't leave us. Is it possible that in 10 years I might be the lone guy on the raft, sure... but the easiest thing in programming is learning how to write an IF in another language. For now, I stick with best in breed. I will leave the "pioneering" and large amounts of failures to others. When they figure out a better way, I will go. I just haven't seen it yet. C# is just more of the same and another reason M$ can make money. BTW, I do write quite a bit of C# code for two of my clients so I am not just talking out the side of my butt on this one. C# still has some serious limits and pretty much monthly we are discussing some way to get around a performance problem in it. I can't imagine an OS written in this thing... maybe if they put ASM ability in it. > Internet hasn't begun to reach a static point and maybe never will! But I > believe NET was designed to fit the new paradigm of service contracts and > modular applications that can grow in ways we haven't even considered yet > and for which Microsoft and others will be able to create whole new ways > of > supporting both the personal and commercial markets. And with these "new" > ways will come equally new ways of charging us for these services that > they > will ensure we cannot do without! If you have done this long enough, it goes in cycles. The reason Fat Client over Thin Client made sense to me more than a browser based product is because I have worked on Mainframe code and I can tell you just how crappy CICS is. In case you aren't old enough or haven't been in the industry long enough, CICS is the lipstick on the pig for mainframes and works amazingly like most browser based apps today. It was ugly then and isn't much better now. Fat clients won out because they were more flexible, but on a mainframe everything had to be thin as you had at best a 9600 baud connection. First time I saw an app running over the internet, I knew that fat client/thin architecture was the future and here we are 8 years later with fat client/webservices being the new way to write software. AJAX is something special as it allows the server to send up/down parts of a screen, but to me it is more lipstick on a pig. When they finally put extensible base controls in the browser, I will be a believer. When someone writes my kind of app in C# faster and better than I can in Delphi, I will turn away from it. However, Delphi has and still is one of the best application engines created and still holds onto its past roots. For someone who builds applications that last more than a decade, my perspective on not screwing me 5 years down the road is important. Our application is a perfect example, we started in 2000 which at that time meant C# beta, C++, VB or Delphi. Nearly 7 years later and no one can compete with us technologically in our field and our code is rock solid while still being very fast. __________________________________________________ Delphi-Talk mailing list -> Delphi-Talk@elists.org http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi-talk
