I'm in complete agreement with you on all these points you've
brought up, and in no way should anyone think I've abandoned Delphi! But
whether it's a cyclic change or a one-way ticket to a whole new way of
writing, running, and using applications, there ARE indeed some big changes
coming, for reasons I've stated earlier. I just believe it to be wiser NOT
to simply ignore it because one is a "fan" of Delphi and what it has enabled
one to accomplish!
If it hadn't been for Delphi I probably wouldn't even be talking to
you via e-mail right now, because when I first made the decision to look
into programming, I was turned onto the idea by a friend of mine in
California who made a dam good living taking care of legacy applications
written in Basic! That was in 91! I saw that the PC was becoming a visual
interface though and so chose to take a night course in VB. But on the
first night the word "DIM" just irritated the hell out of me so I quit! I
took the copy of VB I had just purchased back to the computer outlet and a
guy there turned me onto Delphi 1 that had just come out. It was its
literal sensibilities that caught me and I never looked back!
Now another change seems to be happening. I don't know it by
experience as I've never yet written a commercial-ready application in C# or
.NET, but the signs are there, and you can read about it in almost any trade
publication that has to do with programming. And the "push" being made is
so great and so capable that I'd be foolish to ignore it with a wait and see
attitude when right at the moment I have the time to explore these new
technologies!
It took me all year to clear off my desk so that I could peacefully
explore NET without having to stop again as I did last year, so right or
wrong, I'll either be ready for it or will understand why it hasn't
succeeded!
If Microsoft fails in its plans all I've done is wasted a little
time, but if CodeGear doesn't get its act together now and Microsoft
succeeds, I'll be ready for it. If both come thru I can go in whichever
direction I need to at the time...there certainly isn't any harm in knowing
alternative methods! Any other decision on my part would simply be
illogical! Especially when my client base is made of up small businesses
with one to 20 employees and ARE constantly bombarded by and believe in the
commercial press's take on NET. Only one or two of my clients haven't asked
me about NET and all of them plan on upgrading to Vista as soon as it's
ready! They have different sensibilities than big commercial concerns, and
I can tell them NET is of no consequence all day long, but they have it in
their heads already that Vista and NET will solve many of the little
problems they encounter, which are really due in most cases to their own
lack of knowledge and understanding!
Did you know that the Hershey Medical Centre, which is a part of
Penn State university is running a WinXP network on Dell off the shelf
computer systems? And did you know they have already been visited by
Microsoft reps who are helping them to switch over to Vista and a fully
managed application base? It's a five year plan and is worth a LOT of
money! How can a lone developer working out of his home beat that kind of
pressure? Certainly NOT by telling them that Microsoft is wrong, they will
fail, and I use the best already, Delphi made by Borland! Certainly not
when they read all the bad press Borland has caused for itself over the last
five years!
I won't knock the other guy until I have real cause, and I will
learn whatever might be necessary to use in order to keep and get more
clients! If that turns out to be Delphi, all the better, but if not...?
from Robert Meek dba Tangentals Design CCopyright 2006
Proud to be a moderator of "The Delphi Lists" at elists.org
(["An unused program is the consequence of a higher logic!", nil]) As
written in The Compendium of Accepted Robotic and Surrlogic Theorems Used in
the Self Analysis of Elemental Positronic Pathways...1st Edition Revised
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Cameron Cole
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 11:27 AM
To: Delphi-Talk Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Delphi - current status and future?]
> 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.
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