Of course I'm in total agreement with you as far as Delphi is
concerned! For a while there I will admit I was getting a bit
frustrated due to the seemingly incomprehensible vision of Borland
management and lack of IDE stability since D7, but the newest version
fro, CodeGear is the best I've ever used and is more than fun to work
with.
I had installed RedHat's Linux a few years back and would I have
got into I'm, sure but I was in the Insurance business managing a
brokerage office for 20+ years, did some presentation photography and
industrial design work, and a few other things over the years, so since
coming back to my old home town my clients have all been in insurance
offices I used to be in friendly competition against. They all use
Windows and upgrade regularly except for one old guy, ( known as my
Father <g> ), who just doesn't get along with tech at all and so was
still using DOS 6.1 on an IBM PC/2 the last time I wrote anything for
him. Then he retired and bought a family restaurant which he bankrupted
in only two years, but while he had it I got to know a number of
like-size restaurant owners and made a little money working for them as
well, but again...all for Windows...mostly inventory control and
distributor handling dB's. None of them like using handhelds either,
except for making phone calls and using contact list which they all come
with anyway. So it's tough finding anything here in what I lovingly
refer to as my hometown...a real "cultural & economic wasteland".
Unfortunately, one of my daughters, who made me a grandfather
about 6 months ago lives here, as does my sister and her family, and my
older daughter lives and works in Phila where she's working on a masters
in business administration at UofPenn. If I went back to California
where finding the kind of work I can do is as easy as an illegal alien,
( those little green guys...! ), can get a voter's driver license, I'd
never see my kids anymore!
I have a buddy there that used to live next to me in La
Conchita, ( the sweetest little village on the coast just 120 mi north
of Malibu before the mountain behind it fell down and wiped it out along
with the ONLY place in the continental USA where bananas were being
grown ), that still makes a great living doing BASIC for DOS programs!
Man, did he clean up doing 2k repairs! <g> He is actually the one that
turned me on to programming back in 90, and he goes into LA maybe two
days a week to work...the rest of the time all he does is surf! So CA.,
is still a great place to find work but....!
The best thing I can figure now is to come up with a unique SW
program I can try to sell. That too is a tough area to crack now with
Vista and it's sidebar java apps. There seems to be very little left
that hasn't already been created!
from Robert Meek dba "Tangentals Design"
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Freelance Windows Programming for XP and Vista
Also proud to be a Moderator of the "Delphi-List" at elists.org
"Reality cannot be explained...only enjoyed or endured as your current
perspective allows!"
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andre van Zuydam
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 10:40 AM
To: Delphi-Talk Discussion List
Subject: Re: Good morning Delphi question
Hi Everyone
Welcome back Robert!
How does the average software developer compete with the established
companies like Microsoft ? Definitely clients want to see something
when they spend their money on us. I've had to learn to make my
applications a little more than just functional by getting in a graphic
designer to help with interfaces.
Whether I want to go the .NET route - time will tell. I'm still stuck
to my VCL components and am in no hurry to change. I've started looking
at Dev-C++ and wxWidgets to see what they have to offer for the move
into the Linux GUI but I still have some way to go before I get
comfortable with another language.
Lets all face the facts - Borland got it right with Delphi and I know of
no other platform (VCL) where so many components are available to
developers! Its really like developers all over the world are working
collectively on each others projects, even if you feel like the "lone
programmer". We use each others components and therefore contribute to
the common good. Even where it involves buying components for Delphi it
still saves time on deploying the applications.
My suggested solution is to support Lazarus and saturate Linux platforms
with applications that we take for granted on the windows platform. I
really like writing compact applications and frankly .NET doesn't do it
for me yet. (I know the framework will be on the PC already - what
happened to REAL programming)
OR
Delphi must go Open Source ???
Anyway guys - thats my five cents for today!
Yours sincerely
Andre van Zuydam
Still using Delphi VCL!
Robert Meek wrote:
> Hi all,
> Sorry I haven't been able to participate on the lists so
> infrequently as of late. And thanx for the many personal well-wishes
I
> have received from so many members over the last couple months. I am
> amazed my friends here have shown their support and care so much more
> than those I've known locally since grade school! But I guess it's
more
> due to the fact that they are still living their lives nightly sopping
> up beer at the firehouse trying to keep up Schuylkill County's
> reputation as drinking more per capita than any other county in the
> entire State of Pa., while I only show up for meetings anymore!
> Although it's been tough getting back into my work I HAVE been
> trying to create a different interface for XP and/or Vista unlike
those
> commonly available because most of the few small business clients I
> still have loyal to me are constantly complaining that they want more
> integration into the OS of the various solutions I offer them.
> Especially for those that have upgraded to Vista, where Microsoft is
> doing it's best to make it impossible for the lone programmer to get
any
> work because of their offering everything I used to provide with
desktop
> solutions for free! Basically, the only two programs I've sold in the
> last year have no real visual UI of their own but simply get called
and
> work from the OS's menu systems. I wouldn't mind so much but even
> business clients who should know better don't like paying for
something
> they can't see no matter how well it works or what problems it solves
> for them!
> There was a well written but depressing article/editorial in a
> freebie NET mag I read last month, ( the name escapes me at the moment
> ), in which the writer compared guys like me to canaries in the old
coal
> mines, and how unless you can re-educate yourself to work using NET as
> part of a team, but specializing yourself in one particular area of
the
> target solution, it is impossible to make a living anymore.
> I never made a living or really tried to as programming has
> always been more of a sideline for me having started so late, but I
used
> to at least make it pay for itself and used it as an additional asset
to
> the services I provided my clients!
> How are some of you that might work alone as I do been dealing
> with such problems...or aren't you?
> I've dallied about with VS and NET over the last two years, but
> I must admit that I find Delphi much easier to work with and
understand!
> NET programming feels to me like cooking by recipe in place of
> experimenting with your own creativity and finding how to make a dish
> that tastes good. And its taking programming where the availability
of
> computing power has taken the game of chess...making it a worthless
> endeavor unless your idea of fun is in crunching data!
> Any comments?
>
> from Robert Meek dba "Tangentals Design"
> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Freelance Windows Programming for XP and Vista
> Also proud to be a Moderator of the "Delphi-List" at elists.org
>
> "Reality cannot be explained...only enjoyed or endured as your current
> perspective allows!"
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Delphi-Talk mailing list -> Delphi-Talk@elists.org
> http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi-talk
>
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