Well a good thing is to look at actual data.
A couple of standard surveys:
http://www.langpop.com/
worth scrolling down thru all the different graphs.
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
The one for last year had Delphi at #8, and showed since 2003 to 2008 that it
has somewhat increased in popularity. It rates Delphi as #11 now so doesn't
provide the historical graph this year for Delphi (only the top 10 are shown).
Delphi is an oddity in being much more popular outside US (Firefox is the same
- there are now more Firefox V3 users in Europe than IE7 users).
A couple of things are clear:
The biggest langiuges are consistently C and Java
Strong interest in C++, Ruby, Python, PHP, Visual Basic and C#.
Also featuring a lot are Javascript, Perl, SQL. Javascript optimised
compilers/runtimes are a big growth area, as large parts of Firefox are
written in Javascript (There are some 66 .js files in a firefox installation
totalling some 2MB). It is also a significant player in many web pages for
performance and functionality.
There is an interesting graph showing the growth of dynamcially type languages
vs statically typed.
As far as C# goes, I am still wondering what sort of projects (other than lots
of business inhouse projects for Windows PC's) are using C#, as the proof is
what uses it in practice - It doesn't look like for instance that Microsoft
uses much dot net in their core Windows and Office products.
I have seen technical white papers which unfortunately I did not get copies of
(as MS were rather unhappy about it and they have generally disappeared)
analysing Windows Vista's binaries, to find that only about 5% were built using
identifiable parts of the .net framework, and most of these were in the media
parts of Windows. I also was somewhat surprised when I installed D2007 - the
IDE uses the .NET V2 framework and as part of the installation it had to
install this - that is it is NOT part of a standard Windows Vista installation.
Others comments on C# welcomed!
I would hazard a guess that the most interesting technologies today are those
that would allow the holy grail of being accessable over as many of the
following environments as possibel: Windows/Mac/Mobiles/Unix. The most
promising of these (seen from a great distance because I am not familiar with
any of them to use) are XUL (Mozilla), various Open GL, QT (used in Safari for
Mac and Windows versions), and .NET which gets good reviews for doing Windows
and Web stuff.
Personally I suspect that desktops will start to phase out, replaced by mobile
devices with RDP connections to servers or web servers for the grunty stuff,
and I don't think anyone has figured out that environment yet, and MS does not
have a clear lead there.
I have seen this before, working for years with those well engineered DEC
PDP's, with the large complex OS being eaten up by the woefully underpowered
PC's when they appeared and quickly took over. IBM and DEC (numbers 1 and 2
computer companies) were caught completely flat-footed with high cost computers
and monolithic OS's and so got killed. DEC does not even exist any more - it
used to be bigger than Microsoft.
I reckon the woefully inadequate mobile devices - Phones/ Iphones/Android/iPod
Touch etc are about to do the same thing again to the desktop PC. In such a
case the question is bigger than which language is the best - its more which OS
will be predominant or exist in a few years.
John Bird
JBCL
Contact:
[email protected]
03-3844527, 027 4844528
http://jbclnz.googlepages.com
http://www.jbcl.co.nz
----- Original Message -----
From: Kyley Harris
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: [DUG] Future of us Delphi programmer in New Zealand?
haha.. I simply am watching the market and trends of delphi in this country,
and I've kept track of many of the companies I know that use delphi.
Most of the companies that had delphi developers now have 1 or 2 maximum on
staff. the rest is outsourced offshore, or they are now using other languages
and following modern trends of c# etc.
I am in the position of writing and selling software, so choosing delphi is
fine.. my customers are not concerned by the language used, only the end
product..
More and more, I see other bigger companies ditch delphi for other
languages.. So I said no hope, meaning.. If you loose your delphi employment,
and are seeking a new job as an employee, rather than as an independant
software vendor.. its getting slimmer and slimmer pickings in the market.
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 10:49 AM, Leigh Wanstead <[email protected]> wrote:
Why no hope?
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Have a nice day
Regards
Leigh
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]on Behalf Of Kyley Harris
Sent: Thursday, 9 April 2009 9:55 a.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Future of us Delphi programmer in New Zealand?
As a company, fine.. as an employee? no hope :)
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Leigh Wanstead <[email protected]>
wrote:
Before this happy Easter holiday, I am thinking what future about us
Delphi
programmer in New Zealand? Will we have to program in C#? ;-)
I am programming AVR/Microchip assembler in my spare time. I am a fast
learner. ;-)
Have a nice day
Regards
Leigh
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Kyley Harris
Harris Software
+64-21-671-821
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