Interesting.
But if the future is handheld and mobile OSes (which it almost certainly is in terms of numbers at least) then is Linux and Mac cross platform really the next stepping stone to take? I don't think so. Surely the next step to take would be developing a MobileVCL which is a cut down and streamlined version of the Windows VCL, with target platforms such as Symbian, iPhone OS, Android, Windows Mobile, etc. Now THAT would very much interest me because we could certainly see a use for cut down field versions of several of our apps. However I don't see how VCLX is really a useful stepping stone towards running Delphi on mobile devices. If it is the goal and VCLX is just some sort of expensive and frustrating (for the customers) trial of Cross Platform development in preparation for the main event then I am extremely disappointed in Embarcadero. David. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird Sent: Wednesday, 14 October 2009 4:57 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] Presentation in Christchurch - any other meetings in Chch? I think a lot of you are being short sighted. Just my opinion. I lived through the mini-computer era, using Digital Equipment mini-computers with RT-11 and VMS - both really good operating systems, and thought at the time if they started selling VMS for a few $100 rather than thousands they may have captured the mini-computer market as it was way superior to MS-DOS, instead they didn't adapt and got clobbered by Microsoft to the extent the company and the platform does not even exist now. Its a less certain thing as its still the future, but its my guess likely in 5 years netbooks/laptops and mobile and phone OS will largely kill desktop PCs and in time likely Windows too, as there is not much sign they will be the leading candidate for mobile devices in 5 years. Hence the more cross platform and new UI (read touchscreen) enabled a language is the better positioned it will be. Also apps are moving more to be web enabled, where the UI is done by the browser instead, so this also is not really tied to one OS. There are only a few good frameworks that run across many OS's - think Firefox/Thunderbird (XUL) and Safari/Itunes etc. As far as I can gather none of these are remotely easy for new programmers to jump into. Thats why I reckon Delphi as a cross platform simple UI language could be a killer, and why its worth doing even if it is not too easy. John
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