On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 09:36:51AM +0530, Nataraj S Narayan wrote:
> Why is it that every body and anything got a Dot Net version? Even
> Borland's got a dot net enabled Delphi coming it seems. Some say that
> Microsoft got Dot net idea from Delphi.
[[black humor mode on]]
- Microsoft had relative poor quality tools that separated users in
professionals (C++) and beginners (VB). (*)
- Java was the only other tool that gained users year after year.
- So Microsoft made an own version, and it actually was pretty decent for a
Java clone, they also modernized the concept and additionally threw in huge
libraries and a gigantic marketing budget to promote it as "safe" after
their recent security fiasco's, and make .NET the core of their damage
control, hooking into the greatly exaggerated safety of VM systems.
- It was mostly better than the old tools for ordinary application
programmers, so most of the Microsoft toolchain users migrated.
- The other tool vendors were already pretty bankrupt anyway, since
application development toolchains were old news, and the development costs
of toolcains are huge. Except for Borland most changed hands to companies
selling other stuff. Most of them sell hardware and/or services.
(Java is from Sun who sells hardware. Eclipse and GCC are sponsored
by IBM (and others))
- Borland was already in ruines because of the failed ALM experiments and
dwindling numbers of users, and decided they could do even worse by trying
to compete with Microsoft by luring more people to .NET.
- They failed to provide anything extra. Since MS controls the platforms,
has a gigantic evangelisation industry called "MS C|D E" and is the
default choice, they lost users. Then they lost more users since they
already neglected the not-yet dead win32 market by release 3 nearly
entirely .NET focussed releases in a row, and planning a 4th.
(*) Some people say .NET managed to unify these two groups by making them
all beginners.
> In Linux there is a mono project. What could the advantages be ?
Well, mostly it legitimes Microsofts claims that .NET is not tied to
windows, and provides a scapegoat for .NET programmers to say their new
project will be portable.
> Where does all this leave Lazarus/Fpc?
With the feet firmly planted on the floor, continuing the work.
> Yeah, I understand, Computer Science is not like Physics or Mathematics.
> Today's tech is dumped within few years. Quantum mechanics and
> Relativity is perennial as Calculus and Probablity theory. Is there
> anything like that in CS? Maybe plain C or Pascal fits the bill?
- Companies developing software for other companies often use software
tools/philosophy as marketing tool. Find a company that uses the software
it writes, and you avoid the worst of the rat race.
- The latter also makes sure they have something to gain from reduced amounts of
bugs and development time.
- Other activities in the company besides software (iow contact with the
"real" world) also helps :-)
- If you are purely in it for the money, stop programming and get an
accounting bachelor. Then move into the ERP world, and drop some of the
terms you remember occasionally from your programming world into the
conversation (at technically totally random moments)
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