[DUG-OFFTOPIC]: Just Some Quick Notes - Delphi 8 .net win32 et al

[Paul A Norman]

Hi all, Just some Quick Notes The issues are potentially I believe much greater than just .Net and Delphi as an IDE. To me it is not just about the changing of the guard, from one programming regime to another. There are ginormous commercial forces at work that could actually end up having a signifiant role in a lot of people's lives and accesability to information and resources. Its much bigger than just us little developers sitting in New Zealand. Not long ago I allowed a security update for the Browser on the MS 'auto update download system'. A couple of applications I have for internal use which rely on TWebBrowser or TembeddedWB misbehaved. Then a little while later another update came through, I allowed it to take place. My applications started to function normally again. I started to wonder at what had happened for those brief few days. That got me thinking and going over what MS have been saying about .Net and the end of Windows programming as we know it. My previous fears had been originally allayed by Borland's earlier strong assurances, through a direct emailing campaign, that it was going to see us right with Win32 and neo- Win64 as I understood it. Then came the infamous about face (under some stipulation of its deal with MS perhaps? I don't know but it all seemed very strange and ill explained at the time, in fact it was not really explained at all, which leaves the door open for such conjecture.) What I have become concerned with is the tight integration between many components previously deployed with or under Delphi and the Windows System generally. Both by Borland, third parties and write your own. For example the Twebbrowser technology is used directly and indirectly in a huge number of applications generated from Delphi 3 days and up. It was deployed directly by Borland themselves in either Delphi 5 or 6. Also the central role of the CDO family of Dlls (CDOSYS.DLL in XP & NT2000-?) in handling all things OE and emailish is an example of core functionality that many developers may have taken for granted, with out them knowing the means by which various components they regularly use actually function. Underlying MAPI would be but another example. System file operations, Math functions? (-- I'm not sure .. that is the point!) The list could be endless. If Microsoft is moving the whole accessibility regime to .Net, and no doubt for future releases of Win making the previous Api calls to artefact Win32 or the new Win64 unavailable -- (will be said to be for security but will really be for commercial reasons), and then releases an update to IExplorer say version 7.0 or something that includes some element of a transitional .Net framework, which I think is similar to the way that Win 16 was transitioned to Win32 Dlls while still under win 3.x, then we would be left with a lot of code for people still running Win 32 or new Win 64 systems, that is Delphi and related code, that may not find what it needs in the system any longer. Effectively things like ShellDoOc_tlb and mshtml_tlb would not function any more as we know them, nor any direct Api calls to such functions. In a sense this would be like introducing a new declaration to add to Private, Public, Published, Protected etc .., one that says: " Fully.Net_Only!" Interfaces would almost if you like check for a registered .Net password before allowing use of their resources and functionality. So much of the stuff that MS is flagging is pointing to or hinting at this kind of a regime. They want pay as you go in nearly every other field, so why not in this too? So a client could still be on a Win 32 or neo- Win 64 system, all your applications for them are running well, and then they either allow a major Win update, MS Office Update, or download the latest version of the IExplorer. Your programmes might then be in trouble in ways you could not even have guessed at. This could apply to all kinds of programmes right across the spectrum from science to education to commercial business applications. Philosophiocally this may be considered abstraclty in the System seperate from Applications pardigm that the "Netscape Wars" ended up leading us to have to consider. I.e., if to update an application you have to change the system, you are in trouble. It appears as if there is a deep concept involved here on sepreation of functions. Its a science we are only just starting to fathom. Law has long recognised that it is bound by principals in many areas that man has not invented. Originally in the Word 6.0 days, MS considered turning the Office Suite into the Desktop, the front end for the whole system, and started developing things in that direction with Word 7.0 (95) and hints of the move still remain in Word 97. That is why the VBA in Office 97 left the system so vulnerable to macro viral attackers. Office was to have been the front end to the whole system, and so had to be wired in that way. BG was saying at the beginning that there was no commercial future in the Internet(!). Then MS woke up, and started to develop its now great browser technology. They then intended to make it the desktop instead, and started down that path with Win 98. Apart from MS's own statements about how impossible it is becoming to separate the browser and system technologies, remember in the Netscape wars and what came out under the Senate hearings in USA about the tight integration of the underlying Windows system and the IExplorer? Have you noticed that when IExplorer is updated or replaced that sometimes a message appears saying "updating your windows system" often key DLLs are being replaced as a standard part of the procedure, and its not just registry keys being updated. MS have an apparent history of doing all they can to obsolete previous operating systems. It makes short term good commercial sense, I suppose. They even claimed that it was technically impossible to provide an IE 5 with Java, et al, for Win 3.x, that was until Netscape did an equivalent number for Win 3.x, and then MS just took a pre-prepared (full on) IE5 off the shelf and *instantly* released it, having just said that it could not be done! How much of the Delphi basic units system is tied behind the scenes to Api calls to core Windows Dlls that may be affected if MS go all the way with .Net? .Net has the ability during future general windows(32 64), ms office, Ieexplorer et al, installation and *updates* (<-- the danger area!) to change the nature and behaviour of Dlls we may not know about and which we are taking for granted. This can apply to existing Win 32 and the coming Win 64 clients as well. We need either Borland to really be standing in the ring for the one million (they say) developers still using Delphi from (yes!) version 1 and up, or we need to learn how to integrate very closely with the technologies represented by what may become the office related products of the future like Open Office, which represents Delphi talking to Java through the Com Bridge that the Star Office/ Open Office community has developed. The State Government of Bravaria and the City of Munich are taking Open Office and Linux very seriously, and I have some respect for German appraisals of efficiency and reliability. I appreciate the Mayor of Munich's statement that this was about not allowing the public interest to be controlled through a Commercial Giant's operating system, with decission being made about the public good  by foreign commercial interests. The same applies right down to the individual developers activites and if in private enterprise, their on going business viability. No room to develop the idea here, but working with concepts like COM bridges between Java and Win and Linux, is still indirect, but may be safer than .Net in the long term and more versatile than just pure Java. After all .Net is the MS counter to Java some say. Developers have to decide whether Borland's gamble on utterly backing .Net, understandable in the short term, doesn't tie development even closer to MS at a time when the world seems to want freedom form that kind of monopoly. We need to see the kind of Com Bridge between Delphi type environments and Java fully developed as a philosophy. There are perhaps advantages in using both Java with Delphi types of languages. May be it is time for us kiwis to think bigger than just ourselves and get on to it as we have in other fields in the past. Why not start with a full on GPL effort on something immediately achievable like getting some decent components together for full integration with Star/Open Office? Lets not get stuck only with .Net, instead why not lets do something positive to help keep the doors open! Paul [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://PaulANorman.com Ph NZ 021 782 433 Fx NZ 021 292 2433 Overseas: Ph. +6421782433 Fax +64212912433 P.O. Box 1005 Nelson 7015 New Zealand