Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
OPPS Hopefully as Greame said above, things are on the improve. Malcolm of course. And people should give E and Malcom time to work out how they want to respond, I've had an email that at least suggests they are not closed to looking at things in a helpful light. I was not given leave to share the details. Paul 2009/9/24 Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com There was some sort of problem with the Code Gear mailout lists - even though I was ticked as wanting communicatoin from Borland about product as a registered user (D3 c/s, D4. Pro, D.2005) I never got notifications from them of such things nor from our local friends for a while. I do now, David I finally got me on the list, but I had missed out on many a deal. And knew others this had affewcted as well? Hopefully as Greame said above, things are on the improve. Paul 2009/9/23 Leigh Wanstead lei...@softtech.co.nz I cannot recall it. I stay in New Zealand for more than ten years. May we get these deals back? J *From:* delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Richard Vowles *Sent:* Tuesday, 22 September 2009 4:51 p.m. *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero We did that once. Just once - anyone remember the deal? 2009/9/22 Leigh Wanstead lei...@softtech.co.nz BTW, can we get New Zealand adjusted Delphi price? I think that Kiwi earns around half compare to usa Delphi developer. Can we get a price if labeled US$2,000 for Delphi in USA, NZ$2,000 for Delphi in New Zealand? -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
That was the one :-) 2009/9/22 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz I bought a copy of Enterprise for 2000NZD once... wasn’t quite sure why it was on such a big special but I do remember jumping at it ;-) -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
And to answer the other question on this . *when* did that promotion run? (apologies if you're in the middle of composing the answer to that in a separate mail) From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Richard Vowles Sent: Thursday, 24 September 2009 1:49 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero That was the one :-) 2009/9/22 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz I bought a copy of Enterprise for 2000NZD once... wasn't quite sure why it was on such a big special but I do remember jumping at it ;-) -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Paul re your comments on my blog (thanks for leaving some feedback - btw). Yes FreePascal may indeed be the Community Edition. I last looked at FPC some years ago and at the time came away happy to pay for the extra polish in Delphi. The time has come I think to give FPC another look. As someone else pointed out in another comment on my blog, I may not be alone in thinking along these lines, if the TIOBE index is anything to go by Check out the astronomical rise in ranking of Pascal recently, as compared to the stagnation nay, decline - of Delphi. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Thursday, 24 September 2009 1:28 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Thanks for that Malcolm, Some of us had understood that prevopusly things had been passed up the line on our behalfs, and that may have caused a lot of ill feeling, will do what you suggest, Paul 2009/9/21 Malcolm Groves mgro...@embarcadero.com Hi all, Ive just read through quite a few of the messages in this thread (not all, I admit) and there are a few things in here I should respond to. Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. Nothing has leaked. Official announcements are coming, but I notified our Asia sales staff and asked them to notify our partners and customers last week so we could give people as much notice as possible (also for another reason, see the end of this email). I posted advance notice to the ADUG list here in Aus, and would have posted on this list except Richard asked if he could post it. As our local representative in NZ, it made sense to me that he do it. Nothing underhand going on. Also, the reason I havent responded sooner is that I only check the lists every week or so, unless someone alerts me to something that needs more urgent attention. Ø I still feel cheated that at no time were those of us who bought Delphi 2005 which still has many unpatched major problems Ø given the opening to more reasonibly ($) upgrade from it. Im sorry you feel like this, but this is not accurate. Multiple times a year we offer discounts/bundles/third-party value-adds, etc to upgraders. Ive got a partial list here and it shows that since 2006 was released weve done at least 6 such offerings in NZ, and I havent bothered going through the rest of my email archive to see if there were more. Now, the offers we made may not have been enough to make you accept, thats a separate issue, but saying weve made no offers to previous users is plainly wrong. In terms of updates, we havent really changed our policy for a long time. Leaving aside people who pay for higher levels of support, we typically release update packs during the first 6-12 months of the products life (eg, 3 update packs for 2005, 2 update packs for 2006 + 11 hotfix packs, etc) but once a later version has come out, these typically slow down or stop entirely. That may not be what everybody wants, I appreciate that, but despite multiple attempts over the years its proven difficult if not impossible to get update packs for older releases on the schedule. So, despite wishing it were different, I doubt were going to be able to change that. Ive probably missed some questions, feel free to tell me if I have, but let me finish on a slightly more positive note. In addition to giving people as much notice as possible, part of the point of letting people know about this change in advance is so that I could gauge the reaction. Today we treat someone who last invested in a Delphi license 14 years ago with Delphi 1, exactly the same as someone who invested 1 year ago with 2009. I firmly believe we should give people who spent money with us recently some benefit, especially those who spent money with us during the years when you couldnt have blamed them for keeping their wallet in their pocket. So, while I support the spirit of this change, the detail of where we draw the cutoff line is still a topic I think we can adjust. In talking with customers and staff and watching the discussions on various groups around the region and I think Ive seen enough to go back to our internal discussion and suggest we need to change our current proposal. So, your feedback is being heard, despite what you might believe from some of the comments. Lastly, can I just make a request for a fair go for the current Embarcadero team? We are well aware that we cannot ignore the legacy of decisions made by Borland Executives over the years, and we are trying extremely hard to walk the line of investing to take the product back above the historic levels of quality and innovation you came to expect, and at the same time keeping it a profitable business for our owners. I think
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I bought a copy of Enterprise for 2000NZD once... wasn't quite sure why it was on such a big special but I do remember jumping at it ;-) From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Richard Vowles Sent: Tuesday, 22 September 2009 4:51 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero We did that once. Just once - anyone remember the deal? 2009/9/22 Leigh Wanstead lei...@softtech.co.nz BTW, can we get New Zealand adjusted Delphi price? I think that Kiwi earns around half compare to usa Delphi developer. Can we get a price if labeled US$2,000 for Delphi in USA, NZ$2,000 for Delphi in New Zealand? -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I don't, so either it happened more than 4 years ago (before I came to NZ) or it wasn't very well publicised. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Richard Vowles Sent: Tuesday, 22 September 2009 4:51 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero We did that once. Just once - anyone remember the deal? 2009/9/22 Leigh Wanstead lei...@softtech.co.nz BTW, can we get New Zealand adjusted Delphi price? I think that Kiwi earns around half compare to usa Delphi developer. Can we get a price if labeled US$2,000 for Delphi in USA, NZ$2,000 for Delphi in New Zealand? -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I cannot recall it. I stay in New Zealand for more than ten years. May we get these deals back? :) From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Richard Vowles Sent: Tuesday, 22 September 2009 4:51 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero We did that once. Just once - anyone remember the deal? 2009/9/22 Leigh Wanstead lei...@softtech.co.nzmailto:lei...@softtech.co.nz BTW, can we get New Zealand adjusted Delphi price? I think that Kiwi earns around half compare to usa Delphi developer. Can we get a price if labeled US$2,000 for Delphi in USA, NZ$2,000 for Delphi in New Zealand? -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
A sliding scale on the face of it appears fairer, but when assessing fairness it's also worth considering that someone still using Delphi 1 (to take an EXTREME and ridiculous example) has not only not paid for Delphi 2-2009, but has also not enjoyed or benefited from Delphi 2-2009 either. That's the additional price they paid for NOT upgrading. And there will undoubtedly be additional costs in managing an upgrade policy that differentiates between different types/loyalties of customer. Surely much easier to take a No Nonsense approach. Once a customer always a customer and glad to have you on-board, no matter when you last spent money with us. Turning a customer away - explicitly or by disincentive - just because they haven't spent any money with you *recently* is just petty. Now certainly we can point to any number of other companies that don't offer various upgrade pricing schemes, the question is, is what's right for a XYX-Other product also right for Delphi? In this case, I simply don't see how it can be a commercially realistic business attitude - the people you are turning away are those people least likely to spend money with you already (by definition, because they haven't been upgrading and since that was their choice, there were probably good reasons, OTHER than simple cost). Those already spending have already spent. All you are doing is making it even *less* likely that those already *least* likely to spend with you will choose to do so again. But as I've pointed out before this is not really an issue for those using Delphi for commercial gain where the costs are relatively trivial compared to the rewards. My concern is for the hobbyist/community developer that arguably has always been the backbone of the Delphi market. Just look at the amount of community code now present in the editions we are all being asked to pay through the nose for FastCode, FastMM4, DevExtensions, DelphiSpeedUp, PNG support and no end of improvements *inspired* no doubt by community improvements in GExperts etc. All these things were developed and made available for free then poached, cough I mean acquired for the greater good of the community by Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero, but now we're told that it's entirely reasonable for them to charge TOP $ and we should just suck it up. After taking so much from the Community is it really unreasonable to ask that a little consideration be given to that community (and I don't just mean in the form of compensating those individuals whos work is selected to make it into the product, but rather in terms of fostering that community further and encouraging *others* to make such equally valuable contributions, even if they perhaps aren't in a position to be billing well heeled customers by the hour to fund their Delphi habit. Borland were roundly criticized for turning their back on the community developer, but lest we forget, it was Borland that (eventually) resurrected the Turbo Explorer FREE editions. Embarcadero need to address the huge gap at the bottom of their SKU ladder. A Pro Edition that costs as much for a new license as a not-awful second hand car is NOT a viable proposition for a community developer, and neither are upgrade prices that cost as much as a half-decent, brand new PC. The Turbo's need to come back. And quickly. And I mean proper Turbo's, with sensible limits. Disallowing the installation of components is dumb, when a great deal of community activity is *creating* components. But equally supporting extensive refactoring and modeling and SCM integrations is dumb since these are the things that are of most value to someone who's time is money. There should also be no restrictions on use, OR a Community Edition which is entirely free but which prohibits use for commercial gain, with a license upgrade to permit the use for commercial gain, without unlocking any additional functionality (or perhaps removing some watermarking, for example). Watermarking may be the way to go actually. Digitally signing any compilation products produced using the free edition and rejecting **those** binaries if you attempt to install them in the IDE. i.e. you HAVE to distribute source code if you create anything you wish to share, using the Community Edition. Now there's an idea. Having spewed/brain-dumped this lot into this email I'm now going to cannibalise a lot of this for a blog post I think, so apologies for any déjà vue you might experience thru Delphi Feeds later. :) ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
At the end of the day, I'd like to know if Embarcardo is making huge profits, or losses.. or mediocre.. it benefits none of us if their pricing is not sustainable.. Perhaps in all liklihood, most of their revenue is from existing delphi owners, more than new customers, and the upgrade prices is no longer sufficient to keep them afloat..??? its a thought.. I'd be inclined to think that the Upgrade is too low, and the Retail is too high, and a nice balance in the middle of simply setting one price for all, (new or old) and at a sustainable value would benefit everyone the most... I would rather pay $2000 a year and keep them in business, than pay $400 a year, and have them sold again and see delphi go down the chute. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: A sliding scale on the face of it appears fairer, but when assessing fairness it's also worth considering that someone still using Delphi 1 (to take an EXTREME and ridiculous example) has not only not paid for Delphi 2-2009, but has also not enjoyed or benefited from Delphi 2-2009 either. That's the additional price they paid for NOT upgrading. And there will undoubtedly be additional costs in managing an upgrade policy that differentiates between different types/loyalties of customer. Surely much easier to take a No Nonsense approach. Once a customer always a customer and glad to have you on-board, no matter when you last spent money with us. Turning a customer away - explicitly or by disincentive - just because they haven't spent any money with you *recently* is just petty. Now certainly we can point to any number of other companies that don't offer various upgrade pricing schemes, the question is, is what's right for a XYX-Other product also right for Delphi? In this case, I simply don't see how it can be a commercially realistic business attitude - the people you are turning away are those people least likely to spend money with you already (by definition, because they haven't been upgrading and since that was their choice, there were probably good reasons, OTHER than simple cost). Those already spending have already spent. All you are doing is making it even *less* likely that those already *least* likely to spend with you will choose to do so again. But as I've pointed out before this is not really an issue for those using Delphi for commercial gain where the costs are relatively trivial compared to the rewards. My concern is for the hobbyist/community developer that arguably has always been the backbone of the Delphi market. Just look at the amount of community code now present in the editions we are all being asked to pay through the nose for FastCode, FastMM4, DevExtensions, DelphiSpeedUp, PNG support and no end of improvements *inspired* no doubt by community improvements in GExperts etc. All these things were developed and made available for free then poached, cough I mean acquired for the greater good of the community by Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero, but now we're told that it's entirely reasonable for them to charge TOP $ and we should just suck it up. After taking so much from the Community is it really unreasonable to ask that a little consideration be given to that community (and I don't just mean in the form of compensating those individuals whos work is selected to make it into the product, but rather in terms of fostering that community further and encouraging *others* to make such equally valuable contributions, even if they perhaps aren't in a position to be billing well heeled customers by the hour to fund their Delphi habit. Borland were roundly criticized for turning their back on the community developer, but lest we forget, it was Borland that (eventually) resurrected the Turbo Explorer FREE editions. Embarcadero need to address the huge gap at the bottom of their SKU ladder. A Pro Edition that costs as much for a new license as a not-awful second hand car is NOT a viable proposition for a community developer, and neither are upgrade prices that cost as much as a half-decent, brand new PC. The Turbo's need to come back. And quickly. And I mean proper Turbo's, with sensible limits. Disallowing the installation of components is dumb, when a great deal of community activity is *creating* components. But equally supporting extensive refactoring and modeling and SCM integrations is dumb since these are the things that are of most value to someone who's time is money. There should also be no restrictions on use, OR a Community Edition which is entirely free but which prohibits use for commercial gain, with a license upgrade to permit the use for commercial gain, without unlocking any additional functionality (or perhaps removing some watermarking, for example). Watermarking may be the way to go actually. Digitally signing any compilation products produced using the free edition and rejecting
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Just look at the amount of community code now present in the editions we are all being asked to pay through the nose for FastCode, FastMM4, DevExtensions, DelphiSpeedUp, PNG support and no end of improvements *inspired* no doubt by community improvements in GExperts etc. All these things were developed and made available for free then poached, cough I mean acquired for the greater good of the community by Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero, but now we're told that it's entirely reasonable for them to charge TOP $ and we should just suck it up. I'd be careful stating that these things were added to the IDE without compensation of some form. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hi Kyley it benefits none of us if their pricing is not sustainable.. The key figure is not price, but price x sales. You might be prepared to pay more, but if increasing the price drops the sales to a trickle it will benefit no one. I'd be inclined to think that the Upgrade is too low, and the Retail is too high, and a nice balance in the middle of simply setting one price for all, (new or old) and at a sustainable value would benefit everyone the most... I would rather pay $2000 a year and keep them in business, than pay $400 a year, and have them sold again and see delphi go down the chute. I hope they will reintroduce the free Personal addition for non-commercial developement. It would re-ignite interest in the product, especially with 64 bit, X platform and iTouch enhancements to come. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hehe.. i do not want to pay more.. what i meant was that the price should be a fair equilibrium.. just as too high means people dont pay.. too low means they go out of business. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Todd Martin todd.martin...@gmail.comwrote: Hi Kyley it benefits none of us if their pricing is not sustainable.. The key figure is not price, but price x sales. You might be prepared to pay more, but if increasing the price drops the sales to a trickle it will benefit no one. I'd be inclined to think that the Upgrade is too low, and the Retail is too high, and a nice balance in the middle of simply setting one price for all, (new or old) and at a sustainable value would benefit everyone the most... I would rather pay $2000 a year and keep them in business, than pay $400 a year, and have them sold again and see delphi go down the chute. I hope they will reintroduce the free Personal addition for non-commercial developement. It would re-ignite interest in the product, especially with 64 bit, X platform and iTouch enhancements to come. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Its nice that you can afford $2000 a year. J What would be even nicer would be for there to be a product you could pay $2000 a year for, AND a product that someone who cant afford that could pay $400 a year for. Then Embarcadero get and keep 2 customers paying a total of $2400 where they currently only have one earning them $2000 (or more likely just a fraction of one customer, paying that price every other year or even every third year, if they have to in order to stay current for upgrade purposes). The problem isnt the price of Professional, its the fact that that is the CHEAPEST version of Delphi available. There needs to be a Standard Edition. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Kyley Harris Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 19:43 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero At the end of the day, I'd like to know if Embarcardo is making huge profits, or losses.. or mediocre.. it benefits none of us if their pricing is not sustainable.. Perhaps in all liklihood, most of their revenue is from existing delphi owners, more than new customers, and the upgrade prices is no longer sufficient to keep them afloat..??? its a thought.. I'd be inclined to think that the Upgrade is too low, and the Retail is too high, and a nice balance in the middle of simply setting one price for all, (new or old) and at a sustainable value would benefit everyone the most... I would rather pay $2000 a year and keep them in business, than pay $400 a year, and have them sold again and see delphi go down the chute. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: A sliding scale on the face of it appears fairer, but when assessing fairness it's also worth considering that someone still using Delphi 1 (to take an EXTREME and ridiculous example) has not only not paid for Delphi 2-2009, but has also not enjoyed or benefited from Delphi 2-2009 either. That's the additional price they paid for NOT upgrading. And there will undoubtedly be additional costs in managing an upgrade policy that differentiates between different types/loyalties of customer. Surely much easier to take a No Nonsense approach. Once a customer always a customer and glad to have you on-board, no matter when you last spent money with us. Turning a customer away - explicitly or by disincentive - just because they haven't spent any money with you *recently* is just petty. Now certainly we can point to any number of other companies that don't offer various upgrade pricing schemes, the question is, is what's right for a XYX-Other product also right for Delphi? In this case, I simply don't see how it can be a commercially realistic business attitude - the people you are turning away are those people least likely to spend money with you already (by definition, because they haven't been upgrading and since that was their choice, there were probably good reasons, OTHER than simple cost). Those already spending have already spent. All you are doing is making it even *less* likely that those already *least* likely to spend with you will choose to do so again. But as I've pointed out before this is not really an issue for those using Delphi for commercial gain where the costs are relatively trivial compared to the rewards. My concern is for the hobbyist/community developer that arguably has always been the backbone of the Delphi market. Just look at the amount of community code now present in the editions we are all being asked to pay through the nose for FastCode, FastMM4, DevExtensions, DelphiSpeedUp, PNG support and no end of improvements *inspired* no doubt by community improvements in GExperts etc. All these things were developed and made available for free then poached, cough I mean acquired for the greater good of the community by Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero, but now we're told that it's entirely reasonable for them to charge TOP $ and we should just suck it up. After taking so much from the Community is it really unreasonable to ask that a little consideration be given to that community (and I don't just mean in the form of compensating those individuals whos work is selected to make it into the product, but rather in terms of fostering that community further and encouraging *others* to make such equally valuable contributions, even if they perhaps aren't in a position to be billing well heeled customers by the hour to fund their Delphi habit. Borland were roundly criticized for turning their back on the community developer, but lest we forget, it was Borland that (eventually) resurrected the Turbo Explorer FREE editions. Embarcadero need to address the huge gap at the bottom of their SKU ladder. A Pro Edition that costs as much for a new license as a not-awful second hand car is NOT a viable proposition for a community developer, and neither
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I'd be careful stating that these things were added to the IDE without compensation of some form. I don't need to be careful saying that, because I was careful NOT to say that at all. ;) I'm sure suitable arrangements were made in each case, but the point is that the people involved did not create their respective contributions in expectation of financial compensation or under contract to BorCodeaGearo. They created and shared their efforts as an act of community. Take that community out of Delphi and I don't think that what's left is enough to stand up against fully Open Source on the one hand and the unrelentingly commercial on the other (and ironically that unrelentingly commercial hand - Microsoft - are doing MORE to support a community with their tools in terms of free/cheaper editions than Embarcadero). ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Can Afford? Cant Afford.. Any developer can afford it.. its about how much an hour you are earning afterwards.. A standard edition may be nice.. But just like you can get a Toyota Lexus for 100k, a corolla for 20k.. doesn't mean a company should provide a 10k car for those who would like a corolla.. if you cant afford it.. then there are free options like Lazarus.. At the end of the day.. if its priced too high they will go out of business.. if its not .. they wont listen to a few. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: It’s nice that you can afford $2000 a year. J What would be even nicer would be for there to be a product *you* could pay $2000 a year for, AND a product that someone who can’t afford that could pay $400 a year for. Then Embarcadero get and keep 2 customers paying a total of $2400 where they currently only have one earning them $2000 (or more likely just a “fraction of one” customer, paying that price every other year or even every third year, if they have to in order to stay “current” for upgrade purposes). The problem isn’t the price of Professional, it’s the fact that that is the CHEAPEST version of Delphi available. There needs to be a Standard Edition. *From:* delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Kyley Harris *Sent:* Monday, 21 September 2009 19:43 *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero At the end of the day, I'd like to know if Embarcardo is making huge profits, or losses.. or mediocre.. it benefits none of us if their pricing is not sustainable.. Perhaps in all liklihood, most of their revenue is from existing delphi owners, more than new customers, and the upgrade prices is no longer sufficient to keep them afloat..??? its a thought.. I'd be inclined to think that the Upgrade is too low, and the Retail is too high, and a nice balance in the middle of simply setting one price for all, (new or old) and at a sustainable value would benefit everyone the most... I would rather pay $2000 a year and keep them in business, than pay $400 a year, and have them sold again and see delphi go down the chute. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: A sliding scale on the face of it appears fairer, but when assessing fairness it's also worth considering that someone still using Delphi 1 (to take an EXTREME and ridiculous example) has not only not paid for Delphi 2-2009, but has also not enjoyed or benefited from Delphi 2-2009 either. That's the additional price they paid for NOT upgrading. And there will undoubtedly be additional costs in managing an upgrade policy that differentiates between different types/loyalties of customer. Surely much easier to take a No Nonsense approach. Once a customer always a customer and glad to have you on-board, no matter when you last spent money with us. Turning a customer away - explicitly or by disincentive - just because they haven't spent any money with you *recently* is just petty. Now certainly we can point to any number of other companies that don't offer various upgrade pricing schemes, the question is, is what's right for a XYX-Other product also right for Delphi? In this case, I simply don't see how it can be a commercially realistic business attitude - the people you are turning away are those people least likely to spend money with you already (by definition, because they haven't been upgrading and since that was their choice, there were probably good reasons, OTHER than simple cost). Those already spending have already spent. All you are doing is making it even *less* likely that those already *least* likely to spend with you will choose to do so again. But as I've pointed out before this is not really an issue for those using Delphi for commercial gain where the costs are relatively trivial compared to the rewards. My concern is for the hobbyist/community developer that arguably has always been the backbone of the Delphi market. Just look at the amount of community code now present in the editions we are all being asked to pay through the nose for FastCode, FastMM4, DevExtensions, DelphiSpeedUp, PNG support and no end of improvements *inspired* no doubt by community improvements in GExperts etc. All these things were developed and made available for free then poached, cough I mean acquired for the greater good of the community by Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero, but now we're told that it's entirely reasonable for them to charge TOP $ and we should just suck it up. After taking so much from the Community is it really unreasonable to ask that a little consideration be given to that community (and I don't just mean in the form of compensating those individuals whos work is selected to make it into the product, but rather
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Yes, but seeing as MS is an OS supplier they could give everything away for free except the OS and still profit.. but then there would be no competition and the OS would die a slow death Take that community out of Delphi and I don't think that what's left is enough to stand up against fully Open Source on the one hand and the unrelentingly commercial on the other (and ironically that unrelentingly commercial hand - Microsoft - are doing MORE to support a community with their tools in terms of free/cheaper editions than Embarcadero). ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I reckon the problem of too few people upgrading is two-fold: 1 - Delphi is too good. Done work for a firm still using D5 for 10 years. Still works just fine. Not designed to break or become insecure after a few years. 2 - Delphi was not good enough === ie not cheap enough to be a no-brainer to buy (unlike Turbo pascal early 90's), not cutting edge and exciting enough to attract the fresh new faces learning programming. Mainly because Borland took eyes off the developer community. Maybe got leant on to do .NET stuff by MS too, and big end tools and lost their unique focus. Serves them right to disappear into the bowels of a Cobol company. I remember that MicroFocus was around big time 25 years ago. Looks like they kept focus at least (no pun intended). I however don't consider Delphi to be small time or dying. The previous language I programmed in doesn't even rate in the top 100 on the TIOBE index, so to get into Delphi with huge resources on the web is big time for me :) (The old language incidentally is 30 years old, still produces applications in daily use, solid compiled/interpreted stuff. Anyone remember the name DIBOL?) John___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I'd be careful stating that these things were added to the IDE without compensation of some form. I don't need to be careful saying that, because I was careful NOT to say that at all. ;) Unfortunately you weren't subtle enough then. I'm sure suitable arrangements were made in each case, but the point is that the people involved did not create their respective contributions in expectation of financial compensation or under contract to BorCodeaGearo. They created and shared their efforts as an act of community. Why does it matter what the original purpose of something was for? If it helps to improve the product with causing a negative impact, then we should be welcoming it. Although I don't agree with the pairing of some third party tool deals, these just alienate other third party vendors (speaking from experience). Take that community out of Delphi and I don't think that what's left is enough to stand up against fully Open Source on the one hand and the unrelentingly commercial on the other (and ironically that unrelentingly commercial hand - Microsoft - are doing MORE to support a community with their tools in terms of free/cheaper editions than Embarcadero). The community left Delphi a long time ago. Newsgroup activity is way down (which isn't such a bad thing), there are perhaps one or two big open source projects. I've actually being doing some work with Lazarus under OSX which has been interesting. Given stuff away doesn't necessarily mean it will instantly create a community. Half the problem with the free or cheap versions of the products was that they were featured enough that most commercial developers didn't need to purchase a license for the PRO or greater items - and people still moaned that they didn't have all of their pet features. It is unfortunate MS pull their socks up when they did. I guess it is easy to throw a lot of money at a product that really doesn't need to make a profit (or even break even) when you have so many other pies they can dip their fingers into. It is a bit like the deal on OSX with their dev tools (as horrid and clumsy to use as they are). They are basically free to use. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Serves them right to disappear into the bowels of a Cobol company. I remember that MicroFocus was around big time 25 years ago. Looks like they kept focus at least (no pun intended). MicroFocus recently acquired the Cobol company that is used at the place I work. They still charge runtime fees for Cobol and it isn't cheap from all reports. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I earn a decent $/hour at work. At home I earn $0/hour for my Delphi work. At work my employer pays for my license. At home *I* have to pay for my license and I have to justify that expense alongside clothes, food and education for my children and my other interests and hobbies. My employer doesnt pay me to help people on stackoverflow. My employer doesnt pay me to maintain my blog. My employer doesnt pay me to help people on this mailing list. The same I suspect is true for many in the Delphi community, as distinct from the user base at large. You want an entirely and ruthlessly commercial attitude toward Delphi users? Good luck. A company called Borland once started to think like that and very nearly killed the product in the process. If you feel that the community doesnt deserve support then dont expect the community to support Delphi in return. It kept it on life support once. Im not certain that the community will rally to a lost cause for a second time of asking. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Kyley Harris Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 21:19 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Can Afford? Cant Afford.. Any developer can afford it.. its about how much an hour you are earning afterwards.. A standard edition may be nice.. But just like you can get a Toyota Lexus for 100k, a corolla for 20k.. doesn't mean a company should provide a 10k car for those who would like a corolla.. if you cant afford it.. then there are free options like Lazarus.. At the end of the day.. if its priced too high they will go out of business.. if its not .. they wont listen to a few. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: Its nice that you can afford $2000 a year. J What would be even nicer would be for there to be a product you could pay $2000 a year for, AND a product that someone who cant afford that could pay $400 a year for. Then Embarcadero get and keep 2 customers paying a total of $2400 where they currently only have one earning them $2000 (or more likely just a fraction of one customer, paying that price every other year or even every third year, if they have to in order to stay current for upgrade purposes). The problem isnt the price of Professional, its the fact that that is the CHEAPEST version of Delphi available. There needs to be a Standard Edition. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Kyley Harris Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 19:43 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero At the end of the day, I'd like to know if Embarcardo is making huge profits, or losses.. or mediocre.. it benefits none of us if their pricing is not sustainable.. Perhaps in all liklihood, most of their revenue is from existing delphi owners, more than new customers, and the upgrade prices is no longer sufficient to keep them afloat..??? its a thought.. I'd be inclined to think that the Upgrade is too low, and the Retail is too high, and a nice balance in the middle of simply setting one price for all, (new or old) and at a sustainable value would benefit everyone the most... I would rather pay $2000 a year and keep them in business, than pay $400 a year, and have them sold again and see delphi go down the chute. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: A sliding scale on the face of it appears fairer, but when assessing fairness it's also worth considering that someone still using Delphi 1 (to take an EXTREME and ridiculous example) has not only not paid for Delphi 2-2009, but has also not enjoyed or benefited from Delphi 2-2009 either. That's the additional price they paid for NOT upgrading. And there will undoubtedly be additional costs in managing an upgrade policy that differentiates between different types/loyalties of customer. Surely much easier to take a No Nonsense approach. Once a customer always a customer and glad to have you on-board, no matter when you last spent money with us. Turning a customer away - explicitly or by disincentive - just because they haven't spent any money with you *recently* is just petty. Now certainly we can point to any number of other companies that don't offer various upgrade pricing schemes, the question is, is what's right for a XYX-Other product also right for Delphi? In this case, I simply don't see how it can be a commercially realistic business attitude - the people you are turning away are those people least likely to spend money with you already (by definition, because they haven't been upgrading and since that was their choice, there were probably good reasons, OTHER than simple cost). Those already spending have already spent. All you are doing
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Coming up with reasons that MS *can* do it is not immediately relevant to answering the question of why Embarcadero don't/won't do it. Giving stuff away as a way of *generating* business is not a concept unique to Microsoft nor the exclusive reserve of cash rich monopolies. It's a practice that works in virtually *every* business. Even the coffee shop that I buy my daily coffee from gives me a free coffee for every 5 I buy. Do they do that only because they can afford to, having tied up a monopoly in providing coffee in that area? No, they do it because if they didn't then I would get my coffee from the bakery instead. (actually, the bakery offers the same loyalty scheme, yet neither of these very small businesses seems to be going out of business as a result). Both establishments are also conscientious in fostering a rapport with me as a customer, greeting me by name, asking how my day is going and generally making me feel welcome. The places that *don't* offer such gratuities and graces and who simply treat their customers as walking + talking cash machines are the ones that go out of business *unless* they are in a monopoly position. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Kyley Harris Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 21:29 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Yes, but seeing as MS is an OS supplier they could give everything away for free except the OS and still profit.. but then there would be no competition and the OS would die a slow death Take that community out of Delphi and I don't think that what's left is enough to stand up against fully Open Source on the one hand and the unrelentingly commercial on the other (and ironically that unrelentingly commercial hand - Microsoft - are doing MORE to support a community with their tools in terms of free/cheaper editions than Embarcadero). ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I think it's definitely the 2nd problem rather than the first (where not good enough also means not relevant enough). I routinely upgraded my Delphi thru versions 1-7. Then Borland went chasing .NET which was of no interest to me and the prices escalated as a result (with the excuse that I was now getting a Studio, despite the fact that I didn't *want* a studio I just wanted Delphi). Delphi 2007 finally addressed *that*, but then they went and chased the wrong rabbit again with Unicode, and the prices of the single personality Delphi editions didn't follow the Turbo's, jumping back up to Studio level pricing once the Turbo's had been quietly forgotten. Unicode is a complication and an unnecessary distraction for me. Ironically, figuring that I have to embrace it if I want to stay current, I'm also finding that the approach they've taken is itself intensely frustrating and confusing. It's great if you want to convert your old ANSI application to use the Unicode API's, but hopeless if you want to implement proper Unicode support in an application. I had a wry smile to myself when I heard that Microfocus bought Borland. My first full time job in this industry was working on a PC-based time and attendance system running Concurrent-DOS, with custom built clocking in/out terminals that used RFID transponders to identify employees (almost 20 years ago!). That system was written in MicroFocus Level II COBOL although my screen editor of choice was ED.EXE which iirc was actually one of the sample apps in Borland Pascal at the time. J From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 21:49 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero I reckon the problem of too few people upgrading is two-fold: 1 - Delphi is too good. Done work for a firm still using D5 for 10 years. Still works just fine. Not designed to break or become insecure after a few years. 2 - Delphi was not good enough === ie not cheap enough to be a no-brainer to buy (unlike Turbo pascal early 90's), not cutting edge and exciting enough to attract the fresh new faces learning programming. Mainly because Borland took eyes off the developer community. Maybe got leant on to do .NET stuff by MS too, and big end tools and lost their unique focus. Serves them right to disappear into the bowels of a Cobol company. I remember that MicroFocus was around big time 25 years ago. Looks like they kept focus at least (no pun intended). I however don't consider Delphi to be small time or dying. The previous language I programmed in doesn't even rate in the top 100 on the TIOBE index, so to get into Delphi with huge resources on the web is big time for me :) (The old language incidentally is 30 years old, still produces applications in daily use, solid compiled/interpreted stuff. Anyone remember the name DIBOL?) John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
My point w.r.t community code having found its way into the product was two-fold: 1) Having taken from the community you might be forgiven for thinking that Embarcadero might feel some gratitude if not obligation to foster that community. Sure they don't *have* to, but then they - and everyone else - has to accept that the less they get from the community, the more they have to put in themselves (and the more everyone has to pay as a result). 2) How many potential great contributions are lost because the people that might have come up with them are pushed away by the pricing and will be pushed away by the more restrictive upgrade policy, should it materialise? As for taking the pulse of the community. I never thought I'd say it, but newsgroups are frankly old hat. Stackoverflow and the blog-o-sphere is where it's at these days for me at least. I used to be very active in the NGs, checking them every day because that's where the news, discussion and support and was mainly to be found but I can't remember the last time I could be bothered installed Gravity and logging on to an NNTP server. Nowadays DelphiFeeds gives me my news fix, blog comments (and my own blog) give me a far richer channel for discussion and my urge to help people is satisfied by stackoverflow (that was the final piece in the jigsaw that I only relatively recently popped back into place). I'd say I personally am more active communitywise now, even though one metric of that - NG activity - would now be registering a flat-line. Perhaps you just don't hang out where the cool kids are these days? :) Given stuff away doesn't necessarily mean it will instantly create a community. Maybe not, but neither will overcharging. Half the problem with the free or cheap versions of the products was that they were featured enough that most commercial developers didn't need to purchase a license for the PRO or greater items Strangely I never met anyone who used the Personal Edition. All the people I know who do Delphi in their spare time are Pro users. Fewer and fewer of them are on the current version though, citing cost and relevance (previously the .NET emphasis, more recently Unicode is the headache we could have done without in many cases). Your mileage clearly is different from mine. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Functional Programming FP is hot. Even though its years old in university courses, its getting more attention as Moores Law looms large, and you get the benefits of deductive logic, NLP etc. I read a book on it whilst I was standing in a bookshop. Microsoft are still a software company - the nice thing about F# is that thay made it easy to use this stuff with your other imperative morass of code. FP is something whose time has come, its really interesting to to see that Delphi has integrated generics and anonymous functions at the same time as F# is making a mark. The author of the book I read was predicting that F# may well beecome a dominant language at MS and could topple C# etc. Although I did read elsewhere that dear old VB can never be discounted. K Richard Vowles wrote: Its a functional oriented language along the lines of O-CAML. There is a huge amount of other language on the JVM work going on at the moment and Microsoft seems to not want its developers feeling left behind. There is some very good stuff coming out of the research labs I have heard and the .NET CLR is a better platform for it than the JVM (which suffers from things like no trail end recursion and things, which they are looking at fixing). 2009/9/16 Jeremy Coulter jscoul...@gmail.com mailto:jscoul...@gmail.com Whats F# ?? I have not heard of that before. What happend to D# and E# ? ;-) -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.102/2377 - Release Date: 09/16/09 17:49:00 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
BTW, can we get New Zealand adjusted Delphi price? I think that Kiwi earns around half compare to usa Delphi developer. Can we get a price if labeled US$2,000 for Delphi in USA, NZ$2,000 for Delphi in New Zealand? TIA Have a nice day Regards Leigh www.smootharm.com -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Malcolm Groves Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 4:40 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Actually, Anders O did some work on that at some point. Must go back and see where that got to. Cheers Malcolm -Original Message- Why not implement some flyby points system? :-) The more you pay for Delphi, the more points awarded. And these points can be used towards future purchase of Delphi license :-) Have a nice day Regards Leigh www.smootharm.com CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
We did that once. Just once - anyone remember the deal? 2009/9/22 Leigh Wanstead lei...@softtech.co.nz BTW, can we get New Zealand adjusted Delphi price? I think that Kiwi earns around half compare to usa Delphi developer. Can we get a price if labeled US$2,000 for Delphi in USA, NZ$2,000 for Delphi in New Zealand? -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
industrial - is the what you are looking for. Unfortunate some of the remote io (including rs232 modules) is now running windows ce - which is a concern, just how much are they harden against attack from with in netwok - security is becoming a problem with staff turn over, you never know how is working in the plants -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Kyley Harris Sent: Saturday, 19 September 2009 11:27 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Maurice, Rockwell PLC is quite a specialised system isn't it? its not as generic as delphi.. Just a curiosity, not a comparison On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Maurice Butler likema...@quicksilver.net.nz wrote: Like wise - professional Software developer was self employed for 10 years, now receiving income by salary from a large international company. I wrote an application using D3, which is still running reliably in a 24x7 manufacturing envionment, weigh and labelling product every 3 seconds, and stuffing data into an oracle database. The qualification is that it either works or it doesn't, if it doesn't you don't get any more work. The work that i put in to the development of the application has ment it has run on win98,nt 2k, xp without any changes. It is also the bench mark that new projects are compared to. I now work for the company that i wrote that application for and have been tasked with upgrading or replacing to include a lot more functionality. After downgrading to 2005 I redeveloped my application to use a Rockwell PLC for another client and gave delphi the boot, subsequently all installations and varations of it have ment my money has gone to rockwell for there hardware and software. I was looking at upgrading my copy of Delphi - but to be honest I may well be better off sticking with the Rockwell PLC, not as nice to code but reliable, occasional bugs that are fixed without major drama. Espcially if I run into show stoppers like Delphi 2005 Maurice -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Saturday, 19 September 2009 1:09 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Dear Richard, I however, am a professional software developer. I am sure that you are, infact from everything I have heard of you and your work people should seriously consider looking at you and your consultancy for any work espeically in areas of complexity that need special expertise in advanced programing. What I am trying to address here is the changed busines model that the Delphi Community is being asked to swallow hook line and sinker. It is true as you say that E need to make money. What we and they are needing to look at is the model by which they wish to do so, realizing that we are their cash cows! Now what is a profesional programmer, just one who receives their income by invoicing directly for progranmming work? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hi Paul, Nice email Have a nice day Regards Leigh From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Saturday, 19 September 2009 1:09 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Dear Richard, I however, am a professional software developer. I am sure that you are, infact from everything I have heard of you and your work people should seriously consider looking at you and your consultancy for any work espeically in areas of complexity that need special expertise in advanced programing. What I am trying to address here is the changed busines model that the Delphi Community is being asked to swallow hook line and sinker. It is true as you say that E need to make money. What we and they are needing to look at is the model by which they wish to do so, realizing that we are their cash cows! Now what is a profesional programmer, just one who receives their income by invoicing directly for progranmming work? I beleive that it includes any one who due to their vocation or occupation needs to use programing as ancillory part of what they do and includes even those of us who do not invoice directly for the work. I infact never invoice for what we do at all. in any way I think it has been resaonibly well established here already that Borland's problem was not its busines model, but project focuss. A friend at Victoria University once explained to me that there were until recently two main business models at work in the world. The British and the American styles, (USA - not Latin American as Latin American approaches are often very close to the NZ/Aussi way of thinking). Now in New Zealand the main Telecommunications cell phone provider chose to follow the USA model. People felt too screwed down and not looked after and when a British based firrm entered the market hundeds of thousands of us transfered over. My friend explained that the genreal USA model is to offer the world and then put blockages in the way of people getting the prize - the classic USA Insurance comany type reputation best exemplifies this. All that they (USA) followed in this regard has not really served the American people or American busines community well, obviously - witness the recent melt downs and the issues they need to face and to sort it out longterm. And a lot of that comes back to these basics that we are speaking of. The British approach is to offer good service and backup and genrally keep to it even if it hurts the balance sheet temporarily. Reputation being important. Trusting that customer loyalty will be built and longterm profitablilty assured. And I think that that is the ethos that many NZ programmers feel to follow themselves. So natrually we look for it in our Software House(s). And it was found with Delphi and the genreal policies that surround it. Remember that did not fail Delphi -- loosing focus of us developers and the tolls we need fowled Borland - hopefully E and its agents like you can learn from that. Now obviously Dlephi in E's hands has a good future if we consumers of it feel that our frends and associates **all over the world** will get a British type back up then we will for free promote the product as we all use to. But in the absence of such deep felt assurance, look where the discusion has gone on this thread. No longer about Delphi so much but other languages. Now I still maintain that it is not right for people to have to expect that the eighteen monnth cycle that you speak of is incorporating the bug fixes that should be for free. Often I dont need new IDE features - just the last one to work properly. Why shuold I have to pay what you say is 500 - 600 but it is pointed out is $750 just to get bus fixes on the last thing I paid 700 -800 depending on exchange rates? If E are going to effectively be removing upgrade rights, then they need to provide full on bug fixes for products with out people NEEDING to upgrade just to get the IDE working properly. To let that notion that has been floated here, slip pass would be silly for us as consumerers. I have raised my experience as a real example of things and yet hope for a good result that might genuinely encourage others. Paul 2009/9/16 Richard Vowles rich...@developers-inc.co.nzmailto:rich...@developers-inc.co.nz 2009/9/16 Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.commailto:paul.a.nor...@gmail.com And I have heard nothing until Richard in this Forum smirked last night was I actually using 2005? So is that the level of support and followup we can expect? That was quite rude Paul. Paul, I am not, and have never been the reason you continue to use Delphi 2005. I am also not responsible for the quality of Delphi 2005 and given most people downgraded back to Delphi 7, find it hugely surprising you continue to use Delphi 2005. IMHO, Borland was responsible
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hi Richard no.. I'm sure they aspire to more than that because they know that their laziness or accident will cause lives.. Just like an Engineer, or Architect knows that mistakes will cost lives.. IMHO there are NO PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS.. its not a profession yet.. its just a thing we all do for money. Every professional trade, be it Doctor, engineer, etc all share a simple thing called responsibility and accountability.. A professional software developer is simply someone who does it as their main source of income. No need to complicate it further. I can't say I can see Engineers being comparable to our profession, all the work they do its very well known and all the problems have been solved already. As a profressional engineer, I have to say that statement is complete and utter rubbish. Todd. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hi Paul, I agree Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 were mistakes and arguably not fit for purpose. I also agree that no one (ie Borland or Embarcadero) has made good on that. Excluding them from the upgrade path is very poor, and arguably users on those versions should be offered a cheaper upgrade if anything. However I still don't think software houses can afford to offer open ended bug fixes in the general case. Damage control on an abomination like Delphi 8/2005 is one thing but saying anyone using an old version of your product should get bug fixes forever more at no cost is just not a sustainable business model. I don't know of any software companies that will do it - as some have pointed out even Microsoft won't do it beyond a certain point and they have a far more profitable business than any other software company. Cheers, David. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Sunday, 20 September 2009 5:53 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero open ended bug fixes 2009/9/19 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz Dear David, When we talk about D8 and especially 2005 we are not talking about minor matters. Others in the past have listed what does not work, the list is not too cool. What needs to be realised here is that there is a very big difference between bugs than may be a little annoying to some one, and things that are actually fundamental to the application's operation. They are not bugs but I believe misdemeanors :-) If a 'bug' actually stops the application operating as it shuld in any significant way it may in my opinion fall fowl of Lord Deninnigs famous judgement onn when is a car bought under contract, not a car? (More below) Developers need to keep to very high standard in this, if for no other reason than that if commercial resentent levels rise to high in the broader community with developer's attitudes, regualtion will follow. It is already being considered in some quarters. Regulation will not be nice. Seek legal advice on any and all of the following points of my personal opinion. At present the general provisions regulating the industry I believe are the Fair Trading Act, Common Law of Torts and a few Absolute liabilities. Absolute liabilities are things contained in Statute or if you like also those Universal moral principles of duty of care. For example if one designs a computer application say for the operation of lifts, and people are trapped and injured or even die becasue it is later determined by a competent tribunal that one failed to develop the application using the genreal standards of care and diligence that a developer should use, it is even possible in some juristdictions that the developer could be found guilty of culpible homicide - man slaughter! In NZ the equivalent commonly known scenario was where previously mechanics have been found guilty for things that they missed during WOF inspections of vehicles where injury or death has resulted. Not becasue they mised the items but because it could be demonstrated that they had not exercised in this case an absolute duty of care in their work. The standard is not always simpolt that there is a problem, but the nature of the problem. In software ddevelopment I would submit that if your client wants to use your software for an uninteded or unenvisaged purpose at the time of design brief, and this breaks your application, then the developoer maybe should rightly feel indignent that the problem is laid at their door. And maybe could expect to charge out to make the new use of the application work. If however a period of time elapses before it becomes apparent that some proscribed feature of the software as brieefed and paid for does not function properly, than no matter what periods of testing or due diligence my be inserted in the contract the developoer may find himself liable for soemthing, and the amount may increase with time the more he fights it. You can not always contract out of established law. Often you can not at all contract out of law. The reason is that one is subject to the Sovereign power of the jurisdiction you are operating in. And contracts made under that jurisdiction can not contravene the determinations of that jurisdiction. Unless there is specific provision to do os. In other words in NZ there are provisoins of the Fair Trading Act that can not be contracted out of. As a matter of public policy, this helps prevent any form of commercial or other duress during treating to contract. Now be careful in saying that a licanse is not the same as ownership. Truly it is not, but if you take money for it, more and more legislators and courts all over the world are starting to say that there are responsabilites on the person who receives the money to give value
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
People seem to forget that Delphi 8 was .NET only. Which as a true product no longer exists. I strongly doubt anyone is using Delphi 8 anymore. If Delphi 2005 was so unfit for purpose (which I do not agree with) why didn't you get your money back. Simple as that. Delphi 2005 still created binaries for deployment. We used Delphi 2005 for about a year before the D2006 version was released and deployed our software to clients over that period. I'm interested in knowing what made Delphi 2005 so unfit for purpose, since I don't use all of the products maybe there was an area or two are really messed up. The IDE being slow or using lots of memory and requiring a restart doesn't make it unfit for purpose either. So let's see a list of issues with Delphi 2005 on the table. I expect Paul must have several since he is still using it. As for not allowing upgrades from certain versions, well I owned a copy of some slideshow making software (off the shelf). I checked out the website for the latest versions, and corel now own it and I can't upgrade to the newer version from my version. At least you are being told in advance. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 8:24 AM, David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz wrote: Hi Paul, I agree Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 were mistakes and arguably not fit for purpose. I also agree that no one (ie Borland or Embarcadero) has made good on that. Excluding them from the upgrade path is very poor, and arguably users on those versions should be offered a cheaper upgrade if anything. However I still don’t think software houses can afford to offer open ended bug fixes in the general case. Damage control on an abomination like Delphi 8/2005 is one thing but saying anyone using an old version of your product should get bug fixes forever more at no cost is just not a sustainable business model. I don’t know of any software companies that will do it – as some have pointed out even Microsoft won’t do it beyond a certain point and they have a far more profitable business than any other software company. Cheers, David. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Sunday, 20 September 2009 5:53 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero open ended bug fixes 2009/9/19 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz Dear David, When we talk about D8 and especially 2005 we are not talking about minor matters. Others in the past have listed what does not work, the list is not too cool. What needs to be realised here is that there is a very big difference between bugs than may be a little annoying to some one, and things that are actually fundamental to the application's operation. They are not bugs but I believe misdemeanors :-) If a 'bug' actually stops the application operating as it shuld in any significant way it may in my opinion fall fowl of Lord Deninnigs famous judgement onn when is a car bought under contract, not a car? (More below) Developers need to keep to very high standard in this, if for no other reason than that if commercial resentent levels rise to high in the broader community with developer's attitudes, regualtion will follow. It is already being considered in some quarters. Regulation will not be nice. Seek legal advice on any and all of the following points of my personal opinion. At present the general provisions regulating the industry I believe are the Fair Trading Act, Common Law of Torts and a few Absolute liabilities. Absolute liabilities are things contained in Statute or if you like also those Universal moral principles of duty of care. For example if one designs a computer application say for the operation of lifts, and people are trapped and injured or even die becasue it is later determined by a competent tribunal that one failed to develop the application using the genreal standards of care and diligence that a developer should use, it is even possible in some juristdictions that the developer could be found guilty of culpible homicide - man slaughter! In NZ the equivalent commonly known scenario was where previously mechanics have been found guilty for things that they missed during WOF inspections of vehicles where injury or death has resulted. Not becasue they mised the items but because it could be demonstrated that they had not exercised in this case an absolute duty of care in their work. The standard is not always simpolt that there is a problem, but the nature of the problem. In software ddevelopment I would submit that if your client wants to use your software for an uninteded or unenvisaged purpose at the time of design brief, and this breaks your application, then the developoer maybe should rightly feel indignent that the problem is laid at their door. And maybe could expect to charge out to make the new use
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
At least you are being told in advance. Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: At least you are being told in advance. Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. Which has had the effect of being told in advance has it not? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Dear Jeremy, When Corel, ourchase a business, a franchise or just a product line they are very generou and for quite a while offer free transfer and support to license holders, I'm sorry that you left it too late to avail yourself of that. If you want to suggest that D.2005 isn't really all that bad then do your own research, you'll find yourself howling in the wildnerness. I doubt that your clinets would agree with this sentiment: The [application] being slow or using lots of memory and requiring a restart doesn't make it unfit for purpose either. And if you really think that then please consider what such attitudes could do in bringing heavy regulation down on everyone else. What sort of standard are you talking of here. Delphi is supposed to be the Rolls Royce of IDEs that is why people bought in on its reputation. Where are those ideas comning from? Paul 2009/9/21 Jeremy North jeremy.no...@gmail.com People seem to forget that Delphi 8 was .NET only. Which as a true product no longer exists. I strongly doubt anyone is using Delphi 8 anymore. If Delphi 2005 was so unfit for purpose (which I do not agree with) why didn't you get your money back. Simple as that. Delphi 2005 still created binaries for deployment. We used Delphi 2005 for about a year before the D2006 version was released and deployed our software to clients over that period. I'm interested in knowing what made Delphi 2005 so unfit for purpose, since I don't use all of the products maybe there was an area or two are really messed up. The IDE being slow or using lots of memory and requiring a restart doesn't make it unfit for purpose either. So let's see a list of issues with Delphi 2005 on the table. I expect Paul must have several since he is still using it. As for not allowing upgrades from certain versions, well I owned a copy of some slideshow making software (off the shelf). I checked out the website for the latest versions, and corel now own it and I can't upgrade to the newer version from my version. At least you are being told in advance. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 8:24 AM, David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz wrote: Hi Paul, I agree Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 were mistakes and arguably not fit for purpose. I also agree that no one (ie Borland or Embarcadero) has made good on that. Excluding them from the upgrade path is very poor, and arguably users on those versions should be offered a cheaper upgrade if anything. However I still don’t think software houses can afford to offer open ended bug fixes in the general case. Damage control on an abomination like Delphi 8/2005 is one thing but saying anyone using an old version of your product should get bug fixes forever more at no cost is just not a sustainable business model. I don’t know of any software companies that will do it – as some have pointed out even Microsoft won’t do it beyond a certain point and they have a far more profitable business than any other software company. Cheers, David. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Sunday, 20 September 2009 5:53 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero open ended bug fixes 2009/9/19 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz Dear David, When we talk about D8 and especially 2005 we are not talking about minor matters. Others in the past have listed what does not work, the list is not too cool. What needs to be realised here is that there is a very big difference between bugs than may be a little annoying to some one, and things that are actually fundamental to the application's operation. They are not bugs but I believe misdemeanors :-) If a 'bug' actually stops the application operating as it shuld in any significant way it may in my opinion fall fowl of Lord Deninnigs famous judgement onn when is a car bought under contract, not a car? (More below) Developers need to keep to very high standard in this, if for no other reason than that if commercial resentent levels rise to high in the broader community with developer's attitudes, regualtion will follow. It is already being considered in some quarters. Regulation will not be nice. Seek legal advice on any and all of the following points of my personal opinion. At present the general provisions regulating the industry I believe are the Fair Trading Act, Common Law of Torts and a few Absolute liabilities. Absolute liabilities are things contained in Statute or if you like also those Universal moral principles of duty of care. For example if one designs a computer application say for the operation of lifts, and people are trapped and injured or even die becasue it is later determined by a competent tribunal
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. Which has had the effect of being told in advance has it not? We are talking here about stabndards of Software House care and service. So no, in this case the handling of the mater so far is causing resentment and ill ease. Paul 2009/9/21 Jeremy North jeremy.no...@gmail.com On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: At least you are being told in advance. Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. Which has had the effect of being told in advance has it not? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Since it has been leaked, we don't know if they intended to give advanced warning or not. BTW Paul, I don't think your keyboard is fit for purpose ;-) On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com wrote: Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. Which has had the effect of being told in advance has it not? We are talking here about stabndards of Software House care and service. So no, in this case the handling of the mater so far is causing resentment and ill ease. Paul 2009/9/21 Jeremy North jeremy.no...@gmail.com On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 9:00 AM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: At least you are being told in advance. Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. Which has had the effect of being told in advance has it not? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
David, You are right, and its worth noting how far along MS have moved their bug fix policy since they tried to charge for cdroms to fix bugs. Many mnay more years support now. Please note the distinguishment that is being made here on the types of bug and fixes. The most important thing is that developers act in the eyes of the paying community in maner that appears fair and resaonible. Someine here sugested three months I think, I hope that was shooting from the hip -- becasue that is the sort of thing that will bring heavy regulation down on us. We need E to give a good example to us in this regard - especially in this idea that they can hold over bugs fixes over to a new release. Not even MS who you hav ementioined gets a way with that now, and continues to release bug fixes (and sometimes even feature improvements in the update service packs) long after a new release has come out. We need E to comitt itself to that. Otherwise if D costs NZD750 or so then if you need the next release to get your copy working as you need (as specified) it really costs more like NZD1500 just for professional. Paul 2009/9/21 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz Hi Paul, I agree Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 were mistakes and arguably not fit for purpose. I also agree that no one (ie Borland or Embarcadero) has made good on that. Excluding them from the upgrade path is very poor, and arguably users on those versions should be offered a cheaper upgrade if anything. However I still don’t think software houses can afford to offer open ended bug fixes in the general case. Damage control on an abomination like Delphi 8/2005 is one thing but saying anyone using an old version of your product should get bug fixes forever more at no cost is just not a sustainable business model. I don’t know of any software companies that will do it – as some have pointed out even Microsoft won’t do it beyond a certain point and they have a far more profitable business than any other software company. Cheers, David. *From:* delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Paul A Norman *Sent:* Sunday, 20 September 2009 5:53 p.m. *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero open ended bug fixes 2009/9/19 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz Dear David, When we talk about D8 and especially 2005 we are not talking about minor matters. Others in the past have listed what does not work, the list is not too cool. What needs to be realised here is that there is a very big difference between bugs than may be a little annoying to some one, and things that are actually fundamental to the application's operation. They are not bugs but I believe misdemeanors :-) If a 'bug' actually stops the application operating as it shuld in any significant way it may in my opinion fall fowl of Lord Deninnigs famous judgement onn when is a car bought under contract, not a car? (More below) Developers need to keep to very high standard in this, if for no other reason than that if commercial resentent levels rise to high in the broader community with developer's attitudes, regualtion will follow. It is already being considered in some quarters. Regulation will not be nice. Seek legal advice on any and all of the following points of my personal opinion. At present the general provisions regulating the industry I believe are the Fair Trading Act, Common Law of Torts and a few Absolute liabilities. Absolute liabilities are things contained in Statute or if you like also those Universal moral principles of duty of care. For example if one designs a computer application say for the operation of lifts, and people are trapped and injured or even die becasue it is later determined by a competent tribunal that one failed to develop the application using the genreal standards of care and diligence that a developer should use, it is even possible in some juristdictions that the developer could be found guilty of culpible homicide - man slaughter! In NZ the equivalent commonly known scenario was where previously mechanics have been found guilty for things that they missed during WOF inspections of vehicles where injury or death has resulted. Not becasue they mised the items but because it could be demonstrated that they had not exercised in this case an absolute duty of care in their work. The standard is not always simpolt that there is a problem, but the nature of the problem. In software ddevelopment I would submit that if your client wants to use your software for an uninteded or unenvisaged purpose at the time of design brief, and this breaks your application, then the developoer maybe should rightly feel indignent that the problem is laid at their door. And maybe could expect to charge out to make the new use of the application work
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
When Corel, ourchase a business, a franchise or just a product line they are very generou and for quite a while offer free transfer and support to license holders, I'm sorry that you left it too late to avail yourself of that. So how is this different to what Embarcadero is doing? Why didn't I receive notification of such a change over? If you want to suggest that D.2005 isn't really all that bad then do your own research, you'll find yourself howling in the wildnerness. I have every IDE installed on one of my laptops from Delphi 5. Used it for over a year on a million line product with 200 forms and 500 units. Amongst many other products that I develop for my own use or sell of varying sizes. I've used it a lot. I do all of my own research because people tend to exaggerate issues when frustrated. I doubt that your clinets would agree with this sentiment: The [application] being slow or using lots of memory and requiring a restart doesn't make it unfit for purpose either. That would depend. If the product ran stable for 8 hours then the start up speed is irrelevant (unless like me you had to debug IDE experts within it - then you strip it down to be more streamlined). Memory usage is only a probably if you want to run a large number of products at the same time and I never had an issue with memory usage. Most people seem to look at task manager and go - wow it is using 500MB of memory. There must be something wrong, and perhaps there is but it really has effected how they work. And if you really think that then please consider what such attitudes could do in bringing heavy regulation down on everyone else. What sort of standard are you talking of here. Delphi is supposed to be the Rolls Royce of IDEs that is why people bought in on its reputation. Actually after Delphi 8, I don't think people were buying it on such a reputation. D2005 was the first time they integrated Win32 into the new IDE design. Took a little longer to get it better. Wasn't there a Turbo Pro product for D2006 that was cheap? I'm still waiting for you to put your list of concerns to the list Paul. Also if it performed so badly at the time (and still), why didn't you get a refund? Where are those ideas comning from? Paul 2009/9/21 Jeremy North jeremy.no...@gmail.com People seem to forget that Delphi 8 was .NET only. Which as a true product no longer exists. I strongly doubt anyone is using Delphi 8 anymore. If Delphi 2005 was so unfit for purpose (which I do not agree with) why didn't you get your money back. Simple as that. Delphi 2005 still created binaries for deployment. We used Delphi 2005 for about a year before the D2006 version was released and deployed our software to clients over that period. I'm interested in knowing what made Delphi 2005 so unfit for purpose, since I don't use all of the products maybe there was an area or two are really messed up. The IDE being slow or using lots of memory and requiring a restart doesn't make it unfit for purpose either. So let's see a list of issues with Delphi 2005 on the table. I expect Paul must have several since he is still using it. As for not allowing upgrades from certain versions, well I owned a copy of some slideshow making software (off the shelf). I checked out the website for the latest versions, and corel now own it and I can't upgrade to the newer version from my version. At least you are being told in advance. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 8:24 AM, David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz wrote: Hi Paul, I agree Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 were mistakes and arguably not fit for purpose. I also agree that no one (ie Borland or Embarcadero) has made good on that. Excluding them from the upgrade path is very poor, and arguably users on those versions should be offered a cheaper upgrade if anything. However I still don’t think software houses can afford to offer open ended bug fixes in the general case. Damage control on an abomination like Delphi 8/2005 is one thing but saying anyone using an old version of your product should get bug fixes forever more at no cost is just not a sustainable business model. I don’t know of any software companies that will do it – as some have pointed out even Microsoft won’t do it beyond a certain point and they have a far more profitable business than any other software company. Cheers, David. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Sunday, 20 September 2009 5:53 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero open ended bug fixes 2009/9/19 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz Dear David, When we talk about D8 and especially 2005 we are not talking about minor matters. Others in the past have listed what does not work, the list is not too
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hi all, I've just read through quite a few of the messages in this thread (not all, I admit) and there are a few things in here I should respond to. Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. Nothing has leaked. Official announcements are coming, but I notified our Asia sales staff and asked them to notify our partners and customers last week so we could give people as much notice as possible (also for another reason, see the end of this email). I posted advance notice to the ADUG list here in Aus, and would have posted on this list except Richard asked if he could post it. As our local representative in NZ, it made sense to me that he do it. Nothing underhand going on. Also, the reason I haven't responded sooner is that I only check the lists every week or so, unless someone alerts me to something that needs more urgent attention. Ø I still feel cheated that at no time were those of us who bought Delphi 2005 which still has many unpatched major problems Ø given the opening to more reasonibly ($) upgrade from it. I'm sorry you feel like this, but this is not accurate. Multiple times a year we offer discounts/bundles/third-party value-adds, etc to upgraders. I've got a partial list here and it shows that since 2006 was released we've done at least 6 such offerings in NZ, and I haven't bothered going through the rest of my email archive to see if there were more. Now, the offers we made may not have been enough to make you accept, that's a separate issue, but saying we've made no offers to previous users is plainly wrong. In terms of updates, we haven't really changed our policy for a long time. Leaving aside people who pay for higher levels of support, we typically release update packs during the first 6-12 months of the product's life (eg, 3 update packs for 2005, 2 update packs for 2006 + 11 hotfix packs, etc) but once a later version has come out, these typically slow down or stop entirely. That may not be what everybody wants, I appreciate that, but despite multiple attempts over the years it's proven difficult if not impossible to get update packs for older releases on the schedule. So, despite wishing it were different, I doubt we're going to be able to change that. I've probably missed some questions, feel free to tell me if I have, but let me finish on a slightly more positive note. In addition to giving people as much notice as possible, part of the point of letting people know about this change in advance is so that I could gauge the reaction. Today we treat someone who last invested in a Delphi license 14 years ago with Delphi 1, exactly the same as someone who invested 1 year ago with 2009. I firmly believe we should give people who spent money with us recently some benefit, especially those who spent money with us during the years when you couldn't have blamed them for keeping their wallet in their pocket. So, while I support the spirit of this change, the detail of where we draw the cutoff line is still a topic I think we can adjust. In talking with customers and staff and watching the discussions on various groups around the region and I think I've seen enough to go back to our internal discussion and suggest we need to change our current proposal. So, your feedback is being heard, despite what you might believe from some of the comments. Lastly, can I just make a request for a fair go for the current Embarcadero team? We are well aware that we cannot ignore the legacy of decisions made by Borland Executives over the years, and we are trying extremely hard to walk the line of investing to take the product back above the historic levels of quality and innovation you came to expect, and at the same time keeping it a profitable business for our owners. I think the local team are very open to accommodating requests from customers when they are brought to us (I think I've approved most of the requests for special consideration I've seen in recent memory) and hopefully some of you have experienced that. I understand that some of you feel like you may have beaten your heads against a brickwall at Borland for too long, but can I just ask that if you have an issue, you bring it to us and see if we can work out a solution. If we can't keep you happy, of course you should criticise us, but given everything that seems to have changed for the better over the last 12-15 months, I'd appreciate it if you could give us a chance to fix the issues before shooting us. My contact details are at the bottom of the email, you should absolutely feel free to use them. I'll try and take a more regular look at this thread for the next few days. Cheers Malcolm Malcolm Groves Senior Director, Asia Pacific Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. | www.embarcadero.comhttp://www.embarcadero.com/ Level 2, 100 Clarence Street, Sydney, NSW 2000
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hi Malcolm It seems to me that a sliding scale on the upgrade price would be the most universally accepted solution. Customers who upgrade more frequently would benefit, while those who don't are not simply discarded. Todd. Hi all, I’ve just read through quite a few of the messages in this thread (not all, I admit) and there are a few things in here I should respond to. Actually, afaict Embarcadero have been absolutely silent on the matter. The policy change has leaked out only via *some* resellers. Nothing has leaked. Official announcements are coming, but I notified our Asia sales staff and asked them to notify our partners and customers last week so we could give people as much notice as possible (also for another reason, see the end of this email). I posted advance notice to the ADUG list here in Aus, and would have posted on this list except Richard asked if he could post it. As our local representative in NZ, it made sense to me that he do it. Nothing underhand going on. Also, the reason I haven’t responded sooner is that I only check the lists every week or so, unless someone alerts me to something that needs more urgent attention. Ø I still feel cheated that at no time were those of us who bought Delphi 2005 which still has many unpatched major problems Ø given the opening to more reasonibly ($) upgrade from it. I’m sorry you feel like this, but this is not accurate. Multiple times a year we offer discounts/bundles/third-party value-adds, etc to upgraders. I’ve got a partial list here and it shows that since 2006 was released we’ve done at least 6 such offerings in NZ, and I haven’t bothered going through the rest of my email archive to see if there were more. Now, the offers we made may not have been enough to make you accept, that’s a separate issue, but saying we’ve made no offers to previous users is plainly wrong. In terms of updates, we haven’t really changed our policy for a long time. Leaving aside people who pay for higher levels of support, we typically release update packs during the first 6-12 months of the product’s life (eg, 3 update packs for 2005, 2 update packs for 2006 + 11 hotfix packs, etc) but once a later version has come out, these typically slow down or stop entirely. That may not be what everybody wants, I appreciate that, but despite multiple attempts over the years it’s proven difficult if not impossible to get update packs for older releases on the schedule. So, despite wishing it were different, I doubt we’re going to be able to change that. I’ve probably missed some questions, feel free to tell me if I have, but let me finish on a slightly more positive note. In addition to giving people as much notice as possible, part of the point of letting people know about this change in advance is so that I could gauge the reaction. Today we treat someone who last invested in a Delphi license 14 years ago with Delphi 1, exactly the same as someone who invested 1 year ago with 2009. I firmly believe we should give people who spent money with us recently some benefit, especially those who spent money with us during the years when you couldn’t have blamed them for keeping their wallet in their pocket. So, while I support the spirit of this change, the detail of where we draw the cutoff line is still a topic I think we can adjust. In talking with customers and staff and watching the discussions on various groups around the region and I think I’ve seen enough to go back to our internal discussion and suggest we need to change our current proposal. So, your feedback is being heard, despite what you might believe from some of the comments. Lastly, can I just make a request for a fair go for the current Embarcadero team? We are well aware that we cannot ignore the “legacy” of decisions made by Borland Executives over the years, and we are trying extremely hard to walk the line of investing to take the product back above the historic levels of quality and innovation you came to expect, and at the same time keeping it a profitable business for our owners. I think the local team are very open to accommodating requests from customers when they are brought to us (I think I’ve approved most of the requests for special consideration I’ve seen in recent memory) and hopefully some of you have experienced that. I understand that some of you feel like you may have beaten your heads against a brickwall at Borland for too long, but can I just ask that if you have an issue, you bring it to us and see if we can work out a solution. If we can’t keep you happy, of course you should criticise us, but given everything that seems to have changed for the better over the last 12-15 months, I’d appreciate it if you could give us a chance to fix the issues before shooting us. My contact details are at the bottom of the email, you should absolutely feel
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I think that there are two very different perceptions of life and values coming out here. One I believe whcih is quite dark. And the other where people do aim at better things and ways of doing things. The choice is important. Paul ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I dont think the Professional version of the delphi application is an unreasonable price.. I think that if you cannot be earning enough from using the tool.. then its the wrong language and tool anyway.. Lets imagine that Delphi was licensed in a rental type scenario.. say $100NZD per month GST inc.. For most people thats $88 a month.. Now.. if you are earning say $1000-$4000 gross per month as a delphi developer, which you cannot earn without the delphi tools.. is $88 or even $100 a month worth it? I would say that if you are even earning only a part time income of $400 per month.. $100 a month is not going to kill you if you know that you wont get the other $300 without it. I personally (while not advocating it) would have no problem with paying $3.30 a day for delphi and getting all fixes and updates built in.. It would simply mean one less coffee a day purchased.. While I can disagree heavilty with some things Richard Says. :) I dont think we are being ripped off on the delphi pricing.. On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 1:57 PM, Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.comwrote: I think that there are two very different perceptions of life and values coming out here. One I believe whcih is quite dark. And the other where people do aim at better things and ways of doing things. The choice is important. Paul ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hi Todd, Probably, but we've always had issues with those in the past because they tend to be more complicated. I'll keep it in mind during the discussion, however. Cheers Malcolm -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Todd Martin Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 11:38 AM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Hi Malcolm It seems to me that a sliding scale on the upgrade price would be the most universally accepted solution. Customers who upgrade more frequently would benefit, while those who don't are not simply discarded. Todd. CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Why not implement some flyby points system? :-) The more you pay for Delphi, the more points awarded. And these points can be used towards future purchase of Delphi license :-) Have a nice day Regards Leigh www.smootharm.com -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Malcolm Groves Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 3:56 p.m. To: todd.martin...@gmail.com; NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Hi Todd, Probably, but we've always had issues with those in the past because they tend to be more complicated. I'll keep it in mind during the discussion, however. Cheers Malcolm -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Todd Martin Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 11:38 AM To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Hi Malcolm It seems to me that a sliding scale on the upgrade price would be the most universally accepted solution. Customers who upgrade more frequently would benefit, while those who don't are not simply discarded. Todd. CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
A few pithy observations: -Short summary - no point complaining!! (as Eckhart Tolle said suffering only starts if you cannot accept what is real) -I have the impressions MS only started supplying free windows updates around the time of XP SP2 once they started getting such bad press about the security holes in Windows, around 2003/2004. If they had not they would have had taken very very bad press and general reputation from the security problems in XP. This effort also had much to do with derailing the then development of what ended up as Vista as they moved a lot of staff to fixes. Most technical commentators say they did a pretty good job of redoing their coding standards - which lincluded a whole list of standard C routines that could not be used anywhere in code because of the potential abuses of them - (stcat was I recall among them - which is geting pretty severe!). It was still however an exercise in patching a system designed as open as possible for program interoperation and is only partially successful compared to say industrial Unix -The only knowledge I have of D2005 was a friend was happy using it for work doing heavy graphics. He updated to D2006/D2007 later and compared using all of them quite favourably. My inital experience with BDS2006 was there were increasing memory usage over time that did get fixed steadily with hotfixes and D2007 was better again. ( Firefox 2 was worse, also cleaned up a lot in Firefox 3 and Firefox 3.6/3.7 - coming) -Yes upgrading Delphi costs money. Remember its the only way that E gets money from developers, and a professional version is reasonable price - the D2007 Professional edition contains much of and more than the Enterprise edition had in D5 (eg Client datasets, Intraweb, XP/Vista themes and Rave reports). If you are wanting to earn good money from your tools you expect to pay for good ones. Look at it as betting money that Delphi has a future. If you are a Jade developer you used to and probably still pay a percentage of all sales to Jade on deployment (used to be 25%) - would you rather such a scheme? -$500, $1000, $1500 for complete IDE, really how many hours work needed to pay it off? less than paying off your PC I bet. If you buy a lemon PC you triy to get it fixed, but after a while if its a waste of time you generally go get a newer one and pay again. -If you want free tools get Eclipse/Lazarus. Delphi is better. Or get the Turbo Delphi version. There is a lot to be said for using only the standard VCL to do everything anyway (I use almost nothing else and am pleased about that - but still get the Professional version). -If people are stuck on D7 and want a cheaper upgrade path, I suggest some lobbying to E for a special upgrade period and jump on it. D2007 has been so much better than D7 anyway overall that you have had lots of chances up to now, that you almost took a gamble by not upgrading that you would be able to as cheaply later. Personally I would have not been surprised if I got no upgrade rights from D2007 if the owner had changed and 3 years had passed - I get no cheap upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 and thats only a year old with the same owner who could well have offered a cheap upgrade for PR from an unpopular version of Windows John You are right, and its worth noting how far along MS have moved their bug fix policy since they tried to charge for cdroms to fix bugs. Many mnay more years support now. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Loyalty schemes can backfire though. I had a loyalty card with Hudsons Coffee. I went online one day to look at it and calculated how much a month I was spending on coffee and changed my purchasing habits because of it! On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Leigh Wanstead lei...@softtech.co.nz wrote: Why not implement some flyby points system? :-) The more you pay for Delphi, the more points awarded. And these points can be used towards future purchase of Delphi license :-) Have a nice day Regards Leigh www.smootharm.com ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Actually, Anders O did some work on that at some point. Must go back and see where that got to. Cheers Malcolm -Original Message- Why not implement some flyby points system? :-) The more you pay for Delphi, the more points awarded. And these points can be used towards future purchase of Delphi license :-) Have a nice day Regards Leigh www.smootharm.com CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Richard, Do you rmemeber when Microsoft wanted to charge for upgrades that were fixes and what happened? Paul 2009/9/19 Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz Even Microsoft think it’s worth issuing fixes and indeed updates LONG after 18 months has passed. Barely a day goes by without some Windows update or other shoehorning itself into my XP system that Microsoft last got my money for almost 10 years ago. And I can only hope that you were being funny in that passage about “low quality requirements” not being bugs. I cannot think of any other product for which I am asked to pay the sorts of $$’s I am asked to pay for software that would come with a complete denial of liability should it turn out to be partly or entirely unfit for purpose or actually cause me loss or harm. Actually, I can think of one product where the customers are treated with disdain equal to that of the software industry and interestingly it’s the only other industry where the customer is referred to as a “user” by their “dealer”. *From:* delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Richard Vowles *Sent:* Saturday, 19 September 2009 15:49 *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Comparing software development to plumbing is a road to madness, surely? Thats almost certainly like saying software development is an engineering discipline, which it has clearly been disproved from being. Delphi consists, last I heard, of 26000 different source files - to expect that entire tree to be bug free is questionable in the least. Besides, a bug is defined as being something that does not meet the requirements. Given Delphi's set of requirements for shipping is determined at the point of shipping, technically it meets those requirements and thus has no bugs. All subsequent patches are, technically, not bug fixes but requirements changes. As the quality of requirements set by Borland were clearly much lower than people would generally consider acceptable (for Delphi 2005, and most certainly for Delphi 8), that is really a mismatch in requirements expectations. Remember, we are talking *Borland* here, not *Embarcadero*. Embarcadero, I think, has a pretty good track record, and a much higher bar. But even E have feature defects they consider acceptable when shipping. Everyone does. As an interesting aside, Support and Maintenance on Delphi (and all IDEs from Borland and I am assuming from E but I haven't closely looked at the T'sC's) *specifically exclude* bug fixes. Included are new versions and workarounds (if possible). SM is also only provided two versions earlier from the current version (from memory) meaning even D2006 is excluded from the attempts for workarounds. I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor. Richard 2009/9/19 Kyley Harris kyleyhar...@gmail.com Paul. I agree 100% a professional software company, E, should not charge 1cent to license holders for genuine bug fixes and should package free releases independantly of feature releases until they are fixed. Otherwise they are not professional anything When I pay my plumber to fix a leak. I don't expect to have to pay him to fix the new secondary leaks he caused by being a bad plumber -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I dont remember that Paul, but I'm guessing it didn't work.. because I am not paying yet. On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 6:09 PM, Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.comwrote: Richard, Do you rmemeber when Microsoft wanted to charge for upgrades that were fixes and what happened? Paul 2009/9/19 Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz Even Microsoft think it’s worth issuing fixes and indeed updates LONG after 18 months has passed. Barely a day goes by without some Windows update or other shoehorning itself into my XP system that Microsoft last got my money for almost 10 years ago. And I can only hope that you were being funny in that passage about “low quality requirements” not being bugs. I cannot think of any other product for which I am asked to pay the sorts of $$’s I am asked to pay for software that would come with a complete denial of liability should it turn out to be partly or entirely unfit for purpose or actually cause me loss or harm. Actually, I can think of one product where the customers are treated with disdain equal to that of the software industry and interestingly it’s the only other industry where the customer is referred to as a “user” by their “dealer”. *From:* delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Richard Vowles *Sent:* Saturday, 19 September 2009 15:49 *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Comparing software development to plumbing is a road to madness, surely? Thats almost certainly like saying software development is an engineering discipline, which it has clearly been disproved from being. Delphi consists, last I heard, of 26000 different source files - to expect that entire tree to be bug free is questionable in the least. Besides, a bug is defined as being something that does not meet the requirements. Given Delphi's set of requirements for shipping is determined at the point of shipping, technically it meets those requirements and thus has no bugs. All subsequent patches are, technically, not bug fixes but requirements changes. As the quality of requirements set by Borland were clearly much lower than people would generally consider acceptable (for Delphi 2005, and most certainly for Delphi 8), that is really a mismatch in requirements expectations. Remember, we are talking *Borland* here, not *Embarcadero*. Embarcadero, I think, has a pretty good track record, and a much higher bar. But even E have feature defects they consider acceptable when shipping. Everyone does. As an interesting aside, Support and Maintenance on Delphi (and all IDEs from Borland and I am assuming from E but I haven't closely looked at the T'sC's) *specifically exclude* bug fixes. Included are new versions and workarounds (if possible). SM is also only provided two versions earlier from the current version (from memory) meaning even D2006 is excluded from the attempts for workarounds. I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor. Richard 2009/9/19 Kyley Harris kyleyhar...@gmail.com Paul. I agree 100% a professional software company, E, should not charge 1cent to license holders for genuine bug fixes and should package free releases independantly of feature releases until they are fixed. Otherwise they are not professional anything When I pay my plumber to fix a leak. I don't expect to have to pay him to fix the new secondary leaks he caused by being a bad plumber -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
2009/9/19 Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.com you know that is is a topic that will just never end in open debate ;) Yes, but it is more lively action that we have seen here for some time :-) I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor. It really just depends on what you are developing.. with most of the major businesses in the world still heavily relying on 10+ year old technology this just doesn't stack up. Advancement for the pure sake of it ony helps the OS providers and programming vendors like E... releasing new cool stuff every 18 months when the old stuff is not sufficient does not help the paying customer.. We have customers still relying on DOS software they have been using for 20 years.. still works, still BUG FREE and yes we stand behind our product. these releases of new technology are not improving their business at all.. what improves their business is the fact that we provided a software package that did the job reliably and still does. Our ability to provide a reliable product is based on our compilers etc also being bug free and reliable.. Bug free in this case clearly means that the software met their requirements. I would expect it to be bug free after 20 years, 20 years to get it right? Comparing someone who runs their business on DOS and whose requirements haven't changed to the wild west of software development is very odd I have to say. Its like comparing apples with kangaroos. a 3 Month Policy, or whatever agreed.. thats really up to each customer and provider and also probably depends on the nature of a product. Let me ask this.. do you think to programmers writing the software for 747's and rockets provide a 3 month warranty on peoples lives? Of course, that is why almost all software has a disclaimer in relation to its reliability when life or death is involved. It is only software specifically written for those situations that take them into account and they tend to be written in ADA. Again, do you write software that could cause people to die? I know people who have and by golly the whole development process is something different yet again. no.. I'm sure they aspire to more than that because they know that their laziness or accident will cause lives.. Just like an Engineer, or Architect knows that mistakes will cost lives.. IMHO there are NO PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS.. its not a profession yet.. its just a thing we all do for money. Every professional trade, be it Doctor, engineer, etc all share a simple thing called responsibility and accountability.. A professional software developer is simply someone who does it as their main source of income. No need to complicate it further. I can't say I can see Engineers being comparable to our profession, all the work they do its very well known and all the problems have been solved already. Doctors on the other hand are more like us in terms of art/science and I would *love* to know a Doctor who I could pay once and if I didn't get well I could go back to again and again and get free treatment until they got it right. Accountability and responsibility aside, they get it wrong, you pay them each time they do - they have to live as well, and just like us, they are trying their best. I am not targeting this at anyone, or even Embacardo.. I dont have a problem with the pricing of Pro At all, and if I ever upgrade.. $1000 here or there means nothing to me for the value it provides.. but at whatever price they set, they should make sure that it works for its intention.. to claim that at the time of release it is Fit for no particular purpose is crap, and a very singular reason to make me want to quit delphi in the future.. the purpose is to allow me to make application Rapidly and successfully RAD.. if there are issues that slow me down.. its failing. Its funny, its why you can't actually request your money back under the consumer guarantee act either. You don't own the software products (only if you have them developed for you), it is licensed for your use in perpetuity. As such, you don't own a product and can't claim fit for purpose rules apply to it. *All* commercial software is licensed like this specifically for this reason, and I find it strange you and Jolyon who both work in that space arguing any other point of view. This is how the software industry works? Do you have a problem with it? I think changing it would be quite untenable... Wanting to quite Delphi in the future? Delphi 2007 was the best release in years
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Richard. My personal opinion on the 2005 is that they were better of dumping it in the bin. Perhaps they could have offered a heavy discount to those who got caught. Perhaps not. I would rather that they focus their energies on a singular version. I just wish they would focus better. :). If they maintain every version they certainly loose focus and cause more bugs in new versions. On Saturday, September 19, 2009, Richard Vowles rich...@developers-inc.co.nz wrote: Maybe we can go back to the central tenant of this discussion (I think). Which is, can a caretaker of Delphi (whoever that is) be expected to change the way Delphi has *always* been sold and supported? I.e. new versions stop patches occuring on previous versions. Were the versions of Delphi 2005 so bad that who-ever the caretaker now is should be required to go back and fix that product? What should be required for Delphi 8? Examples in the field of software development tools or *directly equivalent disciplines* please. Comparison to Windows, house builders, plumbers or any other such are allowed :-) This discussion has bought out all sorts of interesting points of view. And Paul, given your incredible civility in this conversation thus far and dealing with my outburst of grumpiness with a very well worded email, I will get Developers Inc to order you a Pro upgrade free of charge (we will pay for it ourselves). Please let me know in email directly what version you would like and where to ship it to. And no, I'm not doing it for anyone else - you guys need to take it up with Borland :-) They'll probably try and sell you COBOL.NET Richard -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
A very gracious offer Richard! From my point of view as a small commercial software house there is no way we would offer open ended bug fixes for any of our software UNLESS there was an ongoing support fee being charged. It is just not feasible to charge enough money upfront to provide open ended support forever - you would price yourself out of the market because most people wouldn't place enough value on that. And in fact most customers would upgrade to the newer versions anyway so the high upfront purchase costs would end up subsidising the few customers who stay on the oldest version to the detriment of the majority who upgrade. That's not to excuse Borland for selling Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 and then washing their hands of the mess... if you sell software THAT BAD then you should go into major damage control and try to do something about it even if it does hurt your bottom line majorly. Obviously Borland didn't and I think it cost them a lot (for example we used Delphi 5 and would have been ripe for an upgrade around about Delphi 8/2005 but we saw the roadkill and stuck with Delphi 5 until very very recently). However to pin the Delphi 8/2005 debacle on Embarcadero is harsh. On the OTHER hand (I have a lot of hands here), Embarcadero started this discussion by refusing to upgrade Delphi 8 and Delphi 2005 anymore. As people have said in this thread, that is provocative. There probably aren't that many people using Delphi 8 and 2005 now (hopefully none for Delphi 8?) but given how bad it was it would have made sense for them to extend upgrades back that far. I'm sure the main thrust of their strategy is to try to budge people still on Delphi 4-7 anyway so it wouldn't have hurt them much if at all. That's my 17c. David. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Richard Vowles Sent: Saturday, 19 September 2009 7:13 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero And Paul, given your incredible civility in this conversation thus far and dealing with my outburst of grumpiness with a very well worded email, I will get Developers Inc to order you a Pro upgrade free of charge (we will pay for it ourselves). Please let me know in email directly what version you would like and where to ship it to. And no, I'm not doing it for anyone else - you guys need to take it up with Borland :-) They'll probably try and sell you COBOL.NET Richard ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Like wise - professional Software developer was self employed for 10 years, now receiving income by salary from a large international company. I wrote an application using D3, which is still running reliably in a 24x7 manufacturing envionment, weigh and labelling product every 3 seconds, and stuffing data into an oracle database. The qualification is that it either works or it doesn't, if it doesn't you don't get any more work. The work that i put in to the development of the application has ment it has run on win98,nt 2k, xp without any changes. It is also the bench mark that new projects are compared to. I now work for the company that i wrote that application for and have been tasked with upgrading or replacing to include a lot more functionality. After downgrading to 2005 I redeveloped my application to use a Rockwell PLC for another client and gave delphi the boot, subsequently all installations and varations of it have ment my money has gone to rockwell for there hardware and software. I was looking at upgrading my copy of Delphi - but to be honest I may well be better off sticking with the Rockwell PLC, not as nice to code but reliable, occasional bugs that are fixed without major drama. Espcially if I run into show stoppers like Delphi 2005 Maurice -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Paul A Norman Sent: Saturday, 19 September 2009 1:09 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Dear Richard, I however, am a professional software developer. I am sure that you are, infact from everything I have heard of you and your work people should seriously consider looking at you and your consultancy for any work espeically in areas of complexity that need special expertise in advanced programing. What I am trying to address here is the changed busines model that the Delphi Community is being asked to swallow hook line and sinker. It is true as you say that E need to make money. What we and they are needing to look at is the model by which they wish to do so, realizing that we are their cash cows! Now what is a profesional programmer, just one who receives their income by invoicing directly for progranmming work? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Maurice, Rockwell PLC is quite a specialised system isn't it? its not as generic as delphi.. Just a curiosity, not a comparison On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Maurice Butler likema...@quicksilver.net.nz wrote: Like wise - professional Software developer was self employed for 10 years, now receiving income by salary from a large international company. I wrote an application using D3, which is still running reliably in a 24x7 manufacturing envionment, weigh and labelling product every 3 seconds, and stuffing data into an oracle database. The qualification is that it either works or it doesn't, if it doesn't you don't get any more work. The work that i put in to the development of the application has ment it has run on win98,nt 2k, xp without any changes. It is also the bench mark that new projects are compared to. I now work for the company that i wrote that application for and have been tasked with upgrading or replacing to include a lot more functionality. After downgrading to 2005 I redeveloped my application to use a Rockwell PLC for another client and gave delphi the boot, subsequently all installations and varations of it have ment my money has gone to rockwell for there hardware and software. I was looking at upgrading my copy of Delphi - but to be honest I may well be better off sticking with the Rockwell PLC, not as nice to code but reliable, occasional bugs that are fixed without major drama. Espcially if I run into show stoppers like Delphi 2005 Maurice -Original Message- *From:* delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Paul A Norman *Sent:* Saturday, 19 September 2009 1:09 p.m. *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Dear Richard, I however, am a professional software developer. I am sure that you are, infact from everything I have heard of you and your work people should seriously consider looking at you and your consultancy for any work espeically in areas of complexity that need special expertise in advanced programing. What I am trying to address here is the changed busines model that the Delphi Community is being asked to swallow hook line and sinker. It is true as you say that E need to make money. What we and they are needing to look at is the model by which they wish to do so, realizing that we are their cash cows! Now what is a profesional programmer, just one who receives their income by invoicing directly for progranmming work? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Kyley A PLC is a Programmable Logic Controller a piece of hardware that has an embedded language to control industrial machinery Over the years there has been a merging of PLC's and Process Computers (PLC's evolved from the original relay logic, in fact early ones you programmed in ladder logic), there was a gap between PLC's and process computers that you could close with a general programming language (I wrote something in Turbo Pascal to control a flying shear) But things are more specialised now, The interfaces have always been problematic (lack of standards and companies not wanting to interoperate) Neven Maurice, Rockwell PLC is quite a specialised system isn't it? its not as generic as delphi.. Just a curiosity, not a comparison On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Maurice Butler likema...@quicksilver.net.nz mailto:likema...@quicksilver.net.nz wrote: Like wise - professional Software developer was self employed for 10 years, now receiving income by salary from a large international company. I wrote an application using D3, which is still running reliably in a 24x7 manufacturing envionment, weigh and labelling product every 3 seconds, and stuffing data into an oracle database. The qualification is that it either works or it doesn't, if it doesn't you don't get any more work. The work that i put in to the development of the application has ment it has run on win98,nt 2k, xp without any changes. It is also the bench mark that new projects are compared to. I now work for the company that i wrote that application for and have been tasked with upgrading or replacing to include a lot more functionality. After downgrading to 2005 I redeveloped my application to use a Rockwell PLC for another client and gave delphi the boot, subsequently all installations and varations of it have ment my money has gone to rockwell for there hardware and software. I was looking at upgrading my copy of Delphi - but to be honest I may well be better off sticking with the Rockwell PLC, not as nice to code but reliable, occasional bugs that are fixed without major drama. Espcially if I run into show stoppers like Delphi 2005 Maurice -Original Message- *From:* delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Paul A Norman *Sent:* Saturday, 19 September 2009 1:09 p.m. *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Dear Richard, I however, am a professional software developer. I am sure that you are, infact from everything I have heard of you and your work people should seriously consider looking at you and your consultancy for any work espeically in areas of complexity that need special expertise in advanced programing. What I am trying to address here is the changed busines model that the Delphi Community is being asked to swallow hook line and sinker. It is true as you say that E need to make money. What we and they are needing to look at is the model by which they wish to do so, realizing that we are their cash cows! Now what is a profesional programmer, just one who receives their income by invoicing directly for progranmming work? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I'm sure the main thrust of their strategy is to try to budge people still on Delphi 4-7 anyway so it wouldn't have hurt them much if at all. This is the most worrying aspect of the decision to my mind, because it seems to be evidence that Embarcadero don't understand their market - they are treating their customers as simple bean counters, not developers with technical challenges. People who haven't already upgraded are by definition on old versions of the product. There are likely to be good technical reasons why they have not upgraded. Closing the window of opportunity in which they can get upgrade pricing is not going to affect those reasons, all it affects is the price of upgrading once that window closes. It doesn't make it any more attractive to upgrade in the next 3 months, it simply makes it *less* attractive *after* those three months and leaves a sour taste in the mouth into the bargain. If Embarcadero wanted to budge people on Delphi 4-7 they should be offering a 3 month special to entice upgrades, not wielding a bit stick to threaten people who don't upgrade now or else. And I'm sorry, but the buy-one-get-one-free deal is not going to work... if I *need* a product I'll buy it. If I haven't bought it already then I don't need it. Sure I may take a freebie to look at some other product out of curiosity, but isn't that what trial versions are for? But if there was a special deal on upgrade pricing there will be uproar from the people on SA or who have upgraded - why should people who didn't get suckered already get better pricing than they did? The answer to that of course is the same as the answer to why my mate got his TV cheaper than me at JB Hi-Fi last week compared to when I bought the exact same TV 3 months ago. He just got lucky. Plus of course I've been enjoying my TV for 3 months already, he's still waiting for his to be delivered. Yet you won't find me - or anyone else - among hordes of angry people barracking the management of JB Hi-Fi for giving those people special treatment last week compared to me. In the meantime JB and the TV manufacturer got themselves a few more customers than they perhaps otherwise might have, and definitely more customers than if their promotion had been buy your TV at the same old price now or next month we'll charge you more! ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
That is a very kind offer Richard and thank you for it, The sentiment signified by it is more than enough, but there is nothing owed by you to me. I certainly could not see you, or your business being put out of pocket by this, it is not your responasbility but I believe it is another's. If -- I am feeling assured that E is going to give us the backup and support, even through their agents like yourselves, and that E will see us thorugh on the issues that are being raised here, then I will scrimp and scrape and buy another Delphi off them - I kid you not - it would then be worth it. Just having another copy for now, however, does not longterm fix any of the difficulties of busines philosophy that I beleive have been identified, and in fact it would practically lock me in to any such problems, and does not help anyone else get to this worth while goal either. So thank you again for your expression of generosity, and the personal offer to help put things right for us, but there is nothing outstanding that is your personal responsability. Sincerely, what we all need is a change of heart amongst the policy setters in E. In the order of things, it would not really cost them much, and would really help build their future as well all of ours. Thank you again, I wish you well. Paul ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
open ended bug fixes 2009/9/19 David Brennan dugda...@dbsolutions.co.nz Dear David, When we talk about D8 and especially 2005 we are not talking about minor matters. Others in the past have listed what does not work, the list is not too cool. What needs to be realised here is that there is a very big difference between bugs than may be a little annoying to some one, and things that are actually fundamental to the application's operation. They are not bugs but I believe misdemeanors :-) If a 'bug' actually stops the application operating as it shuld in any significant way it may in my opinion fall fowl of Lord Deninnigs famous judgement onn when is a car bought under contract, not a car? (More below) Developers need to keep to very high standard in this, if for no other reason than that if commercial resentent levels rise to high in the broader community with developer's attitudes, regualtion will follow. It is already being considered in some quarters. Regulation will not be nice. Seek legal advice on any and all of the following points of my personal opinion. At present the general provisions regulating the industry I believe are the Fair Trading Act, Common Law of Torts and a few Absolute liabilities. Absolute liabilities are things contained in Statute or if you like also those Universal moral principles of duty of care. For example if one designs a computer application say for the operation of lifts, and people are trapped and injured or even die becasue it is later determined by a competent tribunal that one failed to develop the application using the genreal standards of care and diligence that a developer should use, it is even possible in some juristdictions that the developer could be found guilty of culpible homicide - man slaughter! In NZ the equivalent commonly known scenario was where previously mechanics have been found guilty for things that they missed during WOF inspections of vehicles where injury or death has resulted. Not becasue they mised the items but because it could be demonstrated that they had not exercised in this case an absolute duty of care in their work. The standard is not always simpolt that there is a problem, but the nature of the problem. In software ddevelopment I would submit that if your client wants to use your software for an uninteded or unenvisaged purpose at the time of design brief, and this breaks your application, then the developoer maybe should rightly feel indignent that the problem is laid at their door. And maybe could expect to charge out to make the new use of the application work. If however a period of time elapses before it becomes apparent that some proscribed feature of the software as brieefed and paid for does not function properly, than no matter what periods of testing or due diligence my be inserted in the contract the developoer may find himself liable for soemthing, and the amount may increase with time the more he fights it. You can not always contract out of established law. Often you can not at all contract out of law. The reason is that one is subject to the Sovereign power of the jurisdiction you are operating in. And contracts made under that jurisdiction can not contravene the determinations of that jurisdiction. Unless there is specific provision to do os. In other words in NZ there are provisoins of the Fair Trading Act that can not be contracted out of. As a matter of public policy, this helps prevent any form of commercial or other duress during treating to contract. Now be careful in saying that a licanse is not the same as ownership. Truly it is not, but if you take money for it, more and more legislators and courts all over the world are starting to say that there are responsabilites on the person who receives the money to give value. In common law there are lessor duties of care that people can rely on even in an contract situation. Lord Denig found that even though the man who bought a car was bound bby contract to pay for the car, because the car was defiecent in several ways from what a reasonible man might expect a car to be and do -- legally it was not a car! So he granted the man relief. If your application fails to meet certain requiremetns of your contract formal or implied, or shows that you have not designed it with the reasonible care that a resaonible person should do so as a developer, then you may get a nasty surprise if you don;t want to put it right! I wholoehearetadly belive that D.2005 is headed that way. Even the service pack three doesn't work on some people's machines as a known issue! It doesn't on my main one. F1 gives no help at all let alone the inadequate help it gives on the other machine I sue. I can not cut copy ot paste in the Form Designer .. I could go on! but I won't bore you, hte issues are well established else where. So where does E satnd? In my view they bought a franchise - and nneed to fix the elkements of the franchise that they want to make money
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Hmmm, I don't think we're any Kansas any more ;-) Kyley Harris wrote: yes, I include the full version in my apps. you just have to set the compiler defines properly On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Jeremy North jeremy.no...@gmail.com mailto:jeremy.no...@gmail.com wrote: The full FastMM version can show a detailed list, however the version included with Delphi by default can show you the classnames and size of the leak. Just set the ReportMemoryLeaksOnShutdown global variable. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.com mailto:ky...@harrissoftware.com wrote: Actually FastMM also tells you exactly what you did not free, and where.. so.. no memory leaks.. Its amazing how frequently you can forget a try finally.. but.. they all get picked up the moment I run the app. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:33 PM, Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.com mailto:ky...@harrissoftware.com wrote: Ben Taylor wrote a replacement Mem Manager that does that.. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:29 PM, John Bird johnkb...@paradise.net.nz mailto:johnkb...@paradise.net.nz wrote: As far as Garbage collection in Delphi, I have sometimes wondered why there isn't something along the lines of a RTTI list of objects that have been created by the program in code (rather than autocreated by the Application), then it would be quite easy to go thru the list and figure out anything which needs to be freed, and hasn't been yet. With that you would have much of the features of a garbage collection, or at least an easy way for the programmer to work out what they forgot to free or never actually got freed.. Oh wait there probably is somewhereanyone know? (You can tell I don't create and free objects that much, in part to avoid extra complexity). something along the lines of (frantically inventing code - I am already used to interating thru components on a form) comp:TComponent;//parent form for compptr := 0 to comp.ComponentCount - 1 do begin if (comp.components[compptr].assigned) and (comp.components[compptr].LastUse FiveMinsAgo) then (comp.components[compptr].free) And because its friday... %20 The Final Frontier... John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz mailto:delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4435 (20090917) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com __ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4435 (20090917) __ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
It's not knowing what objects that have been created that's the problem,
it's knowing what *references* to those objects might be out there and
relied on.
Without a framework/runtime enforced mechanism to declare and maintain such
references and/or rigorous discipline on the part of the application
developer you're on a hiding to nothing.
That is, partly at least, what the managed part of managed code gives
you - that required level of oversight and control, preventing you from
doing things like storing a reference to an object in an integer just
because it happens to be convenient or chucking a reference over the fence
somewhere out of reach of the oversight mechanics.
But really, if you want garbage collection you can have it today, in Delphi.
Yes it involves reference counting, yes it involves interfaces and some
people have a HUGE downer on reference counting for some reason (I suspect
mostly because it's seen as old hat). But it's the foundation of COM and,
y'know, COM did pretty well off the back of that form of garbage collection
and some pretty important systems in turn rest and rely on that technology.
It's also interesting to note that more COM API's were added to Windows 7
than .NET ones, for example.
Now, for sure it's not perfect, but neither is the generational garbage
collector in .NET and like any technique, if used carefully and when
appropriate it gets the job done very effectively.
A key aspect of reference counted lifetime management (in Delphi at least)
is that you retain determinism in that lifetime management so you do not
have to worry about finalisation or disposal as a separate concern from
deallocation.
You continue taking care of finalisation in your destructors as you always
have done.
I'll show you some code that I worked with very successfully that took all
the work of managing sql objects away using a factory that returns query
interface references:
Var
Qry: ISQLQuery;
Begin
Qry := SQLFactory.Query('select blah blah blah');
Qry.Parameter['ID'].AsInteger := aID;
Qry.Open;
...
etc
End;
No need to worry about try..finally Free or try..finally anything else for
that matter. When the qry variable goes out of scope its ref count hits 0
and it is destroyed, cleaning up as required when it does so.
In fact, that's not strictly true in this case. It's actually better even
than that.
The SQLFactory is actually internally maintaining a cache of query objects.
When asked for a query, it efficiently determines whether there is an unused
query object in the cache with that same SQL. If there is, you get a
reference to that (unless it is already in use - you don't want to go
setting parameters and re-executing a query that some other code is
currently FETCHING from, for example).
If no object exists with that SQL then a new cached object is created and a
reference to that is returned.
If an object exists for the SQL but is already in use (easily determined by
the fact that ref count 0) then a new, *UN*cached object is created and
reference to THAT is returned.
When the ref count hits zero on a query object, what it does depends on
whether it is cached or not but in either case the destructor is called as
normal.
However, the FreeInstance method (which actually takes cares of returning
memory to the system) is overridden. In this override, the object does two
different things depending on whether it is cached or not.
If NOT cached, it simply calls inherited - this results in the object being
freed as normal.
If cached however, it resets the ref count to 0 (zero) but does NOT call
inherited, so the object is not Free'd (but it's destructor *has* still been
called).
The client code is blissfully ignorant of all these machinations. All you
have to do to safely work with these objects with such sophisticated
management behind the scenes is get them from the factory when needed.
That's it.
And all this in code that could compile in Delphi 3, since that was when
interfaces as we know them today were introduced, if it really had to (which
it doesn't of course), with no need to jump through hoops or impose awkward
syntax incantations on the client code.
Just use the technology we have had for years and understand well.
___
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Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Thanks for getting to the heart of the matter Jolyon, I may be wrong, but I think Paul was more concerned about a stated intention made to him by Dev-Inc to take a matter up with Borland on his behalf and then a complete lack of any sort of feedback from Dev-Inc until what seemed to him to be a condescending comment about his current situation. Let others judges what is rude - being left with a deficient IDE and no backup? Or ... Paul 2009/9/16 Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz I may be wrong, but I think Paul was more concerned about a stated intention made to him by Dev-Inc to take a matter up with Borland on his behalf and then a complete lack of any sort of feedback from Dev-Inc until what seemed to him to be a condescending comment about his current situation. But as for that $500-$600 price you quote ... That’s a little disingenuous don’t you think? Current pricing for Delphi 2010 Pro (Named User) is * $750* incl GST. Or were you making an offer of a discount for DUG subscribers? J Remember that many community users are not GST registered. In many cases we may work for companies that are, but when maintaining our *own*licenses we have to pay the full asking price and often we don’t have customers from whom to recoup the cost. I’d also point out that the recent Delphi versions offer themselves up – or are offered up by CodeGear or others - for comparison with Visual Studio, in which endeavour they fail in one key respect... the lack of an entirely FREE edition. (There isn’t even an entry level SKU comparable to “Standard” edition Visual Studio) I’d like to prefix “current” to that word “lack”, but have no reason to do so at the moment. *From:* delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Richard Vowles *Sent:* Wednesday, 16 September 2009 19:16 *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero 2009/9/16 Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com And I have heard nothing until Richard in this Forum smirked last night was I actually using 2005? So is that the level of support and followup we can expect? That was quite rude Paul. Paul, I am not, and have never been the reason you continue to use Delphi 2005. I am also not responsible for the quality of Delphi 2005 and given most people downgraded back to Delphi 7, find it hugely surprising you continue to use Delphi 2005. IMHO, Borland was responsible for Delphi 2005, CodeGear and Embarcadero have apologised enough for this version and have spent considerable time, money and effort to make subsequent versions that they actually own and are responsible for the best quality releases we have seen in a long time. But they are a business and need to make money. It is time to move on. I pay for my development tools and continue to invest in them - they are part of what I do to make myself a better developer and produce code more effectively for my customers. Tools, like time, training and all other effort is something you invest in IMHO, and if you feel the time you spend with a less than effective tool is worth more than the cost of upgrading to a product owned by a completely different, there is little I feel the need to do about it. I'm afraid $500-600 every 18 months for a new version of a Delphi Pro which provides such incredible value would be the least of my decision making points. Given I could delay that under current upgrade policy for years and still pay the same amount for an even greater jump in productivity and capability makes the cost of the upgrade, in my opinion, a no brainer. I however, am a professional software developer. Richard -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Dear Richard, I however, am a professional software developer. I am sure that you are, infact from everything I have heard of you and your work people should seriously consider looking at you and your consultancy for any work espeically in areas of complexity that need special expertise in advanced programing. What I am trying to address here is the changed busines model that the Delphi Community is being asked to swallow hook line and sinker. It is true as you say that E need to make money. What we and they are needing to look at is the model by which they wish to do so, realizing that we are their cash cows! Now what is a profesional programmer, just one who receives their income by invoicing directly for progranmming work? I beleive that it includes any one who due to their vocation or occupation needs to use programing as ancillory part of what they do and includes even those of us who do not invoice directly for the work. I infact never invoice for what we do at all. in any way I think it has been resaonibly well established here already that Borland's problem was not its busines model, but project focuss. A friend at Victoria University once explained to me that there were until recently two main business models at work in the world. The British and the American styles, (USA - not Latin American as Latin American approaches are often very close to the NZ/Aussi way of thinking). Now in New Zealand the main Telecommunications cell phone provider chose to follow the USA model. People felt too screwed down and not looked after and when a British based firrm entered the market hundeds of thousands of us transfered over. My friend explained that the genreal USA model is to offer the world and then put blockages in the way of people getting the prize - the classic USA Insurance comany type reputation best exemplifies this. All that they (USA) followed in this regard has not really served the American people or American busines community well, obviously - witness the recent melt downs and the issues they need to face and to sort it out longterm. And a lot of that comes back to these basics that we are speaking of. The British approach is to offer good service and backup and genrally keep to it even if it hurts the balance sheet temporarily. Reputation being important. Trusting that customer loyalty will be built and longterm profitablilty assured. And I think that that is the ethos that many NZ programmers feel to follow themselves. So natrually we look for it in our Software House(s). And it was found with Delphi and the genreal policies that surround it. Remember that did not fail Delphi -- loosing focus of us developers and the tolls we need fowled Borland - hopefully E and its agents like you can learn from that. Now obviously Dlephi in E's hands has a good future if we consumers of it feel that our frends and associates **all over the world** will get a British type back up then we will for free promote the product as we all use to. But in the absence of such deep felt assurance, look where the discusion has gone on this thread. No longer about Delphi so much but other languages. Now I still maintain that it is not right for people to have to expect that the eighteen monnth cycle that you speak of is incorporating the bug fixes that should be for free. Often I dont need new IDE features - just the last one to work properly. Why shuold I have to pay what you say is 500 - 600 but it is pointed out is $750 just to get bus fixes on the last thing I paid 700 -800 depending on exchange rates? If E are going to effectively be removing upgrade rights, then they need to provide full on bug fixes for products with out people NEEDING to upgrade just to get the IDE working properly. To let that notion that has been floated here, slip pass would be silly for us as consumerers. I have raised my experience as a real example of things and yet hope for a good result that might genuinely encourage others. Paul 2009/9/16 Richard Vowles rich...@developers-inc.co.nz 2009/9/16 Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com And I have heard nothing until Richard in this Forum smirked last night was I actually using 2005? So is that the level of support and followup we can expect? That was quite rude Paul. Paul, I am not, and have never been the reason you continue to use Delphi 2005. I am also not responsible for the quality of Delphi 2005 and given most people downgraded back to Delphi 7, find it hugely surprising you continue to use Delphi 2005. IMHO, Borland was responsible for Delphi 2005, CodeGear and Embarcadero have apologised enough for this version and have spent considerable time, money and effort to make subsequent versions that they actually own and are responsible for the best quality releases we have seen in a long time. But they are a business and need to make money. It is time to move on. I pay for my development tools and continue to invest in them - they are
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Paul. I agree 100% a professional software company, E, should not charge 1cent to license holders for genuine bug fixes and should package free releases independantly of feature releases until they are fixed. Otherwise they are not professional anything When I pay my plumber to fix a leak. I don't expect to have to pay him to fix the new secondary leaks he caused by being a bad plumber Sent from my iPhone On 19/09/2009, at 1:09 PM, Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Richard, I however, am a professional software developer. I am sure that you are, infact from everything I have heard of you and your work people should seriously consider looking at you and your consultancy for any work espeically in areas of complexity that need special expertise in advanced programing. What I am trying to address here is the changed busines model that the Delphi Community is being asked to swallow hook line and sinker. It is true as you say that E need to make money. What we and they are needing to look at is the model by which they wish to do so, realizing that we are their cash cows! Now what is a profesional programmer, just one who receives their income by invoicing directly for progranmming work? I beleive that it includes any one who due to their vocation or occupation needs to use programing as ancillory part of what they do and includes even those of us who do not invoice directly for the work. I infact never invoice for what we do at all. in any way I think it has been resaonibly well established here already that Borland's problem was not its busines model, but project focuss. A friend at Victoria University once explained to me that there were until recently two main business models at work in the world. The British and the American styles, (USA - not Latin American as Latin American approaches are often very close to the NZ/Aussi way of thinking). Now in New Zealand the main Telecommunications cell phone provider chose to follow the USA model. People felt too screwed down and not looked after and when a British based firrm entered the market hundeds of thousands of us transfered over. My friend explained that the genreal USA model is to offer the world and then put blockages in the way of people getting the prize - the classic USA Insurance comany type reputation best exemplifies this. All that they (USA) followed in this regard has not really served the American people or American busines community well, obviously - witness the recent melt downs and the issues they need to face and to sort it out longterm. And a lot of that comes back to these basics that we are speaking of. The British approach is to offer good service and backup and genrally keep to it even if it hurts the balance sheet temporarily. Reputation being important. Trusting that customer loyalty will be built and longterm profitablilty assured. And I think that that is the ethos that many NZ programmers feel to follow themselves. So natrually we look for it in our Software House(s). And it was found with Delphi and the genreal policies that surround it. Remember that did not fail Delphi -- loosing focus of us developers and the tolls we need fowled Borland - hopefully E and its agents like you can learn from that. Now obviously Dlephi in E's hands has a good future if we consumers of it feel that our frends and associates **all over the world** will get a British type back up then we will for free promote the product as we all use to. But in the absence of such deep felt assurance, look where the discusion has gone on this thread. No longer about Delphi so much but other languages. Now I still maintain that it is not right for people to have to expect that the eighteen monnth cycle that you speak of is incorporating the bug fixes that should be for free. Often I dont need new IDE features - just the last one to work properly. Why shuold I have to pay what you say is 500 - 600 but it is pointed out is $750 just to get bus fixes on the last thing I paid 700 -800 depending on exchange rates? If E are going to effectively be removing upgrade rights, then they need to provide full on bug fixes for products with out people NEEDING to upgrade just to get the IDE working properly. To let that notion that has been floated here, slip pass would be silly for us as consumerers. I have raised my experience as a real example of things and yet hope for a good result that might genuinely encourage others. Paul 2009/9/16 Richard Vowles rich...@developers-inc.co.nz 2009/9/16 Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com And I have heard nothing until Richard in this Forum smirked last night was I actually using 2005? So is that the level of support and followup we can expect? That was quite rude Paul. Paul, I am not, and have never been the reason you continue to use Delphi 2005. I am also not
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Comparing software development to plumbing is a road to madness, surely? Thats almost certainly like saying software development is an engineering discipline, which it has clearly been disproved from being. Delphi consists, last I heard, of 26000 different source files - to expect that entire tree to be bug free is questionable in the least. Besides, a bug is defined as being something that does not meet the requirements. Given Delphi's set of requirements for shipping is determined at the point of shipping, technically it meets those requirements and thus has no bugs. All subsequent patches are, technically, not bug fixes but requirements changes. As the quality of requirements set by Borland were clearly much lower than people would generally consider acceptable (for Delphi 2005, and most certainly for Delphi 8), that is really a mismatch in requirements expectations. Remember, we are talking *Borland* here, not *Embarcadero*. Embarcadero, I think, has a pretty good track record, and a much higher bar. But even E have feature defects they consider acceptable when shipping. Everyone does. As an interesting aside, Support and Maintenance on Delphi (and all IDEs from Borland and I am assuming from E but I haven't closely looked at the T'sC's) *specifically exclude* bug fixes. Included are new versions and workarounds (if possible). SM is also only provided two versions earlier from the current version (from memory) meaning even D2006 is excluded from the attempts for workarounds. I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor. Richard 2009/9/19 Kyley Harris kyleyhar...@gmail.com Paul. I agree 100% a professional software company, E, should not charge 1cent to license holders for genuine bug fixes and should package free releases independantly of feature releases until they are fixed. Otherwise they are not professional anything When I pay my plumber to fix a leak. I don't expect to have to pay him to fix the new secondary leaks he caused by being a bad plumber -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
you know that is is a topic that will just never end in open debate ;) I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor. It really just depends on what you are developing.. with most of the major businesses in the world still heavily relying on 10+ year old technology this just doesn't stack up. Advancement for the pure sake of it ony helps the OS providers and programming vendors like E... releasing new cool stuff every 18 months when the old stuff is not sufficient does not help the paying customer.. We have customers still relying on DOS software they have been using for 20 years.. still works, still BUG FREE and yes we stand behind our product. these releases of new technology are not improving their business at all.. what improves their business is the fact that we provided a software package that did the job reliably and still does. Our ability to provide a reliable product is based on our compilers etc also being bug free and reliable.. a 3 Month Policy, or whatever agreed.. thats really up to each customer and provider and also probably depends on the nature of a product. Let me ask this.. do you think to programmers writing the software for 747's and rockets provide a 3 month warranty on peoples lives? no.. I'm sure they aspire to more than that because they know that their laziness or accident will cause lives.. Just like an Engineer, or Architect knows that mistakes will cost lives.. IMHO there are NO PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS.. its not a profession yet.. its just a thing we all do for money. Every professional trade, be it Doctor, engineer, etc all share a simple thing called responsibility and accountability.. I am not targeting this at anyone, or even Embacardo.. I dont have a problem with the pricing of Pro At all, and if I ever upgrade.. $1000 here or there means nothing to me for the value it provides.. but at whatever price they set, they should make sure that it works for its intention.. to claim that at the time of release it is Fit for no particular purpose is crap, and a very singular reason to make me want to quit delphi in the future.. the purpose is to allow me to make application Rapidly and successfully RAD.. if there are issues that slow me down.. its failing. On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Richard Vowles rich...@developers-inc.co.nz wrote: Comparing software development to plumbing is a road to madness, surely? Thats almost certainly like saying software development is an engineering discipline, which it has clearly been disproved from being. Delphi consists, last I heard, of 26000 different source files - to expect that entire tree to be bug free is questionable in the least. Besides, a bug is defined as being something that does not meet the requirements. Given Delphi's set of requirements for shipping is determined at the point of shipping, technically it meets those requirements and thus has no bugs. All subsequent patches are, technically, not bug fixes but requirements changes. As the quality of requirements set by Borland were clearly much lower than people would generally consider acceptable (for Delphi 2005, and most certainly for Delphi 8), that is really a mismatch in requirements expectations. Remember, we are talking *Borland* here, not *Embarcadero*. Embarcadero, I think, has a pretty good track record, and a much higher bar. But even E have feature defects they consider acceptable when shipping. Everyone does. As an interesting aside, Support and Maintenance on Delphi (and all IDEs from Borland and I am assuming from E but I haven't closely looked at the T'sC's) *specifically exclude* bug fixes. Included are new versions and workarounds (if possible). SM is also only provided two versions earlier from the current version (from memory) meaning even D2006 is excluded from the attempts for workarounds. I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor. Richard 2009/9/19 Kyley Harris kyleyhar...@gmail.com Paul. I agree 100% a professional software company, E, should not charge 1cent to license holders for genuine bug fixes
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I will finish off and say that I read reasonable points on both sides of the argument.. and.. really For all its Faults Delphi 2007 has been an excellent development tool in the main.. I have no idea if the Visual Studio is better, or easier or anything.. so I cant really benchmark.. But if I was not satisfied enough.. i doubt I would have stuck with it. I love Delphi as a language, even if it has not kept up with some of the cooler features yet. On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.comwrote: you know that is is a topic that will just never end in open debate ;) I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor. It really just depends on what you are developing.. with most of the major businesses in the world still heavily relying on 10+ year old technology this just doesn't stack up. Advancement for the pure sake of it ony helps the OS providers and programming vendors like E... releasing new cool stuff every 18 months when the old stuff is not sufficient does not help the paying customer.. We have customers still relying on DOS software they have been using for 20 years.. still works, still BUG FREE and yes we stand behind our product. these releases of new technology are not improving their business at all.. what improves their business is the fact that we provided a software package that did the job reliably and still does. Our ability to provide a reliable product is based on our compilers etc also being bug free and reliable.. a 3 Month Policy, or whatever agreed.. thats really up to each customer and provider and also probably depends on the nature of a product. Let me ask this.. do you think to programmers writing the software for 747's and rockets provide a 3 month warranty on peoples lives? no.. I'm sure they aspire to more than that because they know that their laziness or accident will cause lives.. Just like an Engineer, or Architect knows that mistakes will cost lives.. IMHO there are NO PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS.. its not a profession yet.. its just a thing we all do for money. Every professional trade, be it Doctor, engineer, etc all share a simple thing called responsibility and accountability.. I am not targeting this at anyone, or even Embacardo.. I dont have a problem with the pricing of Pro At all, and if I ever upgrade.. $1000 here or there means nothing to me for the value it provides.. but at whatever price they set, they should make sure that it works for its intention.. to claim that at the time of release it is Fit for no particular purpose is crap, and a very singular reason to make me want to quit delphi in the future.. the purpose is to allow me to make application Rapidly and successfully RAD.. if there are issues that slow me down.. its failing. On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 3:49 PM, Richard Vowles rich...@developers-inc.co.nz wrote: Comparing software development to plumbing is a road to madness, surely? Thats almost certainly like saying software development is an engineering discipline, which it has clearly been disproved from being. Delphi consists, last I heard, of 26000 different source files - to expect that entire tree to be bug free is questionable in the least. Besides, a bug is defined as being something that does not meet the requirements. Given Delphi's set of requirements for shipping is determined at the point of shipping, technically it meets those requirements and thus has no bugs. All subsequent patches are, technically, not bug fixes but requirements changes. As the quality of requirements set by Borland were clearly much lower than people would generally consider acceptable (for Delphi 2005, and most certainly for Delphi 8), that is really a mismatch in requirements expectations. Remember, we are talking *Borland* here, not *Embarcadero*. Embarcadero, I think, has a pretty good track record, and a much higher bar. But even E have feature defects they consider acceptable when shipping. Everyone does. As an interesting aside, Support and Maintenance on Delphi (and all IDEs from Borland and I am assuming from E but I haven't closely looked at the T'sC's) *specifically exclude* bug fixes. Included are new versions and workarounds (if possible). SM is also only provided two versions earlier from the current version (from memory) meaning even D2006 is excluded from the attempts for workarounds. I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Even Microsoft think it's worth issuing fixes and indeed updates LONG after 18 months has passed. Barely a day goes by without some Windows update or other shoehorning itself into my XP system that Microsoft last got my money for almost 10 years ago. And I can only hope that you were being funny in that passage about low quality requirements not being bugs. I cannot think of any other product for which I am asked to pay the sorts of $$'s I am asked to pay for software that would come with a complete denial of liability should it turn out to be partly or entirely unfit for purpose or actually cause me loss or harm. Actually, I can think of one product where the customers are treated with disdain equal to that of the software industry and interestingly it's the only other industry where the customer is referred to as a user by their dealer. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Richard Vowles Sent: Saturday, 19 September 2009 15:49 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Comparing software development to plumbing is a road to madness, surely? Thats almost certainly like saying software development is an engineering discipline, which it has clearly been disproved from being. Delphi consists, last I heard, of 26000 different source files - to expect that entire tree to be bug free is questionable in the least. Besides, a bug is defined as being something that does not meet the requirements. Given Delphi's set of requirements for shipping is determined at the point of shipping, technically it meets those requirements and thus has no bugs. All subsequent patches are, technically, not bug fixes but requirements changes. As the quality of requirements set by Borland were clearly much lower than people would generally consider acceptable (for Delphi 2005, and most certainly for Delphi 8), that is really a mismatch in requirements expectations. Remember, we are talking *Borland* here, not *Embarcadero*. Embarcadero, I think, has a pretty good track record, and a much higher bar. But even E have feature defects they consider acceptable when shipping. Everyone does. As an interesting aside, Support and Maintenance on Delphi (and all IDEs from Borland and I am assuming from E but I haven't closely looked at the T'sC's) *specifically exclude* bug fixes. Included are new versions and workarounds (if possible). SM is also only provided two versions earlier from the current version (from memory) meaning even D2006 is excluded from the attempts for workarounds. I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor. Richard 2009/9/19 Kyley Harris kyleyhar...@gmail.com Paul. I agree 100% a professional software company, E, should not charge 1cent to license holders for genuine bug fixes and should package free releases independantly of feature releases until they are fixed. Otherwise they are not professional anything When I pay my plumber to fix a leak. I don't expect to have to pay him to fix the new secondary leaks he caused by being a bad plumber -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
It creates a native image of the assembly for the current processor/OS it was executed on. Well native delphi code won't run too well without a number of windows DLLs either, therefore native delphi code still requires a framework. It is just that the .NET framework isn't always installed by default. You have to be careful when trying to split hairs. One company (can't remember which now) actually provided a sandbox solution for .net applications. It was mighty expensive IIRC. On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Sean Cross s...@picsprint.com wrote: NGen doesn't compile to native and still requires the framework to be installed. Sean -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jeremy North Sent: 17 September 2009 5:21 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Surprised no one has mentioned NGen which comes with the framework. On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Sean Cross sean.cr...@catalystrisk.co.nz wrote: Mono supports aot, which is compiling into native code. This is what they do for the iPhone, compile .net to native. The iPhone constraints include jitting, hence the need for compiling to native code. Regards Sean Cross CIO ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
There's a significant difference between splitting code across multiple modules which are loaded dynamically and relying on one or more libraries to create the fundamental runtime environment (as in, the necessary infrastructure to actually transform the bytes in the application into executable code). But it was only a little joke anyway (for some reason it does seem to get the goat of the .Net crowd though... :) ) ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
My concern was not so much the code compilation as to more how fast (or slow) it performs in relation to delphi.. often such things like Garbage collection, and interpreted code has a big cost (depending on the type of app) I guess one day I may have a play :) On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz wrote: There's a significant difference between splitting code across multiple modules which are loaded dynamically and relying on one or more libraries to create the fundamental runtime environment (as in, the necessary infrastructure to actually transform the bytes in the application into executable code). But it was only a little joke anyway (for some reason it does seem to get the goat of the .Net crowd though... :) ) ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
What ngen does is a fairly long way away from what aot does. For most of the reasons you would want native code, ngen isn't much help. For a starter, it looks like ngening is typically done at install time not at compile time. Sean -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jeremy North Sent: 17 September 2009 6:04 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero It creates a native image of the assembly for the current processor/OS it was executed on. Well native delphi code won't run too well without a number of windows DLLs either, therefore native delphi code still requires a framework. It is just that the .NET framework isn't always installed by default. You have to be careful when trying to split hairs. One company (can't remember which now) actually provided a sandbox solution for .net applications. It was mighty expensive IIRC. On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Sean Cross s...@picsprint.com wrote: NGen doesn't compile to native and still requires the framework to be installed. Sean -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jeremy North Sent: 17 September 2009 5:21 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Surprised no one has mentioned NGen which comes with the framework. On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Sean Cross sean.cr...@catalystrisk.co.nz wrote: Mono supports aot, which is compiling into native code. This is what they do for the iPhone, compile .net to native. The iPhone constraints include jitting, hence the need for compiling to native code. Regards Sean Cross CIO ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I have been doing a bit of .NET stuff the last month or morestill learningdoing C# and I don't mind it too much and picked it up pretty quick. Its FAR better then VB.NET J Yes there have been the odd little things that is a bit strange and they are pretty much the same things I thought were strange in Javascript too. But over all, its not bad. I still Like Delphi tho J One distinct advantage Delphi had over .NET is.it cant be decompiled back to source code. Mind you, I don't know enought to know if this can be stopped or not. I just know it can be done pretty easily...with the right tool. Jeremy From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Sean Cross Sent: Thursday, 17 September 2009 16:22 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Here is a question.. Can C# compile into native code? or is it .Net only? MS .net is managed code only. Mono can do ahead of time compilation producing native code (that's how they do iPhone apps) and has a linker to reduce exe size. I don't know how well it all works though. Sean ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
This is (done at install time) because ngen is optimized for processor and OS. NGen means the resultant assembly is faster. How much faster is debatable since ngen doesn't seem that popular. I haven't done .NET stuff for a long time sans a few C# prototypes when required. On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Sean Cross s...@picsprint.com wrote: What ngen does is a fairly long way away from what aot does. For most of the reasons you would want native code, ngen isn't much help. For a starter, it looks like ngening is typically done at install time not at compile time. Sean -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jeremy North Sent: 17 September 2009 6:04 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero It creates a native image of the assembly for the current processor/OS it was executed on. Well native delphi code won't run too well without a number of windows DLLs either, therefore native delphi code still requires a framework. It is just that the .NET framework isn't always installed by default. You have to be careful when trying to split hairs. One company (can't remember which now) actually provided a sandbox solution for .net applications. It was mighty expensive IIRC. On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Sean Cross s...@picsprint.com wrote: NGen doesn't compile to native and still requires the framework to be installed. Sean -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jeremy North Sent: 17 September 2009 5:21 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Surprised no one has mentioned NGen which comes with the framework. On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Sean Cross sean.cr...@catalystrisk.co.nz wrote: Mono supports aot, which is compiling into native code. This is what they do for the iPhone, compile .net to native. The iPhone constraints include jitting, hence the need for compiling to native code. Regards Sean Cross CIO ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
This is (done at install time) because ngen is optimized for processor and OS. I think there needs to be an in theory caveat in there somewhere. How many different CPU/OS families does the .NET JIT compiler actually support discretely? And does it really make a difference anyway? Delphi code compiled for generic x86 processors still seems able to run circles around C# code. Part of that will be that it's not just a question of code, but also framework semantics that affect performance. Moving bytes around and manipulating them is likely to be just as fast as native code, but invoking methods and even simple things like type-casting will incurr overhead that the managed runtime imposes to ensure that the code isn't doing something it shouldn't. Someone did some benchmarking not so long ago where the test conditions were set by some C# guys - it was essentially an open benchmarking challenge with invitations to submit optimal solutions in various languages. I forget the details but the last I heard the C# code struggled to get anywhere near the Delphi code. I wish I could remember a link to it - it made for interesting reading generally. It was someone's blog I think. Can anyone help out with a reference? NGen means the resultant assembly is faster. I thought it mostly affected apparent loading time, since all assemblies are compiled before executing. NGen allows this compilation hit to be incurred during installation (or even prior to distribution) rather than during startup, but once loaded the assembly won't be faster per se. As for why NGen isn't popular, that might be because there are so many things that can cause the resultant compiled assembly images to become invalid, which presumably negates the benefit. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6t9t5wcf(VS.71).aspx ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Can't help with a link, but yeah, my recollection is the same; the Delphi implementation spanked the C# one, even though it was the C# guys who'd defined the context for the challenge. -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jolyon Smith Someone did some benchmarking not so long ago where the test conditions were set by some C# guys - it was essentially an open benchmarking challenge with invitations to submit optimal solutions in various languages. I forget the details but the last I heard the C# code struggled to get anywhere near the Delphi code. I wish I could remember a link to it - it made for interesting reading generally. It was someone's blog I think. Can anyone help out with a reference? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Seeing we are talking about the merits of .Net and garbage collection - let me re-raise my question which no-one answered yet: The D2007 IDE uses quite a bit of .Net code. I find it is consistently the last thing to respond on Vista after a log-in or resume - 20-30+ seconds of spinning wheel before the code window repaints. Is this .net garbage collection going on? is it .Net overhead? or is it something else? Some here know a lot about the tech specs of the IDE - any comments? Personally I will be more impressed by .net once MS start using it themselves for their core products. Vista does not come with .net framework installed - the D2007 installer installed it, and almost none of Windows or MS Office 2007 (which was also pre-installed when I got the PC) use it hence a default Vista + Office does not have the framework. John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
To add to the language debate... We are now doing more Java stuff... Have to say I enjoy the IDE (Eclipse) more than Delphi's (2007), and I just seem to 'like' the language better. Have done a couple of small web related things, and also a couple of small (just to try it out) applications using SWT (this is the framework that Eclipse is built on, it uses native controls on Mac, Windows and Linux, making the applications look more native on each platform... and they do). Definitely a reasonable learning curve (and I have still lots to learn... just getting started really), and the applications are reasonably trivial, but it has worked OK so far. The Java run time environment also seems a fair bit lighter than the .net frameworks... though I have no idea on the provided total functionality of each, and for the applications I am involved with, I don't need to worry about deployment so much anyway. Just thought I would through another language in there :-) (and hey, I was happy to see the website listed in the delphi vs java vs .net vs prism vs vs vs vs post yesterday having java on top of the list :-) (flame bait, maybe :-) Regards Colin On 18/09/2009, at 11:09 AM, John Bird wrote: Seeing we are talking about the merits of .Net and garbage collection - let me re-raise my question which no-one answered yet: The D2007 IDE uses quite a bit of .Net code. I find it is consistently the last thing to respond on Vista after a log-in or resume - 20-30+ seconds of spinning wheel before the code window repaints. Is this .net garbage collection going on? is it .Net overhead? or is it something else? Some here know a lot about the tech specs of the IDE - any comments? Personally I will be more impressed by .net once MS start using it themselves for their core products. Vista does not come with .net framework installed - the D2007 installer installed it, and almost none of Windows or MS Office 2007 (which was also pre-installed when I got the PC) use it hence a default Vista + Office does not have the framework. John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe # Attention: The information in this email and in any attachments is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient then please do not distribute, copy or use this information. Please notify us immediately by return email and then delete the message from your computer. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
The D2007 IDE uses quite a bit of .Net code. Afaik the IDE only uses .NET for the CodeDOM and some other bits and pieces primarily involved in the modeling/refactoring support. is it .Net overhead? I think it's fair to say that it's .NET overhead of some form, although I don't know how much of that is strictly speaking .NET itself and how much is the IDE doing stuff that you perhaps could live without (which involves, and is perhaps made worse by, it's use of .NET, but not strictly speaking down to .NET per se). Vista does not come with .net framework installed I think it does, just perhaps not the version that D2007 requires, so D2007 has to install *another* version of the framework. .NET may have declared the end of DLL hell... and gave us Framework/Assembly hell instead. Which are essentially just a.n.other form of DLL, so really no change at all, just a rose (or turd) by another name It's General Protection Faults are dead, long live the Access Violation all over again. :) More revealing is the fact that the majority of new API's even in Windows 7 use native code interfaces, primarily COM. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Don't forget that the garbage collection won't actually collect unless the system is looking for more memory to use. This is why you might see memory use grow to considerable amounts in older versions of the IDE. I believe in the newer versions (of the IDE), they (embarcadero) force collection a little more often. There is also a way to force the IDE to tell the framework to take out the trash, although I can't remember what it is. It is a registry key that allows you to set a timer interval. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
The GC in .NET has evolved more and more facilities to configure and tune it, which again raises the question in my mind... if GC is supposed to be this great, automated memory management system, why does it need so much tweaking and tuning? ... and why do I still have to dispose of certain resources myself? ie. The things that can't/won't be collected. I can't say I'm a supporter of garbage collection (except on thursday mornings) however, this report is interesting... Report No: 77686 (RAID: 272876) Status: Open There are undocumented UNIT_EXPERIMENTAL and GARBAGE conditional defines http://qc.codegear.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=77686 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
You might *try* to force a collection but... 1) the advice is you shouldn't.. The GC supposedly works best when left to its own devices (which then begs the question, why even provide the *facility* to force it, if it's better not to? Answer: because your application knows how it uses memory better than the GC can. Not my words, Microsoft's!) 2) even if you force a collection, the GC is able to ignore you if it thinks it is better off doing so (if you ask for an optimized collection - Optimized in this sense means do it now, or not, whatever works for you shrug). And when it *does* collect, all the threads in your app are suspended while it does it's thing, so if you've invested a great deal of time and effort in paralleling your code, you really should leave the GC alone if you don't want that parallelism essentially undone. The GC in .NET has evolved more and more facilities to configure and tune it, which again raises the question in my mind... if GC is supposed to be this great, automated memory management system, why does it need so much tweaking and tuning? -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Jeremy North Sent: Friday, 18 September 2009 12:39 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Don't forget that the garbage collection won't actually collect unless the system is looking for more memory to use. This is why you might see memory use grow to considerable amounts in older versions of the IDE. I believe in the newer versions (of the IDE), they (embarcadero) force collection a little more often. There is also a way to force the IDE to tell the framework to take out the trash, although I can't remember what it is. It is a registry key that allows you to set a timer interval. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
The GC in .NET has evolved more and more facilities to configure and tune it, which again raises the question in my mind... if GC is supposed to be this great, automated memory management system, why does it need so much tweaking and tuning? In typical use, it doesn't need any tweaking. I suspect that there are some memory usage patterns it doesn't perform so well on, and in those cases you tune it. In extreme cases, you use something else :). In the same vein, if my wife's automatic gearbox is so good, why does it have a sports and economy setting? Regards Sean Cross ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I presume you're talking about her car... Regards Ian Sean Cross wrote: The GC in .NET has evolved more and more facilities to "configure" and "tune" it, which again raises the question in my mind... if GC is supposed to be this great, automated memory management system, why does it need so much tweaking and tuning? In typical use, it doesn't need any tweaking. I suspect that there are some memory usage patterns it doesn't perform so well on, and in those cases you tune it. In extreme cases, you use something else :). In the same vein, if my wife's automatic gearbox is so good, why does it have a sports and economy setting? Regards Sean Cross ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Yeah, I thought there was a joke there somewhere too, but I was too scared to go and look for it... ;-) From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Ian Drower Sent: Friday, 18 September 2009 2:45 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero I presume you're talking about her car... Regards Ian Sean Cross wrote: The GC in .NET has evolved more and more facilities to configure and tune it, which again raises the question in my mind... if GC is supposed to be this great, automated memory management system, why does it need so much tweaking and tuning? In typical use, it doesn't need any tweaking. I suspect that there are some memory usage patterns it doesn't perform so well on, and in those cases you tune it. In extreme cases, you use something else :). In the same vein, if my wife's automatic gearbox is so good, why does it have a sports and economy setting? ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Ah yes. I know it's Friday but you have gone for the gutter very early. Regards Sean Cross CIO Catalyst Risk Management PO Box 230 Napier 4140 DDI: 06-8340362 Mobile: 021270 3466 Visit us at http://www.catalystrisk.co.nzhttp://www.catalystrisk.co.nz/ Offices in Auckland, Hamilton, Napier, Wellington, Christchurch Dunedin Disclaimer: The information contained in this document is confidential to the addressee(s) and may be legally privileged. Any view or opinions expressed are those of the author and may not be those of Catalyst Risk Management. No guarantee or representation is made that this communication is free of errors, viruses or interference. If you have received this e-mail message in error please delete it and notify me. Thank you. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Ian Drower Sent: Friday, 18 September 2009 2:45 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero I presume you're talking about her car... Regards Ian Sean Cross wrote: The GC in .NET has evolved more and more facilities to configure and tune it, which again raises the question in my mind... if GC is supposed to be this great, automated memory management system, why does it need so much tweaking and tuning? In typical use, it doesn't need any tweaking. I suspect that there are some memory usage patterns it doesn't perform so well on, and in those cases you tune it. In extreme cases, you use something else :). In the same vein, if my wife's automatic gearbox is so good, why does it have a sports and economy setting? Regards Sean Cross ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nzmailto:delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nzmailto:delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
An interesting analogy (and why is it that automotive analogies insist on cropping up in software development matters?). Your car manufacturer presumably doesn't tell you that in most cases you should just ignore those settings - they are there specifically and precisely to add functionality. The manufacturer isn't trying to pretend that their default auto setting are going to work for everyone. The GC on the other hand is supposed to just work, and the advice is leave it alone... but (they add) *in case* you need to there are these additional controls... but really, best leave them alone, because if you *do* use them then you will create other problems. Using economy mode won't break your car. Tuning the GC can cause serious issues for your application. So the analogy breaks down a little - these aren't economy and performance settings, they are Service Mode settings not intended for you to use except in extremis. Extending the analogy wy beyond breaking point... when automatic transmissions are great when they work, but when they go wrong they cost a helluva lot more to fix/maintain than a manual box. And there will be times when the auto transmission is frustratingly limiting and prevent you from obtaining the full performance of which the rest of your vehicle is capable. If all you ever do is the school/grocery run, then an automatic may suit you just fine, but if you want more flexibility, lower maintenance and fuel costs and more fun, plain and simple, from your vehicle then a manual box is the way to go. ;) -Original Message- From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Sean Cross Sent: Friday, 18 September 2009 2:37 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero The GC in .NET has evolved more and more facilities to configure and tune it, which again raises the question in my mind... if GC is supposed to be this great, automated memory management system, why does it need so much tweaking and tuning? In typical use, it doesn't need any tweaking. I suspect that there are some memory usage patterns it doesn't perform so well on, and in those cases you tune it. In extreme cases, you use something else :). In the same vein, if my wife's automatic gearbox is so good, why does it have a sports and economy setting? Regards Sean Cross ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
This report is interesting - particularly the GARBAGE conditional define. I've only done a little coding in C#, but I have to say that I do like Garbage collection. It makes code much cleaner and easy to read. It would be nice to be able to do a similar thing for exception handling code - but I'm not sure how that would work. Alister Christie Computers for People Ph: 04 471 1849 Fax: 04 471 1266 http://www.salespartner.co.nz PO Box 13085 Johnsonville Wellington Jeremy North wrote: Report No: 77686 (RAID: 272876) Status: Open There are undocumented UNIT_EXPERIMENTAL and GARBAGE conditional defines http://qc.codegear.com/wc/qcmain.aspx?d=77686 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
An interesting analogy (and why is it that automotive analogies insist on cropping up in software development matters?). Your car manufacturer presumably doesn't tell you that in most cases you should just ignore those settings - they are there specifically and precisely to add functionality. The manufacturer isn't trying to pretend that their default auto setting are going to work for everyone. The GC on the other hand is supposed to just work, and the advice is leave it alone... but (they add) *in case* you need to there are these additional controls... but really, best leave them alone, because if you *do* use them then you will create other problems. Using economy mode won't break your car. Tuning the GC can cause serious issues for your application. So the analogy breaks down a little - these aren't economy and performance settings, they are Service Mode settings not intended for you to use except in extremis. Extending the analogy wy beyond breaking point... when automatic transmissions are great when they work, but when they go wrong they cost a helluva lot more to fix/maintain than a manual box. And there will be times when the auto transmission is frustratingly limiting and prevent you from obtaining the full performance of which the rest of your vehicle is capable. If all you ever do is the school/grocery run, then an automatic may suit you just fine, but if you want more flexibility, lower maintenance and fuel costs and more fun, plain and simple, from your vehicle then a manual box is the way to go. ;) I was trying to be funny rather than accurate :). It's an analogy that breaks down pretty quickly. The person who originally used the gearbox/gc analogy on me did so to explain why he would never use a gc. He also added that he only drove a manual because that is what the F1 drivers used, so I rapidly lost interest in his opinion. But it does come down to appropriate use. A gc is great for some applications, ok for some and completely useless for others. Exactly the same applies to manual memory management. Sean ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I was trying to be funny rather than accurate :) Likewise. Tomorrow is the weekend. :) It's an analogy that breaks down pretty quickly. Automotive ones usually do, yet they also seem deceptively applicable when we first come up with them. I'm as guilty as anyone on that score. :) He also added that he only drove a manual because that is what the F1 drivers used, so I rapidly lost interest in his opinion. I'm guessing he hasn't followed F1 for a few years! To be fair tho, they do use a deterministic *semi* auto system. That is, they trigger an up/down shift and the box responds but takes care of the mechanics of shifting Which is exactly what *I* use for memory management. I have a mix of resources that are managed using ref counting and others that require explicit management - in some cases I've arranged things so that I can choose the most appropriate in a given scenario (without mixing the two for a given instance of that resource, obviously). The lifetime management is still deterministic (when the ref count hits 0, the resource dies and cleans itself up) but the mechanics and the details are taken care of for me. I guess that's why GC doesn't appeal *to*me*... I appreciate the power and flexibility that manual memory management provides but at the same time I'm not always forced to put up with the drudgery that that entails. So GC offers me nothing much that I don't already have but takes away something that I *do* have. shrug ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I guess that's why GC doesn't appeal *to*me*... I appreciate the power and flexibility that manual memory management provides but at the same time I'm not always forced to put up with the drudgery that that entails. So GC offers me nothing much that I don't already have but takes away something that I *do* have. shrug Ok. So you're a control freak. ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
As far as Garbage collection in Delphi, I have sometimes wondered why there isn't something along the lines of a RTTI list of objects that have been created by the program in code (rather than autocreated by the Application), then it would be quite easy to go thru the list and figure out anything which needs to be freed, and hasn't been yet. With that you would have much of the features of a garbage collection, or at least an easy way for the programmer to work out what they forgot to free or never actually got freed.. Oh wait there probably is somewhereanyone know? (You can tell I don't create and free objects that much, in part to avoid extra complexity). something along the lines of (frantically inventing code - I am already used to interating thru components on a form) comp:TComponent;//parent form for compptr := 0 to comp.ComponentCount - 1 do begin if (comp.components[compptr].assigned) and (comp.components[compptr].LastUse FiveMinsAgo) then (comp.components[compptr].free) And because its friday... %20 The Final Frontier... John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Actually FastMM also tells you exactly what you did not free, and where.. so.. no memory leaks.. Its amazing how frequently you can forget a try finally.. but.. they all get picked up the moment I run the app. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:33 PM, Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.comwrote: Ben Taylor wrote a replacement Mem Manager that does that.. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:29 PM, John Bird johnkb...@paradise.net.nzwrote: As far as Garbage collection in Delphi, I have sometimes wondered why there isn't something along the lines of a RTTI list of objects that have been created by the program in code (rather than autocreated by the Application), then it would be quite easy to go thru the list and figure out anything which needs to be freed, and hasn't been yet. With that you would have much of the features of a garbage collection, or at least an easy way for the programmer to work out what they forgot to free or never actually got freed.. Oh wait there probably is somewhereanyone know? (You can tell I don't create and free objects that much, in part to avoid extra complexity). something along the lines of (frantically inventing code - I am already used to interating thru components on a form) comp:TComponent;//parent form for compptr := 0 to comp.ComponentCount - 1 do begin if (comp.components[compptr].assigned) and (comp.components[compptr].LastUse FiveMinsAgo) then (comp.components[compptr].free) And because its friday... %20 The Final Frontier... John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
The full FastMM version can show a detailed list, however the version included with Delphi by default can show you the classnames and size of the leak. Just set the ReportMemoryLeaksOnShutdown global variable. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.com wrote: Actually FastMM also tells you exactly what you did not free, and where.. so.. no memory leaks.. Its amazing how frequently you can forget a try finally.. but.. they all get picked up the moment I run the app. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:33 PM, Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.com wrote: Ben Taylor wrote a replacement Mem Manager that does that.. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:29 PM, John Bird johnkb...@paradise.net.nz wrote: As far as Garbage collection in Delphi, I have sometimes wondered why there isn't something along the lines of a RTTI list of objects that have been created by the program in code (rather than autocreated by the Application), then it would be quite easy to go thru the list and figure out anything which needs to be freed, and hasn't been yet. With that you would have much of the features of a garbage collection, or at least an easy way for the programmer to work out what they forgot to free or never actually got freed.. Oh wait there probably is somewhereanyone know? (You can tell I don't create and free objects that much, in part to avoid extra complexity). something along the lines of (frantically inventing code - I am already used to interating thru components on a form) comp:TComponent; //parent form for compptr := 0 to comp.ComponentCount - 1 do begin if (comp.components[compptr].assigned) and (comp.components[compptr].LastUse FiveMinsAgo) then (comp.components[compptr].free) And because its friday... %20 The Final Frontier... John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
yes, I include the full version in my apps. you just have to set the compiler defines properly On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Jeremy North jeremy.no...@gmail.comwrote: The full FastMM version can show a detailed list, however the version included with Delphi by default can show you the classnames and size of the leak. Just set the ReportMemoryLeaksOnShutdown global variable. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.com wrote: Actually FastMM also tells you exactly what you did not free, and where.. so.. no memory leaks.. Its amazing how frequently you can forget a try finally.. but.. they all get picked up the moment I run the app. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:33 PM, Kyley Harris ky...@harrissoftware.com wrote: Ben Taylor wrote a replacement Mem Manager that does that.. On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 5:29 PM, John Bird johnkb...@paradise.net.nz wrote: As far as Garbage collection in Delphi, I have sometimes wondered why there isn't something along the lines of a RTTI list of objects that have been created by the program in code (rather than autocreated by the Application), then it would be quite easy to go thru the list and figure out anything which needs to be freed, and hasn't been yet. With that you would have much of the features of a garbage collection, or at least an easy way for the programmer to work out what they forgot to free or never actually got freed.. Oh wait there probably is somewhereanyone know? (You can tell I don't create and free objects that much, in part to avoid extra complexity). something along the lines of (frantically inventing code - I am already used to interating thru components on a form) comp:TComponent;//parent form for compptr := 0 to comp.ComponentCount - 1 do begin if (comp.components[compptr].assigned) and (comp.components[compptr].LastUse FiveMinsAgo) then (comp.components[compptr].free) And because its friday... %20 The Final Frontier... John ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe -- Kyley Harris Harris Software +64-21-671-821 ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
2009/9/16 Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com And I have heard nothing until Richard in this Forum smirked last night was I actually using 2005? So is that the level of support and followup we can expect? That was quite rude Paul. Paul, I am not, and have never been the reason you continue to use Delphi 2005. I am also not responsible for the quality of Delphi 2005 and given most people downgraded back to Delphi 7, find it hugely surprising you continue to use Delphi 2005. IMHO, Borland was responsible for Delphi 2005, CodeGear and Embarcadero have apologised enough for this version and have spent considerable time, money and effort to make subsequent versions that they actually own and are responsible for the best quality releases we have seen in a long time. But they are a business and need to make money. It is time to move on. I pay for my development tools and continue to invest in them - they are part of what I do to make myself a better developer and produce code more effectively for my customers. Tools, like time, training and all other effort is something you invest in IMHO, and if you feel the time you spend with a less than effective tool is worth more than the cost of upgrading to a product owned by a completely different, there is little I feel the need to do about it. I'm afraid $500-600 every 18 months for a new version of a Delphi Pro which provides such incredible value would be the least of my decision making points. Given I could delay that under current upgrade policy for years and still pay the same amount for an even greater jump in productivity and capability makes the cost of the upgrade, in my opinion, a no brainer. I however, am a professional software developer. Richard -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero (Rodney)
(I noticed this still comes up as the NZ Borland Developers Group) 2009/9/16 Rodney Chan rc...@compuspec.com - Instead of existing enhancement, focus on help files. The good old help files are really useful and help selling Delphi Surely a plugin that just goes to Google would be more helpful these days? - Free bundles with popular/useful VCLs How many more do you need? There is a big jump between the basic free set and the uber-kits, and CodeGear can't keep the price the same and yet give you this advanced functionality. I think keeping them focused on what they are doing (and doing well) has been shown across time to be a good thing (TM). - Linux support (at least cross compilation), Mac as well? Thats coming already? - Prompt update on database drivers to various popular DB products Third party ones are so cheap are you sure you want them to do this? I still prefer them focusing on the core platform... Off topic thoughts: - The decision for using Delphi to develop future projects is hard. Especially when we think about career development. Natural - Delphi is a native code niche these days. There are two platforms - .NET and Java. You *could* count Flex/Flash, but only if you are a designer really. - It will be good if E. can have connections with universities, provide them offers on Delphi products. It's also hard for project manager to pick Delphi if there is inadequate supply of developers Not going to happen except as an other language of study or similar. As much as Universities say they are focused on education, choosing something that isn't .NET (and .NET not from MS) or Java is just again, not going to happen. - Re-active/create forums, I am not sure whether we still have Team B? Team Borland? :-) - Regular publication / magazine, even only electronic form I'm not sure there is value in this. I think CodeGear/Embarcadero do a fantastic job of material on their dn.* website and with the CodeRages. Everything else is in blogs. -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I may be wrong, but I think Paul was more concerned about a stated intention made to him by Dev-Inc to take a matter up with Borland on his behalf and then a complete lack of any sort of feedback from Dev-Inc until what seemed to him to be a condescending comment about his current situation. But as for that $500-$600 price you quote ... That's a little disingenuous don't you think? Current pricing for Delphi 2010 Pro (Named User) is $750 incl GST. Or were you making an offer of a discount for DUG subscribers? J Remember that many community users are not GST registered. In many cases we may work for companies that are, but when maintaining our own licenses we have to pay the full asking price and often we don't have customers from whom to recoup the cost. I'd also point out that the recent Delphi versions offer themselves up - or are offered up by CodeGear or others - for comparison with Visual Studio, in which endeavour they fail in one key respect... the lack of an entirely FREE edition. (There isn't even an entry level SKU comparable to Standard edition Visual Studio) I'd like to prefix current to that word lack, but have no reason to do so at the moment. From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Richard Vowles Sent: Wednesday, 16 September 2009 19:16 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero 2009/9/16 Paul A Norman paul.a.nor...@gmail.com And I have heard nothing until Richard in this Forum smirked last night was I actually using 2005? So is that the level of support and followup we can expect? That was quite rude Paul. Paul, I am not, and have never been the reason you continue to use Delphi 2005. I am also not responsible for the quality of Delphi 2005 and given most people downgraded back to Delphi 7, find it hugely surprising you continue to use Delphi 2005. IMHO, Borland was responsible for Delphi 2005, CodeGear and Embarcadero have apologised enough for this version and have spent considerable time, money and effort to make subsequent versions that they actually own and are responsible for the best quality releases we have seen in a long time. But they are a business and need to make money. It is time to move on. I pay for my development tools and continue to invest in them - they are part of what I do to make myself a better developer and produce code more effectively for my customers. Tools, like time, training and all other effort is something you invest in IMHO, and if you feel the time you spend with a less than effective tool is worth more than the cost of upgrading to a product owned by a completely different, there is little I feel the need to do about it. I'm afraid $500-600 every 18 months for a new version of a Delphi Pro which provides such incredible value would be the least of my decision making points. Given I could delay that under current upgrade policy for years and still pay the same amount for an even greater jump in productivity and capability makes the cost of the upgrade, in my opinion, a no brainer. I however, am a professional software developer. Richard -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
I went to .net code camp on Sunday, and listened to a talk on .net languages (F#, python etc). One of the running jokes and cobol.net. There's always cobol Sean From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Robert martin Sent: 16 September 2009 2:03 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Ha !!! I had heard on Microfocus. I used their COBOL at Polytec years ago. Just went to the web site, they are selling COBOL.Net What a Joke ! Bought a smile to my day ! Rob ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
Whats F# ?? I have not heard of that before. What happend to D# and E# ? ;-) Jeremy From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Sean Cross Sent: Wednesday, 16 September 2009 21:57 To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List' Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero I went to .net code camp on Sunday, and listened to a talk on .net languages (F#, python etc). One of the running jokes and cobol.net. There's always cobol Sean From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of Robert martin Sent: 16 September 2009 2:03 p.m. To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero Ha !!! I had heard on Microfocus. I used their COBOL at Polytec years ago. Just went to the web site, they are selling COBOL.Net What a Joke ! Bought a smile to my day ! Rob ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
2009/9/16 Jolyon Smith jsm...@deltics.co.nz I may be wrong, but I think Paul was more concerned about a stated intention made to him by Dev-Inc to take a matter up with Borland on his behalf and then a complete lack of any sort of feedback from Dev-Inc until what seemed to him to be a condescending comment about his current situation. Dev Inc has never had a business relationship with Borland per-say. CodeGear when they were part of Borland, but Dev Inc never sold Borland products. I am unsure as to where this ostensible stated intention came from. I won't deny it ever happened, but it has not happened in my memory and may have been with another member of Dev Inc. Accusing me of a smirking comment was rude. But as for that $500-$600 price you quote ... That’s a little disingenuous don’t you think? Current pricing for Delphi 2010 Pro (Named User) is * $750* incl GST. Or were you making an offer of a discount for DUG subscribers? J No I don't think it is. D2007 was just over $500 for an upgrade, D2009 was a bit more (and fluctuates with pricing), D2010 is $665+GST. Quoting GST inclusive prices of a business product is disingenuous I think, so I don't do it. Remember that many community users are not GST registered. In many cases we may work for companies that are, but when maintaining our *own*licenses we have to pay the full asking price and often we don’t have customers from whom to recoup the cost. O - I actually know the stats, and a very small number of Delphi licenses are sold to individuals. The reverse to what you are stating is actually true. The fact that most people who have a work license also install it at home if they want to means very few people buy it personally. I’d also point out that the recent Delphi versions offer themselves up – or are offered up by CodeGear or others - for comparison with Visual Studio, in which endeavour they fail in one key respect... the lack of an entirely FREE edition. (There isn’t even an entry level SKU comparable to “Standard” edition Visual Studio) I’d like to prefix “current” to that word “lack”, but have no reason to do so at the moment. In my opinion (I don't speak for Embarcadero *ever*) Microsoft isn't a tools company, it is a platform company. Visual Studio makes sense to position yourself against simply so managers understand what they are buying. -- --- Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor Developers Inc Ltd web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384 skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter ___ NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi mailing list Post: delphi@delphi.org.nz Admin: http://delphi.org.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi Unsubscribe: send an email to delphi-requ...@delphi.org.nz with Subject: unsubscribe
