Re: first impression and uneasy feeling... (long)

From: Craig van Nieuwkerk (craigvn_at_bigpond.com)
Date: 02/17/04 

Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 22:43:55 +1100

This is something that gets asked often.

Advantages to .NET
- It is the future as dictated by MS, like it or not, so new technologies
may not be accessible via Win32
- Hugh .NET libraries to work with

Advantages to Delphi.NET over Visual Studio.NET
- Preference for Delphi syntax over C# or VB.NET or any of the others
- Better integration with tools for entire development lifecycle
- Borland Data Providers provide better access to many more databases then
ADO.NET
- VCL.NET makes migration of app easier
- VCL.NET not subject to uncertain future of Winforms
- ECO
- IDE is very familiar to Delphi users

Advantages to Delphi.Win32 over Delphi.NET
- Apps run quicker
- Easier deployment of apps
- Win32 GUI apps are just generally way better than the .NET equivalents

I personally dont find the Delphi.NET IDE slow using a P4 1.7 with 512mb
ram.

I agree that Delphi.NET had a fair few initial bugs that hurt but as it is a
version 1 product hopefully they will be sorted in the next few months.

I think a very large percentage of developers using Delphi to do GUI
applications have no intention of moving to .NET soon as Delphi.Win32 still
does a much better job. This inevitable change over time as the .NET
platform develops, but I think Win32 has a fair few years left in it yet.

For web development I think .NET will become the standard much quicker as
WebForms and .NET has many more advantages over the traditional old styles
methods of ASP or ISAPI.

> I have now worked with Delphi 8 for .NET (Architect) for a bit of time
> and I decided to show it to my boss. This was quite important because
> he is the one that ultimately decides what tools our team will use for
> development in the next years. For the record, we're currently using
> Delphi 6 pro and enterprise in a small team of developers (6, two using
> ent, two using pro). We're also using a bit of BCB 5 Pro.
>
> First, my own personal impression: Boy this thing is slow. Every time I
> click on something, I have half a second of delay before anything
> happen. This might seems like nothing (and at first, I thought it
> wasn't that bad) but the sensation of frustration grew up to the point
> where I realized I was actively (but unconsciously) avoiding using the
> form designer: bad point. Also, the general stability isn't all that
> good and several bugs are still in this release. The bugs don't worry
> me much: in spite of the "version 8" label, this is only version 1.0
> and I expect the most problematic issues to be solved in upcoming
> patches. But I don't see the speed getting any better and THAT'S really
> a problem.
>
> For my "testing", I decided to write a simple application but to write
> it with what I consider "ready for consumer" quality: Graphics, easy to
> use interface (in my case, a wizard), error checking and general
> fool-proofing. Well, I managed to write my app and had quite a few
> problems along the way but that's not my issue. Once I was done with it
> (short the things that I simply couldn't solve due to bugs or problems
> inherent in the .net framework), I went to my boss and explained to him
> what .net was, why it was a step forward (according to MS, that is),
> what the practical differences in a Delphi for win32 and Delphi for
> .net program where and finally demo ed the IDE and showed him my
> program.
>
> And he didn't like it. In fact, he asked me a few questions that I have
> a hard time answering truthfully but here are the two most important
> ones:
>
> 1/ What is Borland exactly providing ? Sure we can use our "Delhi
> know-how" but everything we ever wrote was to be either thrown away or
> require a radical rewrite and so much testing that it probably wouldn't
> be worth the effort. All that to obtain a slower program with less
> features. If that was for that, why not use the MS IDE instead ? It's
> offering roughly the same level of comfort for a fraction of the price
> and hiring C# developers seems to be easier than hiring Delphi
> developers (at least here).
>
> 2/ Why would we change from Win32 to .NET ? Almost everything that .NET
> provide is already available to Delphi developers with better
> performances and better support. The garbage collector and all that VM
> stuff is all well on paper (if you're into that kind of thing) but it
> doesn't give any advantage to the seasoned programmer. Besides, a good
> memory leak debugger would be way more effective at catching that
> memory leak than using a garbage collector.
>
> He concluded with something that made me think: "When you demo ed
> Delphi 2 to me, I knew in 5 minutes that it would be a product that I
> could use and in 10 minutes that it was a product that I wanted
> everyone in my dev team to use. When you demo Delphi 8 to me, I have
> none of these feelings: I don't see the point, I can't quite understand
> why it is that complex to do, basically, less than the tools I'm using
> today and I'm sure that it is a product that I don't want my developers
> to use".
>
> Would someone care to comment on that ?
>
> He also asked me if there was somewhere he could write to to express
> his worries about this new platform. He's no sentimentalists but we've
> been using Borland's tools and compilers for the last 15 years and I
> think he doesn't like the idea of switching to a different product.
> Shall I direct him to someone in particular or shall I ask him "just to
> write to costumer support".
>
> Thanks,
> Stephane

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