Delphi bugs and "moving" to Visual Studio debate

A lot of folks here use the "number of bugs"[1] argument to explain
the preference for shops to use Visual Studio as opposed to Delphi.
I think that could be overstating the "bugs" problem. <g>

While it's true that having bugs in the IDE does not contribute to
its selling quality, I must mention that the choice over the IDE,
in many organisations, centers around its "extension" of some base
enterprise infrastructure.  The "base" enterprise infrastructure here
could mean any of these:

1.  The Operating System
2.  Development framework (Java or .NET)
3.  The Enterprise database of choice

In my experience, and recently highlighted with my current project,
clients are more comfortable to choose IDE's that are, what they
assume to be, "natural extensions" of the above.  And once again, in my
experience, item 3 (database) is the primary factor for decisions.  The
clients don't even know about any bugs etc in IDE's before they decide
against them!

So trends like these are apparent:  if the shop is Microsoft SQL Server
based, the clients often feel more comfortable with Visual Studio.  If
the client's using DB2, they want something from IBM - Java and Eclipse
are roped in.  If it's Oracle, they are even talking about Oracle forms
(out of all things!).  If its Interbase, then Delphi's the first option.
Any IDE that is not construed as a natural compliment to the database
is always going to be a hard sell, IME.

So, Delphi's got some real competition out there - no, not directly from
other IDE's, but from the back end databases that are employed at the
client sites. [sic]

(I mentioned in an earlier thread about Borland being a perfect
acquisition for IBM - I based it on the premise that IBM would have a perfect tool set that complements its back end databases (having added
Interbase to their gluttonous frenzy of acquiring database technologies!
Of course, I base that only in the hope of seeing Delphi thrive.)

Maybe Borland should start selling Interbase more strongly? <g>  Don't
ask me what that means! :)  I'm sure things are much more complicated
inside with real figures etc. <g>

--
[1]  Because Borland hasn't fixed x-number of bugs in Delphi ...
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Delphi bugs and "moving" to Visual Studio debate
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    (borland.public.delphi.non-technical)
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