Delphi Community Many Times Stronger Than C++ Community

There was a posting I read in this newsgroup about a week back, where
some guy made a comment about he was surprised the Delphi community
still existed and had not passed away a long time ago. That comment
bothered me, because like most Delphi programmers I have a past history
of coding in C++ and I *know* how weak the C++ community really is. The
C++ community has a few strengths but in almost every area that really
matters to most people, the Delphi community is many times stronger.

The reason the Delphi community is so strong is because just about every
Delphi programmer is "on the same page", meaning they use the same GUI
framework to write Win32 executables, so they can share both graphical
components and non-graphical components easily and readily.

For exactly the opposite reason the C++ community is weakened
considerably by the fact that so many of them are using different visual
component frameworks. One guy will use MFC (yuck), another wxWidgets,
another Qt, and others will choose one of the hundred or so frameworks
lying in the C++ dying-and-almost-forgotten heap. They are not all "on-
the-same-page". They cannot share their graphical components.
Sometimes they can't even share non-graphical code due to library or
compiler conflicts. Oh yes, they have all the diversity out there, but
it comes with a price.

Here is an example: For years I have been checking out wxWidgets and
contemplating moving my projects over to c++/wxWidgets. It takes me
this long to keep looking because I just can't believe how awful the
situation is for c++ programmers. There are components available to
Delphi programmers that I take for granted and just cannot believe their
is no C++ equivelant. My disbelief causes me to look again and again,
each time to be shocked anew. I see nothing like the EasyTable database
engine that I use; go and find me one complete with C++ source, that
allows many tables within a single file, and can match its extensive
feature set. I just don't see it. Everything available for C++
programmers looks crummy by comparison. There are **SO MANY** great
embedded database engines available to Delphi programmers. Find me a
good toolbar component that can match Toolbar2000+TBX. Nothing! A
really great treeview component. Nothing. The simple components I take
for granted every day have so much more richness than anything that Qt
or MFC or wxWidgets has. And don't go recommending some ActiveX stuff
-- I want something written using the framework I use.

Try to find some high-quality native MFC components out there. After
All, MFC is suppose to be the biggest of the Win32 Graphical frameworks.
Well I tried, many times, and whatever is written purely for MFC is
pretty stinky compared to what Delphi users get. MS's MFC holy grail
was to talk their MFCers into making everything a separate little
ActiveX file. wxWidgets components? There is so little out there for
wxWidets that it is ridiculous! Qt components? Same scene, unless you
program for the Linux KDE desktop.

I read there are over 1.5 million C++ programmers in the world. How
many Delphi programmers are there? 400,000 or so!!! There are *NOT*
400k C++ programmers "on the same page". I wish I had figures for the
number of MFC, Qt & wxWidgets programmers that are out there, because I
think if we had some really good figure here folks, we would be either
laughing at them or crying for them. I think we would be shocked to
realize that many of those 1.5 million C++ programmers are just
interested in embedding their code in some appliance ROMS. Appliance
ROMs are not written in Delphi, they are written in C/C++, and appliance
ROM coders could add up to several hundred thousand coders easily?

<groans>

No wonder the C++ community is so weak-looking.

The more I look, the less strength I see among the C++ community. They
did pretty good to release the BOOST libraries, and they are very usable
because they are non-graphical, but when it comes to the most necessary
of things such as, full-featured graphical components, the C++ community
shows its true weakness.

I pity them.

Now go prove it to yourself by reading the MFC forums. Weak! Wimpy!
So few topics compared to the Delphi forums. Now go read the Qt forums.
Tiny! The wxWidgets forums. Less traffic than just Delphi.non-
technical alone! But whatever you do, do not look at the c++ public
usenet forums because it will just bring a tear to your eye, because its
just full of people asking why they get such-and-such indecipherable
error, or why a certain library refuses to compile.

Delphi is way ahead.
.

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