Re: Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- From: "Brett Watters" <bwatters@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 11:22:40 -0700
Eyal,
> > Delphi 7 already does everything which one can do in Win32.
>
> Really? For the past 5 years Win32 supports Unicode, but Borland won't
> even consider supporting Unicode on Win32.
Every tried VB. That's fun. Opps... DB doesn't support Unicode, opps...
this Active-X doesn't support Unicode, opps....
> > No future language features are going to significantly
> > improve Win32 development or make a significantly better
> > product for the end-user.
>
> Generics, for in loop, const/type inside classes, and many other
> features can significantly improve development, regardless if it's Win32
> or .NET or any other target platform.
Significantly? LOL.
These are so minor, they aren't funny. To someone not using
Delphi, they wouldn't even merit a foot-note in marketting. For
existing Delphi developers, I doubt I'd even upgrade from D7
for these. The time to install and upgrade projects (and
components) would dwarf any time savings of such minor
things would save.
> And there's still a long way to go in the VCL - better grids, trees, DB
> controls, etc.
Buy them, download them, or make them. For the cost of one
Delphi license/upgrade, you could buy enough DevEx controls
to outclass any VB or C++ app out there. Are there better
controls for VB which I'm not aware of?
I've never run into a Win32 app from a non-Delphi competitor
which we didn't dust in terms of interface.
> And there's a lot of room for improvments in the DB area, Delphi is
> great for proto-typing but becomes cumbersome and even limiting when
> getting down to the real work. For example the dataset concept lacks
> "free" (unbound) columns to store calculated values.
DB area? As opposed to what? VB, MS C++? It already slaughters
them in this area. It has a half-dozen DB connection technologies and
its VCL metaphore puts all others to shame.
> In short, there's a lot of room for improvement in Delphi, that isn't
> specific to Win32 but can make a big difference for Win32 development too.
Why?
It's already (IMO) the best Win32 system out there. It isn't going to get
twice as good, over even 10% better even if you added every minor
feature you could dream up. They have already reached the point of
diminishing returns with D4.
It honestly doesn't matter if you are perfect. What matters is if you are
better than everyone else. Delphi 7 is better than any other Win32
development system out there -- and MSs aren't going to get any
better since they have stopped Win32.
> > For a company stopping Win32 development support, they
> > sure seem to be the only game in town?
>
> Borland doesn't "stop Win32", but Borland certainly shifts away from
> Win32. This is actually the less frustrating problem for all those
> small-medium software shops.
> A much bigger problem is that Borland shifts away from programming tools
> (compiler/IDE/class library), to software delivery tools (requirement
> management, version control, etc.)
Why? They have realized that the IDE is good enough and that
spending resources with minor improvements in the IDE isn't
going to equal big productivity improvements for developers.
If it is looking into other ways to improve development... great.
We are a 'small-to-medium' sized shop and I honestly can't think
of any IDE/language enhancements which would give me even a
0.1% improvement in productivity. D7 isn't light years ahead of
D4, and we skipped D5, D6, and D2005 -- we bought them and
said 'Not enough improvement to justify using them.'.
Now, if Borland can save me 5% in development time/cost via
version control or requirement management, then I'm sold.
Personally, hat's off to Borland for putting resources where it
is likely to have a significant impact on cutting development
times. Sorry, but For...in...do just doesn't cut it.
> Three years ago I made a choice to base our product line on Delphi.
> Since then I lost my confidence in Borland: ...
Fine. Good luck elsewhere. I'm not saying that Borland/Delphi is
perfect (and I agree with some of your statements), but I think you'll
find it is still better than the alternatives.
However, if Unicode, or Linux, etc. were requirements, then I'm not sure
why you selected Delphi? Select the best tool now. Complaining
that you bought a product and you were relying on a future version
to add some 'key' features is silly. I like Borland, but I'm not betting
my company on what they (or anyone else) might do with their
products.
> - The "quality" of D2005 and the 3 updates, followed by what seems to be
> refusal to actually fix D2005 in favor of D2006.
I don't mean to sound uncaring, but who cares? We brough D2005, looked
at it, and put it on the shelf. D7 works better for us... bugs aside. If we
want to go .NET in 2006, and D2006 fixes the bugs in D2005, so? Yes,
not good for Borland marketting, but it doesn't affect my development if
Borland comes up with a junky product which I'm not using anyway.
D7 is still better than VB6.
For out apps. D8 didn't work. VS.NET doesn't work. C# doesn't work. And
D2005 doesn't work. If D2006 does work, fine. If not, I'm no worse off.
In any case, I do not base my development decisions on unseen or untested
products. I'm not going to say "Lets go .NET" until I find a product which
does work. And when I do, who cares how many failed products there
were before hand?
> - A flow of product releases and executive statements that make it clear
> that Borland sees the future in SDO, not in core programming tools.
Ok. IMO, they have just run across an obvious fact -- core tools have
reached a peek. IMO, looking at other ways to significantly aid
development is far smarter than spending the same effort adding
minor enhancements which I'd likely skip anyway.
IMO, Microsoft lost the Win32 game. (I'm talking technically, not
marketting here). VB and C++ with their Active-Xs is dead. They know
this. .NETs main goal is the fix all the issues which they can't fix in
Win32
-- since .EXE, common libraries, common data types, garbage
collection, etc. focus on stuff which others don't have, etc.
Since Microsoft isn't going to come up with a better Win32 mouse-
trap than Borland's Delphi, I have no problem in Borland looking
at ways to say ahead outside of the IDE space. We suspect that,
techically, all .NET systems will be roughly equal. So far, Delphi
2005 seem to show that it is more than equal -- since it supports
Win32, VCL.NET actually gives a hope of a developing a working
product and provides an upgrade path, and ... yes... Borland looks
like it will have a lot of other non-IDE stuff which will make
development easier.
> My only hope is that Borland will be so un-interested in Delphi that
> they'll release it under an open source license, or at least the VCL.
> But I know that chances this will happen are next to nothing.
My hope, is that your hope doesn't come true.
Thanks,
Brett
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- From: Eyal
- Re: Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- From: Kevin Berry
- Re: Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- References:
- Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- From: Max
- Re: Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- From: Brett Watters
- Re: Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- From: Eyal
- Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- Prev by Date: Re: Forever Loyal to Delphi
- Next by Date: Re: The Delphi Cash Cow
- Previous by thread: Re: Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- Next by thread: Re: Delphi 2005 Win32 development stopped
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
