Re: Dvorak on Microsoft and .NET

Jim Cooper wrote:

BTW, that "legacy tool vendor" notion you slipped in
reads to me that you are pre-supposing that .NET is going
to be the /only/ development option for /all/ developers
everywhere on every operating system

No, that's not quite what I meant. I do believe that if Delphi does not support .NET it will be widely seen as a legacy tool. Image matters.

Ah, okay, I agree with that to some extent. Seemed a bit
extreme by your usual standards if you meant the other
thing :-)

IMO, hosting the latest C# compiler, providing excellent
VCL - .NET interop, as well as offering (a current framework
compliant) ECO would be not only highly sufficient in the
"keeping up appearances" context but would be genuinely
useful to /everyone/ in the community...and /much/ lower
maintenance than working away at that dead weight Pascal.NET
compiler / VCL.NET grindstone.

I really do hope DevCo will be taking a long hard look at
where the current approach has taken them because, AFAICS,
it has done /nothing/ to stop the bleeding away of .NET
enthusiasts to Visual Studio whilst frustrating the hell out
of the others who want alternatives to what Microsoft are doing
and who feel that the resources spent on that side of the BDS
(in the current form at any rate) are an utter waste with only
a tiny ROI to show for it, if /any/.

I also think that despite the insularity of some outspoken parts of this community, .NET is already the main development option for Windows developers. And most Delphi developers are Windows only developers.

....and, IME, most of the Delphi developers that remain (and hope to
remain) as Delphi developers do so because Delphi is offering them
something /different/ from what they are getting with .NET (BTW, I'm
not getting into any of those enervating better/worse battles here).
If they want to work with .NET, they are generally doing it with
something else (and I very much include myself in this).

Making Delphi cross-platform is both a lot of work and of limited
> appeal for most new (and existing, for that matter) users, IMO.

There is some truth in that but IMO much of that work has
been done - they already have a serviceable Linux compiler
that can be further developed and the excellent CrossKylix
project demonstrates how that can be gainfully employed.
There have been a few hints that the DevCo folk also see
this too.

That limited appeal might be enough for a leaner company to
> survive on, who knows?

Well, at least they won't have the fear of that 800lb
Redmond gorilla moving into that space to eat their
lunch :-)
.

Relevant Pages

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