Re: A cross-platform vision for Delphi


"Lucian" <thanks@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
of both Windows and Linux. He has chosen Free Pascal and
looking at his plans, he is going to do mayor development on

No idea what Simon does for living (I don't even care), just how many
jobs are outthere for FP?

Wrong question. The right question is: How many people use FPC
at work. This is probably a number with four digits.

I believe a lot less than Delphi (and yeah I
know, there are a lot less Delphi jobs than C#, Java, etc).

Next, right now, at this hour how many 64 bit PCs are outhere?

Where have you been? On the moon?

Since 2006, all new PC's are 64-bit. At work, I work at a
cluster manufacturer, we're preparing our final 32-bit
installation. After that no 32-bit systems will be
distributed anymore.

This is normal. Servers will be first, because they need more
memory. When desktops need the memory, they will move to
64-bit. Expect this in 2-3 years.

I don't have one,
none of my friends has one and none intends on getting one.

Their next computer will be a 64-bit one. It is not really
possible to buy otherwise anymore.

None at the office and nonoe planned yet (well, I know that's not maybe very good),
so my point is if we get a 64 bit compiler from Codegear NOW along with
all the other goodies you guys want ... do you think they'll be in
business in 2008, 2009? Because I don't think so. The problem with
Delphi IDE is simple: sometime the builds are so good, I mean SO GOOD,
that nobody needs an upgrade for years (hell I'm on Delphi 5 at the
office, I asked 2 times for Delphi 2006 and nobody cares).

Your Delphi 5 will be as usefull as Turbo Pascal in 4-5 years.
You can predict this using Moore's law. As soon as low end
desktop PCs get more than 4 GB of RAM it is over.

I say it again, whoever starts programming now, won't choose Delphi
because it has or it hasn't 64 bit compiler.

It would be extremely foolish to start a large project now on
a tool that limits yourself to a 32-bit Windows platform. The
market demands Linux 64-bit and Windows 32-bit now, and
Windows 64-bit in the near future. A software vendor would be
foolish to ignore this.

Also, whoever switches now
from Delphi to anything else, just because the 64 bit compiler ain't
out yet, I think is making a mistake.

If you can only start porting your software in 2009, you will
have a 64-bit edition a year later. That is way too late. The transition will happen before. One needs to decide about the
future platforms and tools now, and you can see this happening around you.

A small one though, and they'll
be back with one of the next releases, no doubts about it.

Once they have build a codebase on C++/QT, or another toolkit,
there is little point for them to go back, since that would
mean another big rewrite of the code.

The very same forces are at work now that the world is moving
to 64-bit.

Pretty slow move I would think. Also I believe it will come to people
to understand that getting a new computer everytime MS farts a new OS
is not really constructive.

I can't see any reasons why people would
throw out the window their computers and jump buying 64bit pcs.

Microsoft Office 97 doesn't run on a 486 with Windows 3.1.
Simple: To run new software. Expect the first 64-bit only
games within the next two year. 64-bit only applications will
follow 3-4 years from now.

Not
sure how computer business is working but I am sure the guy that sells
pc's on my street doesn't do so good (in fact I still have a PC I
bought from him in 2001 or 2002: XPPro, 2.2GHz, 768MBRAM, etc).

Great machine to install a modern Linux desktop. To install
Vista it is a bit low-spec'ed.

for Linux support, Mac OS X support, discuss non-Pascal
solutions?

I don't really give a slight crap on that. They'll come back screaming.
Of course I'd like to write code once and have the thing run on Macs or
Linuxes, however, I'm still doing pretty good in Windows world. I tried
the Linux world couple times ... and it still sucks, if you want my 2c.

There are still Commodore 64 user clubs, so there might be a
place for you in the future too. Ok, I'm exagerating, but
Linux is here, now. The Win32 monopoly is coming to an end.
The next few years will be dominated by both strong Linux and
Win64 presence, with old systems continuing to be in use for a
while.

A modern computer specialist can no longer do either Windows
or Linux. To hell with the question which one sucks (I think
it is Windows). One needs to do both.

No Pascal based killer app is on the horizon at this time.

If you mean IDE, frankly I still think that's called Delphi.

Good RAD is no longer a Borland monopoly, thus Delphi can no
longer serve as a 64-bit killer app.

Free Pascal and Delphi are the only two Pascal compilers
left that have any credibility.
Borland got behind.

No question about that and I'm glad they're gone. Now I credit Codegear
some slack and I am pretty happy with the new roadmap. It says Codegear
*will be* in business in 2008 and after.

Codegear will be in business in 2008.

Danikl Mantione

Hey, what I'm saying is that is not possible and it is not good to have
this year ALL that people dream about.

Correct. The industry needs Linux & 64-bit though.

If that happens, nobody will buy
anything in 2008 and Codegear will sink fast. We will be running our
super-trooper IDEs 2-3 more years, until MS spits again, the 128 bit
OS, there's going to be no Codegear forums to whine about that. Ano no
company in the world will credit a supposedly opensourced killer IDE.

The arrival date of 128 bit processors depends on Moore's law.
It is being predicted Moore's law will last until about the
year 2020. In 2020, 64-bit systems will still be able to
access all the memory in systems sold then. In short, 128-bit
will not happen before 2020, and might not happen for quite
some time after that.

Daniël Mantione
.

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