Re: The Future of native code

jeffc wrote:
Yep, sorry I did not read the Wikipedia entry close enough..

"Win32 for 64-bit Windows, previously known as Win64, is the version of
the API targeted for 64-bit versions of Windows"

But I still wonder about the future of native Delphi in the Win32 world.

Everyone said, quite a few DECADES ago, that COBOL, FORTRAN and the like would die soon. Check with your bank: even if they use some SAP front-end, most likely they still run some COBOL system(s)!

So, even risking being wrong as it can be dangerous to do "futurology" in IT, I'd say that CodeGear has enough Win32 and Win64 around for a few more decades. MSFT would *love* to phase Win32/64 out in favor of the ..NET, but if they do, they'll shoot themselves in the foot and they sure don't want that... The main reason to use a computer is software: as long as people have to use "old" win32/64 software, they'll stick to what systems make it work for them, at least for "corporate" users.

As for "home" users, I know of no big-name game so far that has been done in .NET... And the fact that .NET itself is a moving target does not help them get more people into it either! They're already beta testing 3.5 when 3.0 is yet to be used and 2.0 is not *that* much used either!

If you look more carefully, the most .NET that is being used around is in ASP.NET as it has proved to be quite a bit better than previous ASP was. I'm not saying that .NET is no good! It has some nice stuff in it, but I recently made a small survey among an extensive list of friends, not all IT related of course, and I was surprised of their answer of what version of .NET they were using: ".NET? What's that?"

So, for "non-tech" people around, many still don't even have the .NET runtime installed on their PCs. I was considering switching to .NET but after that casual poll with my friends, I decided to keep at it in Delphi: it's the difference between a single EXE/DLL with no dependencies or having to check and download/install a multi-megabyte runtime, not to mention, explain to users what's happening on their computer! And if that runtime somehow fails to install, how well do you think those users will be able to "fix" it? Too much trouble for me just to be a bit lazy on memory allocation! :)

The only time I'll consider making the switch to .NET is when no other OS is around that does not come with .NET pre-installed. Just remember that, for MSFT, Windows 98 is no longer supported but there are quite a few people around still running it! Even in XP, .NET is an "optional" update so most people will not have it unless they needed to use a program that installed it...

Later,
Madruga
.

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