Re: Delphi IDE - Why .Net?

On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:40:17 -0400, Adam H. <ahairsub4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

So - (if this is correct), why did Borland opt to go with .Net for the
Delphi IDE platform? It seems to me that maybe some of the issues (such as performance, and maybe bugs (?) might have something to do with the fact
that Dxxxx runs on a .NET platform, instead of the native Win32 platform.

You can't assume that technical decisions are made solely upon technical merit. Remember that the refactoring engine and modeling engine in Delphi now are based upon Together, which, if my facts are correct, was originally Java, then ported to J#, and now included in Delphi a .net piece. That might have given us some great modeling and refactoring abilities that didn't have to be developed from scratch because they were acquired with the Together product. The downside is that their performance is compromised by being a .net technology. When you're low on resources and/or you have a corporate entity pointing on a settled direction for the product lines, you see this kind of synergy and it's not always a great thing.

I *think* the CodeDOM is also .net based but I'm not sure about my facts there.

At any rate, there was some leverage on the development side by incorporating .net-written pieces into the IDE that would have been prohibitively expensive to write from scratch as native code. The leverage was there, so they used it.

If I had my druthers, the refactoring and modeling engines would be ripped out and replaced by native code equivalents. I would love to see Modelmaker fully integrated into the IDE and refactoring done without .net if at all possible. But those, I gotta believe, are WAY down there on the priority list, even if someone thinks they are a good idea.

Randy
.

Relevant Pages

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