Re: Delphi makes it to digg!
- From: "Fons Neelen" <fons.neelen@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:45:42 +0200
"The real Delphi killer was the advent of Visual Basic 6"
I probably will be be flamed for this remark, but besides VB I think Delphi itself is the Delphi killer.
Don't get me wrong, I love Delphi and still use it (D2007) but somewhere a long the line (say Delphi 8) things began to fall. And once anything begins to fall, it is really hard to stop it from falling further and even more hard to have it rise again.
This is the challenge that CodeGear faces and to be honest I think they will be able to keep most Delphi users happy but not all. And they will have a hard time to get *new* users coming from other languages. So if they slowly looses users and barel none will be added, eventually CodeGear and Delphi will be no more. The fact that the outside world (meaning anybody who is not a part of the Delphi community) looks upon Delphi as it is a dead language, does have a negative impact. Just ignoring it, doesn't help.
I will be using Delphi for some time, mainly because of all the investments in 3rd party libraries, but just the fact I am thinking of switching to .Net using either C# of VB (which is completely different than VB6) says alot. Plus the fact that 3rd parties such as DevExpress are doing a lot for the ..Net languages (but not Delphi .Net) is another reason why I may leave Delphi at some point. I may or I will still be using Delphi. It will all depend.
Nonetheless, CodeGear has a huge challenge in breathing some live back into Delphi. D2007 is a step in the right direction, but I doubt it will attract new users. And the lack of new users will be their downfall, as it does in any other business. How much you may hate MS C# and MS VB.Net is irrelevant.
Another thing that comes to mind are books. You may find this strange, but a few years back there were Delphi books on the shelf of my local bookstore. Not as much as there were C++ and VB books, but at least the existed. Nowadays, their are none. As for D2007 their are none at all, not only in my local bookstore, but not on the Internet either. New users who may be interested, might be put off by the fact that no recent books are available.
The same goes for 3rd party libraries and components. The activity there ain't half what is used to be in the good old days of Delphi 1 -7. And most of them have made their components and tools to be working in C# and VB.Net in other to survive.
Please don't flame. This is just mine opinion. And the fact that I don't make a living from programming, but I am an accountant who just happens to program, probably means that I have a complete different view on the current situation as most of the people in this newsgroup.
By the way, I have been using Delphi from version 1 and purchased all versions up to number 7. Then I skipped 8 and BDS2005, but did buy BDS2006 and D2007. So, I consider myself a long time Delphi user. I hope to be for much longer, but I do have to be realistic and move on if need be.
Fons
The Netherlands, Europe.
.
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