Re: Delphi 2008 native?

In article <47bb996c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, says...

Yes, but I was responding to a poster who claimed an *actual conspiracy* as
in criminal.

Not all Actual Conspiracies are Criminal. And not all not-actual
conspiracies are legal.


I can do more with Windows or
Mac or Linux now than 13 years ago.

Is that because you Need to or because you Can?

Was change driven by progress or has "progress" occured as a result of
change for changes sake.


Personally, I do want my PC to do more.

Such as? What it is that you cannot do now that you are lying awake at
nights wishing for or crying into your beer in frustration at not being
able to do today?


I'm not a .NET enthusiast, but I can see why MS introduced
it as a move toward safer, faster programming.

That may be what they SAID it was for. Bottom line - it was to get some
more sales.

We needed something. VB was dying.

Really? So .NET was needed because VB was dying, or was VB allowed to
die in order to force people to .NET?


In many ways, .NET is a successor to
the spirit of VB.

I agree completely. Seemingly unlike you however I don't see that as a
ringing endorsement of .NET

:)


Now that
we are starting to hit the speed limits of silicon

I think the real problem is the power consumption and thermal limits,
rather than speed per se. And isn't it about trying to get that speed
from a single lump of silicon?

Multiple lumps of silicon seem to be delivering additional CPU
horsepower without fundamentally changing what a computer "is".


C/Pascal use highish level syntax which compiles
very directly down to assembler.

That's a function of the particular compiler you use. C/Pascal can just
as easily be interpreted or compiler down to IL (which in turn is
ultimately compiled down to assembler). If by "assembler" you mean "CPU
instructions".


Most tech predictions are proved wrong, why not yours?

It's famously impossible to prove a negative. But since I'm not the one
predicting a wholesale change it would seem self evidently more likely
that my prediction is most likely.

i.e. tomorrow my prediction of the future made today will be proved
entirely accurate. And the day after that. And the day after that.
And the weeks and months that will follow.

If you believe that will change, then I suspect you have the greater
burden of proof to bear.

:)


Does the Chrome language have real x86 pointers? Not if its .NET.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Chrome supports pointers in
exactly the same way that Delphi does, and it is not a mixed mode
compiler, it only targets .NET code, but is able to produce
"unsafe" .NET code, just like C#.

Or are you saying - on that basis - that C# is "not .NET" either?

What do you mean by an "x86 pointer"?

Something that directly addresses a physical memory location on a chip?

Good luck getting that when running on Windows, not matter WHAT language
or compiler you are using.



The issue here is memory fragmentation - and all x86 processors are
vulnerable to it when running C/Unix type memory handling.

Processors aren't vulnerable to it at all. Memory managers are, but
that's software, not hardware.


Once your
runtime can relocate an object, fragmentation can be prevented.

No, fragmentation can be addressed once it has occured. It's not quite
the same thing.

I prevent someone falling off a cliff by installing a railing. But
relocatable objects aren't a railing, they are just an ambulance at the
bottom of the cliff.

OK, maybe not an ambulance right at the bottom, perhaps a catch net
halfway down the cliff and a paramedic qualified to treat shock.

:)


Its not the pointer lookups which slow .NET.

Should be: It's not _JUST_ the pointer lookups which slow .NET.


You may not want Managed - but it
has its benefits: cross platform where .NET and Java run on many devices

Whether I want it or not is moot. It's whether my customers/users want
it.

If I'm writing a mobile phone OS then sure, that capability is
attractive. But if I'm writing desktop apps for business customers and
users, then being able to run that app on a set-top box is utterly
redundant if it is only ever going to be run on PC's.

In that case I want something that will run as efficiently as possible
on the one type of device it will only ever run on.


CPU independence, security, a clean break from the aging WinAPI.

Um, what do you think .NET uses underneath it all? It's not a clean-
break, it's a veneer. A facade. Some might go so far as to say "a
sham".

:)


You can say that of your TV, automobile, house.

Yes, and if we were talking about TV's, cars or houses I would have said
the same/similar things. This is an IT/software group - it's not really
any great surprise that my comments tended to reflect that.

:)


All changed to make money
for companies. Is it improvement or are we just chasing change?

Greek philosophers recognised that "The only constant is change" long
before the microprocessor or even the Industrial "Revolution".


In my opinion, hardware and software is moving forward, including MS
products.

It's changing. "Moving forward"? I honestly don't think so. The job I
am doing today is exactly the same job I was doing almost 20 years ago
(ouch!). The hardware specs have improved, the tools have gotten more
complex. But the job is the same and so are the problems.

Ironically with .NET things have, as happens so often in this industry,
gone full circle.

Once upon a time there were a number of languages you could use to write
applications that would run on Windows and on Mac's and, I think, on
Unix.

One such was called Omnis. In fact, if google is to be believed it's
still going today.

Way back then I was using languages that didn't have x86 pointers and
which had relocatable objects - the (dominant) 4GLs of the day being
interpreted runtime environments.

They were all but wiped out by the native, compiled languages.

And now here we are saying that "No, they were right all along".

Hmmmm.

Or is it just that there is an opportunity seen by some to exploit the
human need for change, and to draw once again from the 4GL well until
that runs dry, whereupon we will turn once more to the enlightned dawn
of native, compiled languages, and so on and so on.

Cynical? Me?

Nah, just a skeptic fed up of being right.

:)


Yes, but MS had to act. 1995 thru 2000 were times when business software
was a mess of VB hacks and flakey C++ and MS knew that was wrong.

Yeah, they didn't have Delphi.

:)


And it is not locked in to a particular architecture

Neither was the VB runtime. Go figure. <shrug>


Now I see a lot less of the hourglass.

That's because software developers have forgotten how to turn it on -
progress bars are so much sexier, and about as useful, most of the time.


I've not seen DOOM. This was World of Warcraft where the soldiers and
vehicles have their own intelligence and get high level direction from the
player. I saw a pitched battle with a large number of entities fighting -
bombing from above, grenade launchers, flamethrowers all viewed from above.
He could zoom down through the battle and see a single soldier in good
detail while all this was going on. Pure hardware grunt.

Very impressive I'm sure, all that hardware grunt.

Completely missing the point mind you.

Was he having any more fun, being any more entertained, enjoying himself
any more than people that used to play Doom?

I doubt it. In fact I'm pretty sure that once the "WOW!" factor has
worn off and the prettiness delivered by that hardware grunt becomes
itself tired and familiar, that the lack of gameplay and actual
engagement that the eye-candy is distracting from will result in that
"toy" being discarded pretty quickly.



The eye candy is part of the illusion.

Ah - "iilusion". So you do "get it".


My son definitely values it. PC games are not like chess - this is a
living world to the player.

So are the dungeon in dungeons and dragons, played with little more than
dice.


This game gets him engrossed for day after day.

Buy him a book. Seriously.


I suppose its another form escapism, like watching a movie or
reading a book - humans place value on breaking from reality.

Yes, but society places value on humans remaining in touch with reality.


I'd like a PC to be an intelligent entity, an assistant or co-worker. I'd
like to talk to it in human terms.

I'd like my wife to be comfortable with my having an intimate
relationship with Jennifer Aniston.

That isn't ever going to happen either.

:)


Those faster LANs, faster PCs and bigger screens are now showing medical
x-rays to any PC in a hostpital, so avoiding lost x-ray film, repeat x-ray
exposure, doctor guesswork, thus reducing mortalities.

Interesting that one current hot topic in the news here is the extent to
which hospitals make mistakes.

No matter how much technology you throw at a problem their is always the
human factor.

And the more technology you give to people, they more inclined they are
to just trust the technology and not apply themselves to making sure
that THEY are doing their job properly.

Humans seek escape. Humans are also lazy.


Fields like genetics, engineering and research thrive on
processing power. The world is not just databases, spreadsheets
and email.

If by databases, spreadsheets and email you mean Access, Excel and
Outlook.

Of course not.

But the world (in IT terms) absolutely IS just data, processing and
communication.


Just a gentle dig, but are you in danger of sounding like an old fart who
dislikes the "newfangled stuff"? The good old days?

Hey I get it. I *like* the new stuff - for one thing it pays my bills
and keeps me in the manner to which I would like to become accustomed.

But I don't switch of my brain just because someone hands me a $ bill,
and I won't give, or even lend, my heart and soul to the ideas of the
person handing me the $.

I have a brain, I am entitled to use it.

If that's an identifying characteristic of An Old Fart, then colour me
Old and Flatulent.

(But for the record - I'm only 36).

:)

--
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TWorld.Create.Free;
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