Will Delphi die?

[TheLion]

Just remember that the Standard edition of VC++.NET does not have the optimizing compiler. To get the optimizing compiler, you have to go for the Professional edition, or download the free command-line version.

True, however for the simple windows applications I mostly write I won't need an optimizing compiler and for the games... well for those there is always the free command line version or Delphi (for freeware games)!

[jasonf]

So it seems that Borland have made two massive mistakes.

1, They have failed to innovate, made some bad calls and lost ground to the beast.

2, They have priced themselves out of the market by making their products inaccessible to those who would otherwise be loyal to them.

Wakeup call to Borland I think... Small companies can afford Visual Studio and not Delphi. Maybe in their efforts to focus on the enteprise level players, they've forgotton the little guys.

FreePascal and Lazarus deserves to do well and perhaps become the product Delphi used to be. I hope that smaller companies take it seriously and see it as a route to reall cross platform development without having to rely on a Javaesque .net runtime.

If code was written properly in the first place, there would be no need for a common runtime. It would cross compile. But that would mean, no Microsoftisms and no Borlandisms but following the standards... I think that FreePascal is going in the right direction.

[Sly]

Borland have also shot themselves in the foot when it comes to .NET. Anything developed in Delphi for .NET must have the Borland.System assembly distributed with it. Think of it as a DLL that must accompany your application, and no you cannot compile it into the application.

[Firlefanz]

@TheLion: I purchased Delphi7 Pro 2 weeks ago from Borland. There is a download only full version of Delphi 7 Pro for about 280 Euro.
So the lowest Delphi Pro is not for 999 Euro.

Firle

[TheLion]

OMG! I didn't know that... that's bad... :-/ You would expect that after almost 10 years of having something like Delphi they would have thought of something that compares to the Visual C++ static libraries!!!

@TheLion: I purchased Delphi7 Pro 2 weeks ago from Borland. There is a download only full version of Delphi 7 Pro for about 280 Euro. So the lowest Delphi Pro is not for 999 Euro.

Firle

Where you a new user or did you already own a Delphi version? When I researched it a few months ago there was no mention of a download version on the site... however I could have overlooked it, still 280 euros is quite a high price, but it sounds better than $999,--

[Sly]

OMG! I didn't know that... that's bad... :-/ You would expect that after almost 10 years of having something like Delphi they would have thought of something that compares to the Visual C++ static libraries!!!

All .NET applications produced with Visual C++.NET or Visual C#.NET require the System assembly, but since Microsoft created Visual C++.NET and Visual C#.NET, the System assembly is distributed with the .NET Framework that must be installed before any .NET application can be run. So .NET applications produced by Microsoft tools still have the requirement for at least one external assembly, but it just happens to already exist on every machine that has the .NET Framework installed.

In Borland's case, their argument is that the standard .NET assemblies did not have some the functionality that Delphi's System unit had. So, every .NET application created with a Borland tool must lug along the baggage of a Borland.System assembly with it.

[WILL]

I have also heard that it only supports .NET 1.0 now, nothing higher... can anyone confirm?

[Sly]

Delphi 2005 requires .NET 1.1. It will not have support for .NET 2.0 (due out before or with Visual C++ .NET 2005) until at least the next version of Delphi.