Delphi Upgrade Order Fail

[WILL]

I thoiught this was an interesting topic so I shared this thread on Facebook. Check out the Delphi Developer group on Facebook.

[Murmandamus]

Sorry, I don't do Farcebook.

[vgo]

Me neither!

[vgo]

I asked my account rep that question and he said they were available, but couldn't tell me how, since, according to the website, you do have to have the subscription to access ANY updates. It doesn't differentiate between "patches" updates and other kinds of updates.

Guess they got the patches/upgrades mixed up then. Patches have always been free and I haven't heard anything about changing it anytime soon.

That's even worse. If bugs are found in the product, there should be fixes for it within a reasonable product lifetime, regardless of whether or not there are newer versions available.

That's how they've always done, new version out = support for old versions ends. Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero are probably just too small company to maintain many versions, especially when there's big changes between versions that make backporting patches difficult. In theory D2009, D2010 and DXE could have been compatible for patches but there's been a lot of changes preparing for the next big update.

[WILL]

Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero

Now this is just silly. It's Embarcadero and only Embarcadero now.

[Murmandamus]

Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero are probably just too small company to maintain many versions, especially when there's big changes between versions that make backporting patches difficult. In theory D2009, D2010 and DXE could have been compatible for patches but there's been a lot of changes preparing for the next big update.

With these kinds of policies, they are going to stay a small company, too.

There is no reason why they can't backport a vast majority of bugfixes, unless they are doing something really dumb, like not using version control or SCM methodologies. I'm a very small shop and I use those. As you say, the last few versions are very similar, so it should be trivial to backport bugfixes, unless the feature/component being fixed simply doesn't exist in the previous version.

It really gets old quick having to always buy the latest and greatest version just to get around a stupid compiler or IDE bug. "We're sorry that your car stalls out in traffic; but if you buy this year's model, it won't happen anymore!". Sales-oriented support -- gotta love it.

[Murmandamus]

Now this is just silly. It's Embarcadero and only Embarcadero now.

Well, if you are referring to them only in the present tense, then sure. However, for historical references, it makes sense to distinguish between the various iterations of the company that has owned the Delphi product, not only to assign proper praise, but also to assign proper blame. Even still, you have to admit that the transitions between the various names/companies have been quite fuzzy. I think that was intentional to a degree, with Embarcadero wanting to ride whatever remaining wave of popularity Borland/Codegear had before the transition.

[vgo]

Now this is just silly. It's Embarcadero and only Embarcadero now.

Yes I know, but the policies haven't changed. I own every Delphi version and no matter which company has owned the brand in the past the update policy has been the same: new version out = no more patches for the old one.