I don't agree with this and I think this argument is fallacious.Originally Posted by WILL
Honestly, PGD has been for quite some time, what I once called it, FreePascal Game Development, since the majority of posters here use FreePascal (there was a poll about it few months back) and the majority of material is focused towards FreePascal being "somewhat" compatible with Delphi. In addition, the majority of people tend to use Unix/Mac instead of Windows (Delphi developers can only use Windows).
There are many Delphi forums in different languages including Chinese, Russian and so on, and they are quite busy. For instance, I'm reading occasionally this forum (in Spanish).
In earlier days, Turbo site, received huge traffic because it had important news and a lot of material very useful for Delphi developers that in addition for game development had other uses (e.g. interactive apps, scientific, etc.).
If you keep focusing on FreePascal/Lazarus, then you'll stay with a niche community of few developers.
The new release of Delphi XE 2 has provided a lot of great stuff for Delphi developers with ability to target 64-bit Windows, Mac OS and even iOS; and they say that their own ARM compiler is underway. However, as much as I've tried to open Delphi discussion here, it wasn't successful.
As a Game Developer, here are some topics that I would like to see here:
1) 64-bit development and performance (I've opened the thread about it: no interest).
2) DirectX: nobody cares here because OpenGL is the only way to go for Unix/Mac OS guys, who are the majority here.
3) Mac OS specifics: there was some discussion in Delphi XE 2 news thread with Czar and me, but that's all.
4) iOS specifics: how to use sensors, compass, magnetometer, etc. There are random threads on Embarcadero forums, but I would like to see this material *here*.
5) Databases, networking, multiplayer in Delphi.
6) Publishing of Delphi made iOS apps and publishing in general.
7) Performance optimizations in 64-bit inline assembly in Delphi.
8 ) Math materials (libraries, code snippets, etc.) For example, nobody here mentioned the issue of Extended support lacking in 64-bit platform: seems like an interesting discussion to do and there is an alternative posted somewhere on Embarcadero. Why not mirroring it here?
Above topics can be applied to FreePascal, but doing so will be of little interest to Delphi developers. If you look at above points, there is mostly nothing of this on PGD.
Arguments against Delphi Starter and Delphi's price are unfounded - Delphi has always been expensive except for Turbo versions. In my own case, even though I've been in financial trouble last year, I've sold some of my equipment to purchase Delphi XE 2, which was totally worth it. Many other developers also choose Delphi, but just because they don't come here doesn't mean they don't exist.
Therefore, please, try to target Delphi audience more. After all, FreePascal and Lazarus have their own forums and are doing just fine. Myself, I keep visiting PGD often trying to find something interesting to discuss, but I hardly find anything useful for me as a Delphi game developer in here.
Most articles on the front page posted by WILL and Code_Glitch are based on FPC/Lazarus using Jedi-SDL and similar approaches. What about Delphi and DirectX, or Delphi and FireMonkey? Remember: what you seed is what you get.
Edit: If you think that Embarcadero doesn't care about indies and game developers, then perhaps if you provide valuable indie and game development Delphi content, they would. Someone needs to break the cycle, don't you think?
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