PDA

View Full Version : Will Delphi die?



DarkSSJ
14-12-2002, 01:20 PM
Borland is moving to .NET so will Delphi be a stupid .NET rad?
I mean, will Delphi have only the .NET compiler (and not the native Win32 compiler)?

TheLion
14-12-2002, 01:30 PM
I'm not very fond of .NET so I certainly hope not!

Xorcist
14-12-2002, 05:40 PM
With M$'s new Palladium project, who the hell is going to want to keep programming for their OS anyways. Hell I already pulled the plug on M$ from my house-hold, after I heard (and saw) all the crap that was being built into XP (Win2k is it for us, and most of the people I know). I foresee, for myself, a slow transition from the Windows platform to Linux (or maybe even Mac) over the next two or three years.

P.S. Since OSX is built on top of Unix/Linux, shouldn't it be fairly easy for Borland to port Kylix over?

BlueCat
14-12-2002, 06:28 PM
I don't think (or at least I hope) that Borland/Inprise would just drop Win32 Delphi and Kylix and go for completely .NET. Not yet anyway.

Of course if Microsoft get their way it'll be called "P++ Slow Painful Death Edition" :evil:

Bobby
14-12-2002, 09:05 PM
what did microsoft just do that made everyone hate windows? I am using win2k and i got no complaints, and with bill gate's billion's of dollars windows will never die.... never :) You have to remember why windows is so popular, its easy to use, and the majority of computer users like that, and they like to play games, therefore, the programmers will stick with windows to make games. That is if they want to make money.

TheLion
14-12-2002, 10:45 PM
True, but I can sum a lot of reason why you should hate windows! :)

However Linux isn't everything either, I loved it when I first started, but now I get annoyed with it! :)

Stevie56
15-12-2002, 01:39 PM
What did M$ do to make averyone hate Windows?

It's a control thing. M$ wants to control every aspect of your computing, will make you pay for new software if you change your motherboard or insert some other hardware which changes your PC's digital signature.

They will soon want to control the data (never mind the means of transmitting, storing and retrieving it).

If M$ can read all your emails, messages, and all your documents are in a M$ format, your trade secrets are not your own.

Innovation needs competition. Monopoly has to kill it.

But, to the question again. I dislike Windows for the following reasons.

First, it is nothing special. We were doing this stuff on the Ataris and Amigas in the 80's In fact, we were doing more on those toy computers than we are yet allowed to do in any Windows environment.

Second, the presentation is incomplete, bugged and has too many undocumented features which only the big developers are told about.

Third, each enhancement is geared towards the M$ development tools and others like Borland have to wait until they are subsequently informed (if they ever are) of the new changes. (Borland and DirectX, Sun and Java).

Fourth, each development is supposed to be an improvement. But I doubt whether this is so. From 95 to 98 to 2000 to XP...... what has actually improved?

Bobby
16-12-2002, 05:07 AM
*play X-Files music*

They are watching everything we are doing, we have no privacy anymore.... It's one big conspiracy theory.. Microsoft is trying to watch our every move, because they have the time and resources to watch millions of people daily, and read what they type to their moms in their email!!! Switch to linux immediately :D!

*cough*

I dont buy one thing you said :D

Also, what has improved since 95 - xp if you dont know that then you shouldnt even be talking so badly about them. They improved alot, speed, compatibility. Once again, i've never had a problem with Microsoft, people are just jealous of what they have become.

TheLion
16-12-2002, 08:48 AM
I don't agree with you on the XP improvement Bobby. I have a pretty fast well equiped computer and it takes at least 1 minute to start XP, since Win98 (I have multiboot) takes only 20 secs to start up. It has nothing to do with the amount of software/drivers installed, since they both have about the same speed when nothing is installed except the o/s itself.

Another problem of XP is their new hide and don't tell feature. If something in Win98 crashed it told us something had crashed (in some unknown offset kinda way language), however Windows XP just crashes but keeps silent about it, those are the new system improvements and that's what makes people think XP is better than 98.

I like Win2000 that was an improvement, but since it is a full NT version it also has all the security protocols and that's what makes it slow and incompatible with a lot of games. However my personal opinion of XP is that it is a very basic, low security Win2000 version where all the good things have been left out and all the bad things of Win98 where put in. I hated every O/S M$ has made after DOS, but Win95 first edition was the best of the entire OS series.

I'm not jealous of microsoft. I don't own a company and even if I did I wouldn't be a match for a lot of big companies out there. I don't mind MS making a lot of money, but I think Borland is much better than MS when it comes to programming languages (they always have), but MS kills of other programming languages by keeping secrets about their OS, they should play open card about the OS and then compete fairly with their programming languages.

Oh and when it comes to Linux, I loved linux for a long while, but it started to annoy me, which I blame on the Open Source features. I don't like having to compile my applications before I can use them and I hate the idea of having to download 15 libraries before I can run a program. Another thing I hate is that a lot of files are never where they should be so you always have to search about 1 hr before you find what you are looking for... No OSes haven't been the same since DOS died... :(

lithander
16-12-2002, 01:28 PM
alone from the fact that my computers speed doubles every two year but the performance of windows stays the same you see there is no improvement. My Windows-directory needs more space than my first win95 pc had harddrive. When i start XP it allocates 200mb of my 256mb ram... just for all the nice looking crap and the unwanted features.

but that's nothing I really care for! The problem is that m$ new plans might put an and to all freeware and shareware programming. Their plans of future is that every program needs a certification to be run on a computer even a OS. These certifications are about 100.000$ and granted by microsoft. -> The ultimate monopoly and we loose our hobby! And Linux might not be an alternative anymore!

The keyword you should research on is 'TCPA' and 'Palladium'. I suggest you to visit www.notcpa.org and read the FAQ's. If you did that and still support Microsoft's view of future I'll be surprised!

-lith

Traveler
16-12-2002, 02:59 PM
This tcpa thing is pretty scary, but somehow I doubt something like that can/will actually happen. I don't think microsoft can really decide for us what we do with our pc's.

"This piece of Operating-System-Integrated software is going to determine what you are allowed to do with "your" PC."

Sure, so I buy this new windows Palladium and all of a sudden I can't play my games anymore, run Delphi or every other program I used to run, because they lack the needed serial numbers? Sure...

"So, you're a developer and want to create your own programs? Of course, with a certified IDE you're able to write your own source code. But it's not possible to execute your programs you just developed - unless you're going to certify them (which costs about $100.000!)."

Not very likely. There are how many developers? Does microsoft really expect us to buy a $100k license? What about software companies? They can close their doors if they have to buy licenses for every employee.

All this might work in a world where communism rules, but there are certain rules even microsoft has to obey to.

Xorcist
16-12-2002, 05:42 PM
I'm not sure how many people know this, but I've seen it happen far too often in the business world. When you read about all these outrageous concepts and plans, people mainly focus on the worst of the worst... things that like ARosendal said would never pass. That's the whole point. They throw those "we know these will never get by" project ideas in to deter from the fact there are a lot of smaller things (things you'd willingly allow in instead of those big ones). It shifts the gerenal audience's focus.

Part of what the Palladium system is setup to do is to help e-business' with piracy. Say you buy some software online, and download it. And you selected single user license. Well you better have downloaded it on the machine you wanted to use it on, because Palladium won't let you install it on another machine. Same goes for MP3s, etc. Really have a good look at some of the articles out there. And check out this (http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm) one on Windows XP (to see just why I'm staying away from it).

And Bobby, can you tell me why the Windows XP EULA states that I can't use remote connection programs other that the ones included with Windows XP or why the Media Player 7.0 EULA says that for my own security, and the security of others, by installing the program I completely agree and consent to automatic behind the scenes updates to Windows whever I run the application (as Microsoft sees fit).

It's bullshit like that, that has people "hating" Microsoft as you say.

lithander
17-12-2002, 12:27 PM
Sure, so I buy this new windows Palladium and all of a sudden I can't play my games anymore, run Delphi or every other program I used to run, because they lack the needed serial numbers? Sure...


No it will be a slow shift... in the beginning you can decide if you're in trusted mode or not. But the more applications require the trusted mode and the older the not-trused old software becomes the less problems you have with running trusted mode. And some years later you won't care if m$ says not-trusted software isn't supported anymore... It's died out anyways, along with a lot of free and shareware.

But the problem is that you've lost the controll over you pc in that process



Not very likely. There are how many developers? Does microsoft really expect us to buy a $100k license? What about software companies? They can close their doors if they have to buy licenses for every employee.

not for every employee! for every product they want to release... no problems for big software-companys. Their gain is much bigger because it prevents piracy.
At the beginning the licensing might even be free (like veri-sign was in the beginning) to establish the procedure. M$ war-funds are almost without limits... they can do such things. Sometimes later they will say: "The service is costly, you understand that WE don't pay it anymore?" But than it's to late for you to decide that you don't like it...
As a freeware developer you have to stop develloping....



All this might work in a world where communism rules, but there are certain rules even microsoft has to obey to.
Don't expect your govermant to say this is illegal. As long as they get a general-key to your encrypted data (which mA§ will grant tham for sure) they are perfectly happy because they benefit! The american governmant even tried to make a law which permits using non trusted systems in the future. Just like they tried to permit using pgp because they have no chance to decrypt it. (I'm not perfectly sure on that... i just think i've read something like that.)

I agree I'm very pessimistic here.... but if we don't fight against it it might happen!

Marty
17-12-2002, 01:34 PM
i agree with lithander's opinion about TCPA. it cannot be the ultimate solution, but let's assume another scenario: what would happen, when the software industry will not fight against software piracy?

even today the software industry has to compensate the great loss of incomings. and in times, where you can download any software you want, I see the future for commercial software without TCPA und Palladium pessimistic as well. And it is much worse. The software piracy affects the cinema and music branch, too.

So the question must be: Which actions has to be made in order to prevent a collapse of the software- and multimedia-market? And further: Are there any possibilities at all, without intrude the user's right of privacy and freedom? I would say: Unfortunately NO!

TheLion
17-12-2002, 04:56 PM
The loss software companies, the music industry and the video industry has to cope with is because their products are too expensive! Look at a CD here in the Netherlands you pay about 23 Euro for a single CD, in the past you paid 40,-- gulden (if we calculate that to Euro it's about 18 Euro) and I always felt that, that was too expensive for a CD!

Software packages and games have exactly the same problem, look at a good game, you pay about 49 Euro for a game you will play about 1 to 2 months and then you finished it and you need to buy a new one and in comparison to software packages games are cheap, take a look at a good software package like VMWARE you pay $329 (about the same amount in euro) just to run you windows version in linux and vica versa and it doesn't even work spotless!

If they lower the prices of software, games, music and videos then more people will buy that instead of making illegal copies!

It's just like I said with Delphi, they need to make a cheap, limited version (like the old personal version that you could buy with D3) with which you can sell software, but you are obligated to include the delphi/borland/inprise logo so you'll advertise with your software for them too!

In short again, I think what Microsoft plans to do is pure criminality, they try to invade both our privacy and our control over our own pc... If we continue this movement, then we will have to get something of a computer driverslicense from microsoft before we can even use a pc!

Marty
18-12-2002, 04:50 PM
but the prices of software games are mainly justified. In the recent appeared gamestar magazin here in germany, there is an article about the problems of the german game-industry. fact is, that a company has to sell at least 150.000 copies of there game with a price of 50 EUR, to be on the safety site.


It's just like I said with Delphi, they need to make a cheap, limited version (like the old personal version that you could buy with D3) with which you can sell software, but you are obligated to include the delphi/borland/inprise logo so you'll advertise with your software for them too!
I'm not sure, if this is practicable. In my opinion the necessity of cheap but high quality development tools is not so great, that Borland would get the full development-expense. Will you really get at least the double number of customer when you halve the price?

Traveler
18-12-2002, 05:06 PM
I think we are moving too fast here, jumping from one topic(though interesting) to another.

Question is, will Delphi die? (By Microsofts hands) I don't think so. It seems to me that Delphi is a RAD tool that has proven itself.
And if MS gets his hands on it, I don't think MS will stop developing it.

Marty
18-12-2002, 05:59 PM
i don't think so either. there are a lot of delphi-user in the industry who are economic enough for microsoft to continue the development.

but furthermore I cannot imagine that M$ will undertake Borland.

DarkSSJ
21-12-2002, 09:44 PM
Borland is moving to .NET so will Delphi be a stupid .NET rad?
I mean, will Delphi have only the .NET compiler (and not the native Win32 compiler)?
I asked another question, it was: will Borland kill native Delphi's Win32 compiler moving Delphi to .NET?

Diragor
03-01-2003, 07:44 PM
Marty - as far as I'm concerned, the "Standard Edition" thing without the restrictive license would be not so much a matter of increasing the customer base but just staying competitive. Since they abandoned the lower-priced, *unrestricted* Standard edition I've been very seriously considering abandoning Delphi. I simply can't justify spending many hundreds of dollars for every upgrade when there are so many other free and cheap options - many of which also lack Delphi's other problem of being closely tied to a specific company. C++ maybe be a pain in the ass but it's not quite as bad for games (as opposed to GUI app develpment), it's free in many forms, and you can write C++ for every significant game platform in existence. Even the "gold standard" Visual C++ IDE is available for under $100 (doesn't come with their best optimizing compiler, but there is no restriction on selling your app unless you're using the academic version). I've also considered using C#/.NET, which is also free if you download the SDK from MS and download the SharpDevelop (http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/default.asp) IDE. The code is very much like Delphi, too.

IMHO, Borland is shooting themselves in the foot by making the financial barrier to new shareware developers way too high - a freaking THOUSAND DOLLARS before you're allowed to sell the app you create. They probably make more from licensing to established companies than to "newbies" or low-sales shareware developers, but the pool of competent Delphi developers is going to start to diminish the more expensive and restrictive the licensing gets. They need to make it cheap and easy for students and newbie shareware people to jump on the Delphi bandwagon, but they're going totally the opposite direction.

Viro
08-01-2003, 04:02 PM
OMG. That C# thing looks so cool. It feels much more responsive than Java. Cool. I'm gonna check it out.

Phobeus
09-01-2003, 04:28 PM
My opinion about it is, that Delphi won't die out, even if microsoft take it hands on it. delphi is a pascal language not more, not less. And it exist since years and won't die out suddenly. There are even more alternative like freepascal you easily can work as a delphi programmer with. M$ knows that their VB sucks and if there shall be anynone affraid then it shall be the VB programmers, fearing Delphi will replace VB... that's my personal opinion about it.

However, TCPA and such things are ontopic... not the users will be the key persons in this new M$ game. We all are it. The guys who decide on whcih system, what CPU and more important what OS our code will running. I personally think, that the time has come to show M$, that a point is reached the cannot move over. So everyone shall think about how he reacts on TCPA and the trustee way. It will a slow move towards the redmond vision, but after all it will come and everyone should be preapred, not seeing the glowing icons in the best colors... this is a decision even on our privacy and maybe even for the future of delphi...

Phobeus

LP
16-02-2003, 04:05 PM
hmm, there's a lot of bulls#%t in this thread. Even though it wasn't a topic for this thread, people flame M$ and Windoze because they "think Windoze hides everything" from them. I think this is good, otherwise n00bs will do bad things (like formatting HD) and say "M$ destroyed my info". Come'n people! If your handwriting isn't good, don't blame the pen! All "hidden features" in Windoze, especially WinXP can be revealed... just look for docs... since Windoze NT4.0 the OSes are extremely configurable and flexible - look for FAQs and documents on I-net. Microsoft do not control you and never will - there is no "master" key to all encrypted information - buy a book on strong encryption for the proof. Please, if you really flame M$ or its policy, make it argumented otherwise it's just another bulls#%t. As for me, I agree with Bobby and also would like to say - I always dreamed having Sound Blaster Emulation back in old days (had no $$ to buy a sound card)... I was very surprised they finally DID it in WinXP (on virtual dos machine). Searching I-net with "TCPA" or "Palladium" didn't gave me any official M$ sites, just a bunch of "M$ mustdie" ones, which I don't even bother to read. Returning to original question - of course Delphi can die! Just watch 'em launch a nuclear bomb over the world and we'll be all dead... anyway, even though Delphi has its bad days in Delphi 7, I think it'll be getting better...

- just an opinion,
Lifepower

Karaman
19-02-2003, 06:06 PM
Delphi will never die

only if there are more than d(e^x) Pascal Programmers :)

fitzbean
20-03-2003, 11:10 PM
You can actually tweak XP enough, shut off all kinds of features and such that it looks exactly like Win98. Presto! It still boots up slow as shit though.

Stevie56
21-03-2003, 12:29 AM
"If your handwriting isn't good, don't blame the pen! "

If my pen's no good, but there aint no alternative, I WILL complain when my "handwriting" is unrecognisable and tears the paper!

LP
29-03-2003, 04:56 AM
Hehe, yep, although handwriting is the look of your writings and has nothing to do with pen tearing paper, etc. I hope you know what I mean... if not, ignore it :wink:

Stevie56
03-04-2003, 06:33 PM
Point taken... but, you want to try writing without a pen?

LP
04-04-2003, 06:40 AM
EXACTLY! :wink: If you don't like your handwriting and still blame the pen - try writing without it... see how hard is it? Now it's good time to get the pen again and trying to improve the way you write... there's always room for improvement :wink:

Chesso
03-10-2004, 09:13 AM
now if only microsoft would follow such great advice.......................

Mrwb
04-10-2004, 06:15 PM
If Delphi dies, it will probably be because of industry standards. Face it, C++ and Java are the languages most software studios use. Pascal is looked upon as outdated and of poor quality. There are only a handfull of studios developing with Delphi, and it seems they're getting fewer. I wouldn't be surprised if Delphi infact suffered from an official death, but it's highly unlikely that it will die out completely. I would prefer using Delphi professional, but the standards are C/C++ and Java. Ain't much we can do about it really.

Chesso
04-10-2004, 11:50 PM
ive heard of a very large number of ppl who would like to use delphi as it's their language of choice in the workplace but their boss's dont see eyet to eye..............their too microsoftish.

Chesso
26-12-2004, 08:59 AM
Java bah i can't that stand that friggin runtime crap it wastes way too much ram.

Oh btw been away for awhile am back now :)

savage
26-12-2004, 06:30 PM
I think a lot is riding on Delphi 2005, but even if that fails, I don't think Pascal will ever die out. FreePascal is becoming a more viable alternative every week as it supports more platforms and becomes more stable. Lazarus, the FreePascal IDE, is still a fair way behind Delphi, but given time it can catch up and maybe even surpass it.

I think 2005 will be a very interesting time for Borland. Very interesting indeed!

tux
26-12-2004, 06:37 PM
do you think delphi 2005 will be a success then?

JernejL
26-12-2004, 07:17 PM
do you think delphi 2005 will be a success then?

delphi 2005 is total waste of time, don't bother.. if borland can't decide to
separate its pascal tools into .net and win32 and make a proper name for
the tool - delphi? is this a joke? doesn't sound any professional doesn't it? wtf??

and if they would build a proper website support system and forum and
advertise it properly..

also, lazarus binaries are ****ing huge, 5MB for a empty exe? are they mad??

Almindor
28-12-2004, 11:25 PM
Delphi has been dead since Delphi 6. From 7 up it has become a net-app designer, nothing more. They bloated it with bullshit to make "productive" programming, meaning it's not good for anything else. You can ofcourse "not use" all the bells and whistles but let's face it, which one of you have tried D2005? the ide SUCKS HARD. Lazarus is a breeze compared with that. And I'm NOT talking about the MDI interface. The godamn thing takes hundered of MB ram, loads up for seconds and is unresponsive. The whole idea of an "all-tool-IDE" is doomed from the beggining.

As to the M$ issue.. I'm a happy Linux user for a year now(switched some 13 months ago) and I'm completly happy. For a developer linux is some 10 years in front of M$. Anything-wise. And if you use things like Mandrake you'll find out it's even batter for the average joe too. Oh did I mentioned I play NWN, Doom3 , UT2004 and some other games there too?

Never froze ether...

JernejL: Learn to use Lazarus and FPC properly and you'll get some 1.2-1.4 Mb Form apps.(depending on OS)
Turn on smartlinking, make sure you strip debug symbols, and you should get this size. Still bigger than Delphi, and even Kylix but not a killer.

Borland has sided with the wrong side of the war. That's how I see it

Lightning
29-12-2004, 04:30 PM
Smaller Lazarus executables:
Smartlink, Strip, then UPX
After these operations i guarantee your executables will be about the same size as Delphi ones.
Lazarus needs programmers, come on people, the FPC team is small, the Lazarus team is extremly small.
How do you expect them to be an Open Delphi with 1% of the Developers working on Delphi itself for big $$$
It takes time, why do you criticize the projects and don't help instead.
I always wanted my own Delphi wich could be totally customizeable and open and Lazarus is just that.
If Delphi will die it will be Borland's fault, maybe even MS's, i certainly don't want that but their prices and the the versions newer then 7 indicate Delphi will have the same faith Windows will have and that certainly will be death.
Personally i don't understand why Borland isn't developing Kylix anymore, maybe make a version for MAC OS X, windows is slowly being replaced with Linux, BSD or MAC and Linux is certainly the best OS for developement, oh and if you want it easy, just get Mandrake 10+, FC3+, SuSE or another Plug-n-play distro, get Karamba and other eye candy stuff if you want it nice, install some games and you have a verry good Desktop OS, an excelent developing platform by nature with verry good networking features.

MikeS
29-12-2004, 06:19 PM
I use Lazarus, and I love it. Not that I hate Delphi, fact is, I haven't used anything but a few trial versions since I can't afford the darn thing.

8)

JernejL
01-01-2005, 05:12 PM
lazarus needs a big facelit, one their mistakes is that they use exceedingly
large amout of include file linking and their vcl is so overbloated i can't see
a point where i could start with design issuses..

at one point i do intend to help lazarus with fresh new vcl units but i'll leave
it to see it how they will develop it alone.

Robert Kosek
01-01-2005, 06:04 PM
You appear to forget that Lazarus is an OpenSource revolution. You can't pave a road without first laying a foundation. Lazarus needs lots of help, and "cleaning" up. Give it time, and it'll be way better than Delphi.

The only reason I'm sticking to Delphi at this point is my familiarity with it. I didn't want to figure out Lazarus and OpenGL simultaneously.

jasonf
03-01-2005, 01:14 AM
I love Delphi, have done for years. It's a very nice language. It also taught me a thing or two about coding properly (If I was to be perfectly honest), the lessons I learned from Delphi have been put to good use in my VB.net work in the office and I've been able to help other less fortunate coders in their work too.

I agree that if Delphi Dies, it will be Borland's fault. Their standards have slipped immensely and they havn't innovated enough so they find themselves in a trench dug by Microsoft.

Delphi5 was a brilliant piece of work. I wrote some cool stuff with that and DelphiX. Had a great time doing it too. The IDE was pretty close to perfect for the job at hand. When the JEDI-SDL headers came out I was in heaven.

I got all excited when Kylix came out, SDL had given me a taste of Cross platform developement so I went to the Linux Expo, chatted to the Borland guys and came out with the feeling that Borland were on my side and I could write some serious apps for Linux. I purchased it, installed it and was seriously dissapointed. It was basically a Wine Hack and now it doesn't even run on a newer Kernel. Shoddy. It was only Kylix 1, but from what I've heard, Kylix3 isn't much better.

Yesterday, I downloaded Free Pascal and Lazarus. It worked first time on Linux and after some minor code changes I got my Kylix game to compile. Kylix won't even run. I'm now looking forward to continuing the development of my game and releasing something soon...(ish)

But there is a nagging doubt in the back of my mind. I originally thought that .net was a fad, a novelty which would quickly dissapear.. that was 4 years ago.. Now I'm not so sure. The languages we use are generally the languages which will help us to get a decent programming job in the real world. So for games, it's C++, for Business it's VB.net, C# or Java

I don't see a place in the new business world for Delphi as an executable compiler and I think Borland see this too. Which is why they've gone to support the dark side. I hope I'm wrong on this point.

Pascal is a very good academic language. It's very clean and it doesn't let you get away with silly mistakes which would normally be allowed and would wreck a C++ program. The code structure is very tidy and easy to follow.
So its very good for learning how to code and code properly.
It certainly helped me.

I believe that as long as universities still support Pascal, it will never die completely but even though it has a strong following, programmers are easily persuaded when faced with future prospects and wads of cash.

Somewhere in this disjointed and long post is my opinion. That's all it is though, please feel free to disagree with it.

WILL
03-01-2005, 07:03 AM
You make some very good points Jason. And Borland is indeed not acting like they have in the past. In fact they seem to be selling out at this point.

I have always considered Borland compilers above all other in the past, since I started coding. But lately... I finally find myself looking for alternatives to the crap that they are producing now. Linux is the most popular OS today, dispite whoever is using it, it's name alone is more interesting than the usually hear 'Windows' we speak without thought.

They dropped the ball with CLX IMO. This is a stupid move for a company that needs to look innovative. And to make things worse they say nothing about it, to think that we won't notice. Making them look even more like yuppies for sale.

This is obviously a sore issue for me as I'm sure it is for others. But regardless I truely believe that though Borland's Delphi may die, Pascal and Object Pascal will definately not. ;)

McCLaw
03-01-2005, 07:31 AM
Delphi, Die?

I think not. :)

When I first started coding, I was a a VB developer (Shamefully drops his head)

I thought VB what the be all and end all.

A friend of mine started me on Delphi, and after 1 week, I completely dropped VB, and have never gone back to it.

I dabbled in java, c++, cobol, and a host of other "smaller" languages, and I am currently a c# developer, but I still use Delphi Daily.

I have not found any other language/ tool that gives me the same or better results (Speed, readability and reliability)

I believe in Delphi to the extent that we have based the future of our game company on borland keeping Delphi alive.

One thing that I didnt like was that D8 could not compile win32

This was HUGE issue for me, since you just cannot get the speed needed for a game out of a .net app.

I feel much better now that d2005 can compile to win binaries again.

The only way Delphi will die is if no-one uses it anymore, and I just cannot see that happening.

I do feel that Borland has made a mistake not supporting Kylix any more, since releasing a game for more than one platform gives it more credibility.

Just my 2 cents :)

Traveler
03-01-2005, 09:17 AM
IMO, its is very simple. Delphi will remain alive, as long as people continue to work with it.

The TCP Index for August 2004 (http://www.developer.com/lang/article.php/3390001), says it all, Delphi popularity has increased a lot. In fact, acoording to the numbers it surpasses june 2001.

So, no, Delphi will not die!

savage
03-01-2005, 01:34 PM
I think it Borland do not pick up the ball and get Delphi back to being a premier tool, then FreePascal is possible the natural sucessor. Once Lazarus gets more developers to help flesh out the IDE I think it will be quite competitive.

As I said in my earlier post, interesting times ahead in the Object Pascal native compiler arena :).

McCLaw
03-01-2005, 01:48 PM
So when will we see pascal on the xbox/gamecube/PS ?

*waaaayyyyyy off topic* ;)

savage
03-01-2005, 02:25 PM
Well there is already someone looking at getting Gnu Pascal to work for the Game Boy Advance over @ http://www.pgd.netstarweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=1668, I think it can happen, but it needs people to take the time to work out what needs to be done to get FreePascal or Gnu Pascal working on Playstation, XBox or GameCube.

TheLion
03-01-2005, 03:48 PM
I think one of the reasons that Borland is having a hard time is the price of their compilers. A few months back I decided I wanted to buy a compiler so I could finally start selling some of the things I wrote. So being a Delphi developer by nature I went to the Borland website and looked at their prices and noticed that the cheapest Delphi version was the Personal edition, however this one is restricted for personal use and you cannot commercially sell software created with it, so that one was of no use to me. Then there is the Professional edition which costs $999,-- (for new users) which I'm totally not prepared to pay for a compiler, at least not for the things I wanted to sell with it, simply because I will not make enough profit to get that kind of money out of it.

To make a long story short in the end I went with Visual C++ .NET 2003 Standard for about 109 euros excl. VAT (with VAT it came down to about 150 euros, which is around the $145,--). I kinda learned to appreciate Visual C++ and it has some really neat features, but I think I would develop at least 2x faster with Delphi.

Now if you put this little story in a new context, say you are a programmer who just comes from school and you learned Visual Basic in school (weirdly enough it seems to be the weapon of choice for school) and you decide to start a small company and you want to do this without a loan. So you go browsing around for a good compiler and you come on the Borland Delphi website and you see $999,-- then you come on the Visual C++ website and you see $110,-- which one will you chose if you haven't had any experiences with either of the language and you heard equally good things about both? ;)

I still think Borland should make a cheaper version of Delphi, I think a lot more people will try it and a lot more small companies will start using it since it's simply the fastest development tool around. The only one that comes close to the development speed is Visual Basic, but that one would be renamed Visual Turtle if it was up to me when it comes to application speed! ;)

just my 2 cents! 8)

(sorry about the length of this thing, but sometimes I need a lot of words to make my point clear) ;)

Sly
03-01-2005, 10:21 PM
To make a long story short in the end I went with Visual C++ .NET 2003 Standard for about 109 euros excl. VAT (with VAT it came down to about 150 euros, which is around the $145,--). I kinda learned to appreciate Visual C++ and it has some really neat features, but I think I would develop at least 2x faster with Delphi.

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.

Borland is slowly killing Delphi, except if you get all wet and excited over database or web applications. That is where Borland's focus is firmly planted, to the detriment of the rest of the product.

TheLion
03-01-2005, 10:30 PM
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
04-01-2005, 09:11 AM
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
04-01-2005, 11:55 AM
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
04-01-2005, 01:36 PM
@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
04-01-2005, 01:38 PM
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
04-01-2005, 10:40 PM
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
05-01-2005, 01:57 AM
I have also heard that it only supports .NET 1.0 now, nothing higher... can anyone confirm?

Sly
05-01-2005, 03:05 AM
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.