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BlueCat
04-11-2002, 06:44 PM
OK just to give us something to talk about, what is it you like about Delphi? What do you use it for? What makes you use it rather than C++ for example?

Personally, I used to have a job developing with Delphi and never really went back to C++. I do wonder why so many people assume it's too slow for games, hopefully we can use this site to demonstrate that it's more than capable of producing commercial quality games.

Anyway what do you think? Heeelllllooooo? Anyone out there? [ECHO]

:D

Alimonster
04-11-2002, 07:00 PM
I use Delphi because I have absolutely no patience ;). It's bloody quick and I think that the underlying mechanics are so well constructed. I look at MFC and wonder why anyone puts up with such crud.

I can't respect some other languages due to petty, but stupid, design decisions, e.g. being case-sensitive (surely the single most stupid thing in the history of everything, ever) or using = and == (again, it takes a special kind of idiot to think up such nonsense).

Basically, I love Delphi because it's easy and it's fast (to use, compile and in overall speed).

Useless Hacker
04-11-2002, 08:48 PM
Well, I pretty much agree with what Alimonster said.

I also like Delphi's Object Orientated features, which are much more tidyer that those of C++, while not being as restrictive as Java or C#. Interface declarations in C++ make me sick (look in the Direct X headers).

TheLion
04-11-2002, 10:49 PM
Why I use Delphi? Hmmm... Let's see, well I started using VB, but it needed about 8 MB of DLLs shipped with the application and I hated that, so I started using Delphi and the end-product had no need for extra DLLs so I kept using it and became better and better and found out that you can go pretty deep/low with it and the programs run about 3 times as fast as Visual Basic too!

Now I'm learning to go deeper and deeper with Delphi, I started out placing components on my form, then I slowly started creating objects run-time, then writing my own components and now I'm using the API more and more...

So in short: It's a good language for beginners and advanced programmers and it gives you a chance to choose for yourself if you want to do it the easy or the hard way, while C++ only knows the hard way and Delphi compiled programs are not (much) slower than C++ compiled programs... so my choice is and stays Delphi! :lol:

Zanthos
05-11-2002, 10:39 AM
I'd say my patience, like Alimonster's, grows a bit thin when I have to meddle around with any C++ code, and the compile times.. ARGH! I've used Visual Basic for about 5 years, Visual C++ for about 5/6 months, and various other languages such as Perl, Java in small amounts. Out of all that I've tried I prefer Delphi hands down. RAD so you can take the labour out of UI design, non case sensitive names.

Saying this, the only feature I don't like of Delphi is the source tabs at the top of the edit window, and quick jumping to procedures and functions in a source file by selecting from a drop down list, although these are purely IDE aesthetics :)

Viro
05-11-2002, 04:48 PM
I use (in order of frequency) Java, C++ and Delphi. I'm using Java and C++ because of Uni work, but I use Delphi in my own free time. Why? I don't really know. It surely isn't as well documented (you could argue about this). But I do like the RAD capability that Delphi has.

iLLUNis
07-11-2002, 01:13 PM
Personally i grew up with Pascal and Turbo Pascal....too many years. 8) Recently i started putting my habds on Visual C++ but i have to say that it is far more complicated than Delphi. It is good to be able to program in more than 2 or 3 languages but i think i ll hag on to Delphi for serious staff.... :wink:

Xorcist
07-11-2002, 10:24 PM
Like illunis, I too was educated mainly in Pascal and have always prefered it over C/C++ (though I have worked pretty regularly in both languages). Besides that I have found Delphi to compile to code that's just as fast as any written in C/C++. However I'd have to say the one definative reason I started using Delphi was, unlike VB (which my previous job required me to do), it actually "compiled" to a native executable and didn't require any runtime libraries. Which meant I didn't need to distribute 6+MBs of files with my programs anymore. Yeah things have changed since then, but I never really looked back at VB for any type of RAD work since I got my hands on Delphi.

P.S. VB also couldn't create console apps, which is just mind baffling.

TheLion
07-11-2002, 10:30 PM
Exactly Xorcist!
That was THE reason that made me switch from VB to Delphi after about a month, the other reason I would now give is that Visual Basic needs extended implementation of everything API-oriented, if you want to use BitBlt, you have to include it with some stupid command... Another problem I found was that dynamically creating visual objects during run-time was (to my knowledge) not possible or very hard to do in Visual Basic...

No Delphi Rulezzzzz! :)

savage
12-11-2002, 11:25 AM
I, like Alimonster, do not have the time to sit around and wait for compiles. Delphi is the most productive development tool on both Windows and Linux bar none.

Absolutely nothing comes close.

Sure we have a few headaches with the odd API, but then Delphi developers love a challenge, otherwise we would be using C/C++ :)