How much would you pay for this concept for a "Light" Delphi Edition?

[pitfiend]

Nothing can beat FREE, as in Free Pascal Compiler. For a bare bones Delphi compiler with some headers, 200 bucks is too much. FPC has 32/64 bits, has more targets and a very good library, and also can use 3rd party stuff. I think that 99 bucks is more affordable for any indie/young/starter developer for the extra tools like debuger. The IDE navigation features are cool, but anyone can use a good editor like notepad++ to write code as you don't have form designer, so that's not too important IMHO. If you ask me, I didn't include Indy in the packages, but Synapse could be a better choice. Again it's not important, just because the 3rd party availability.

[WILL]

Nothing can beat FREE, as in Free Pascal Compiler. For a bare bones Delphi compiler with some headers, 200 bucks is too much. FPC has 32/64 bits, has more targets and a very good library, and also can use 3rd party stuff. I think that 99 bucks is more affordable for any indie/young/starter developer for the extra tools like debuger. The IDE navigation features are cool, but anyone can use a good editor like notepad++ to write code as you don't have form designer, so that's not too important IMHO. If you ask me, I didn't include Indy in the packages, but Synapse could be a better choice. Again it's not important, just because the 3rd party availability.

Well I understand that there are parts of Delphi that have been successfully superseded, (ie compiler platform targeting) but I'd put Delphi's debugger against GDB any day. How about you? Or would you miss your SIGSEV and other incomplete error messages?

And you might not use them, and that's cool, but you can't completely wave off all of the code editor features. Many of them inspired the incorporated features included into Lazarus. I find them essential for any of my serious game projects (with lots of source files and lines of code) and I personally wouldn't want to code without that. Notepad++ or otherwise doesn't do any of that so it doesn't come close to measuring up.

There could be more added to give more value to the whole package and/or pricing shift I'm sure. The strengths of course being the dev environment versus what else is available that others don't do as well. Despite Delphi on the whole (as it is now) not being up to what we've expected for years, doesn't mean that the core of the product doesn't have advantages it's self.

At face value sure the free alternatives are "better" as a concept, but it's when you start developing and getting into the deeper usage of the tools that's where the differences, pros and cons, come out. Believe me, I'm a fan of Free Pascal and Lazarus both, but I still believe Delphi can stand up to that and offer more to us if they change their strategy and thinking about indie developers.

They do already have a product named Delphi Starter Edition priced at $199 usd: https://store.embarcadero.com/542/ca...?id=dQI9xhHa2E

True, they do, but I'm talking about a different product concept instead. Something more geared towards what our community would be interested in using. Much of it based on feedback from this community!

[Murmandamus]

Well I understand that there are parts of Delphi that have been successfully superseded, (ie compiler platform targeting) but I'd put Delphi's debugger against GDB any day. How about you?

I dunno. What, precisely do you miss from Delphi's debugger in Lazarus that makes it so much more usable? I've debugged some pretty hairy database and graphics libraries with Lazarus, and it gets the job done, which is what is important.

Or would you miss your SIGSEV and other incomplete error messages?

Oh, like those wonderfully complete "Access Violation" error messages you get with Delphi?

And you might not use them, and that's cool, but you can't completely wave off all of the code editor features. Many of them inspired the incorporated features included into Lazarus. I find them essential for any of my serious game projects (with lots of source files and lines of code) and I personally wouldn't want to code without that. Notepad++ or otherwise doesn't do any of that so it doesn't come close to measuring up.

The code editing features are nice to haves, but are not absolutely essential to banging out code, which is what I often find myself doing in notepad++, which does have some nice features like syntax highlighting and folding, btw. It can also do function completion and parameter hinting if you provide it with the definitions.