Is Pascal is Still My Lovely Language?

[LP]

It really break my heart, I don't know is it the world is change? do I really idiot by using Delphi? or something wrong in the world with Pascal, Borland and Delphi which I didn't know for past years since I've graduated ?

No, you use appropriate tools for the appropriate job. Delphi can be really good both for games and software development. Yes, you shouldn't close your eyes on other languages - every language and its accompanying IDE have their advantages and weaknesses.

Then I do quit from the Game Studio to form my own business with friends, simply an internet cafe store. It is a booming business that days 2001 till 2003 then it start to fell over like dominoes, since there is so many new competitor opening newer and better internet cafe (they have newer computers ofcourse while I need to reinvest all VGA, memory, processor, motherboard heck! NO), the price war is ON.

Yes, that's pretty much what happened to my partner and me when we opened our Internet/Gaming Cafe. IMHO this business becomes less viable every day. You might open a diner cafe or sell icecream and have much more income than from Internet Cafe these days.

Really unlucky for me since 9/11 to get VISA on all purposes is really - really HARD. That is not all, I'm browsing job vacancy all over the world, and realize that, using my lovely language is not available at all for any vacancies. Darn, it is present days and I really need money for a living and my skills on Delphi like nothing. The only all of those vacancies requirement is C++, the LARGE - LARGE C++ all over the job requirements, also C#, LUA, etc.... And NONE about PASCAL or DELPHI!

There are actually much more ways of paying for the living, it's just that you have to be very creative sometimes. As I said previously, don't get very attached to just one language. C# and Visual Studio both are great development environments - try them and you may actually start to like them.

I want to CRY! Is it my decision is really wrong? what a pity of fate...
I don't know about you guys, how you all keep this Pascal thingy rolling ?

Honestly, I get most of my income from working with PHP (mostly business applications). However, with our game Wicked Defense and other two games planned to be released this year - I hope to get more involved working in Delphi.

My last program in Delphi 7 is my Game Tools & Engine "Frank's Moongate", purpose to let "everyone develop their own game", without the need of prior programming knowledge at all. It is a game which something like I love the most: "Diablo + Ultima 7" again, but this time it has MMO capability ala Ragnarok if you know this korean MMORPG anyway. You can find the tools in this site too. I still have a lot of confidence when develop it, trying doing many multi thread trick there, network engineering algorithm such client prediction, bandwith optimization, anti cheat, also implementing persistent world Artificial Intelligent, etc.

This is probably a common mistake most people do. Don't work on game engine - it's a waste of time. It won't sell well and you may not use all of it for your game. Focus on the actual product instead and you will see that *there is no generic engine that fits a particular game perfectly*.

Don't develop engine so that you can work on some game later on. Design your game and its architecture, and start working on your first prototype.

Before doing it, I am even considering to switch to Free Pascal - Lazarus - Linux programming, but the chance of future is still slim since in linux C++ also dominating.

IMHO Linux is not a viable platform for commercial development. You may have better luck with Mac OS, but cross-platform will require a significant effort (unless you use OpenGL, which will make your game barely playable on Windows user machines where native OpenGL drivers are not installed by default), so the development for these platforms is "too expensive" to worth the trouble.

I just can not understand why you people still stick with Pascal and have a happy days ? Please help me what should I do? at least please tell me is it this time my decision is correct ?

We work with Pascal because you can still make money developing software and games.

Also, do you realize that to getting product complete is more a psychological challange rather than technical? Push it to get the work done, avoid distractions, be open-minded but not easily disappointed even if people say your game/prototype sucks, etc.

In our game Wicked Defense, technical stuff was easy. The difficult part was to push my partner to finish some artwork, to *avoid playing Starcraft/Alpha Centauri/X-COM/Master of Magic/UT 2004* in our office instead of working, to keep coding even when having a massive hangover, try to stay motivated and keep improving the game when your best friends say it's crap, to limit the time you spend with your girlfriend (and let her understand that you will get a return later on on your time investment), etc.

There was *no single technical problem* that delayed the development of our game. All problems were psychological and/or emotional. If you can control your emotions, you can do pretty much anything in this life. Having said this, the fact that you use Delphi becomes less important and even a minor issue.