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Why I Choose Delphi

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Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#211

Post by TimJYoung »

jorgeleo wrote: post #150
bruno2223 wrote: post #47

I still compile a old project in Delphi 7 once every 3 months just to add 5 lines of code, and they pay me monthly for it. It's cheaper than porting the whole system to any other language. It is a project that I've built 8 years ago. Delphi was already a "strange think" on that time, it was declining fast. I think Java killed Delphi - "One codebase for all platforms, even your freezer will have Java!" - this was the…

"But I still miss the old days of drag-N-drop GUI of Delphi, really easy." How many years later and the web still does not catch up.

In order to do a Delphi-like product for the web, you need to solve these problems:

1) JS isn't discoverable from the perspective of the IDE. There's no static typing and no way for the IDE to hook up code to UI elements, and vice-versa. You need a statically-typed language that can transpile to JS without too much "impedance mismatch".

2) HTML layout functionality isn't really geared for the type of layouts that are present in desktop applications. Document-oriented layouts have a completely different set of requirements.

3) You have to solve the design-time/run-time issue, and this is not an easy issue to solve due to 1). You can't just use a browser engine at design-time for the WYSIWYG portion, so you need to create a whole "browser emulation" layer in the IDE, along with an execution environment for your statically-typed language.

Our product, Elevate Web Builder, solves these issues and implements a Delphi-like IDE for developing single-page web applications:

https://www.elevatesoft.com/products?category=ewb&type=web

We've got a new version coming out soon that will also offer server-side coding in Object Pascal, giving developers a single-source-language approach to developing complex web applications.

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#212

Post by doozy »

pjmlp wrote: post #80
omnibrain wrote: post #57

The IDE is just so far behind the competition. Crashing all the time an slow. Theming support ist very limited (to date). Delphi Code Insight ("Intellisense") is slow and sometimes just refuses to work and is generally not on par with other offerings. Error Insight (the wiggly red lines thing) is even worse. Delphi still uses a single pass compiler which makes for great compilation speed but seriously limits the lang…

Now imagine being used to Delphi and C++ Builder, trying to search for similar tooling on UNIX, back in the mid-90's. The only options available were a few 4GLs that cost more than even Delphi licenses are worth nowadays.

I learned to program using Borland Turbo C for DOS, but my first GUI applications were built with Delphi 2.0, which was the first 32-bit version. I earned my first money ever selling a shareware application I built with Delphi, before reaching puberty yet!

The Windows platform was awful so I ran away to Unix, and trying to find something even close to Delphi was just impossible. The best thing we had was Tcl/Tk, which I used a fair bit.

I tried Java at the time and remember saying to myself: You got to be kidding me.

Eventually I gave up on GUI development for Unix and embraced the web browser is the UI philosophy and develop the back-end in Python (then a fairly new language). Best career move I ever made.

I'm still fond of Delphi, it was a great product.

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#213

Post by JohnTHaller »

vram22 wrote: post #210
JohnTHaller wrote: post #205

Fun Fact: The PortableApps.com Platform's menu is written in Delphi. We're debating whether to stay with it or not, mainly due to the buy-in costs for developers. We can either use no external bits and let people work with Delphi Starter Edition (free, only for use with free/open source, 32-bit only, no add-on support), convert to Lazarus (open source equivalent of much older Delphi version with many newer bits added…

I've tried out PortablApps some time earlier, but only briefly, and did not look into the infrastructure aspects. Are you saying that developers who create portable apps need to use Delphi in order to be part of your platform? And if so, why is that?

The main platform's menu is written in Delphi. The tools to package apps (both the AppNamePortable.exe launcher and the installer they are then packaged in) are written using NSIS. Developers packaging most apps can do so just by filling in INI files without writing a single line of code. The utilities include NSIS itself, auto-generate the code needed for the installers and launchers, and automatically compile them.

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#214

Post by greenhouse_gas »

cwyers wrote: post #198
mamcx wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies will ruin any language, specially if you get into the idea that is for sell as in the 90s. No way this could work today. We (the community) have tell Borland and sub-sequent owners exactly what to do, and have been never been heared. To see why it failed, read : https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Borland-fail In the height of the enterprise transformation, I asked Del Yocam, one of many interim CEOs after K…

Because what you were telling them is wrong. Look at every other Delphi competitor from the time period. Microsoft is giving Visual Studio away to casual users and Visual Basic is now VB.Net. Eclipse and IntelliJ come in free versions. There is no longer a market for a million loyal $100 customers for a programming language and ecosystem. There are too many high-quality free languages, compilers and IDEs to make that…

For a while it was true - it seemed like the OS IDEs would win, and _definitely_ no one would actually _pay_ for an IDE.

Until JetBrains came on to the scene.

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#215

Post by jcelerier »

mamcx wrote: post #178
int_19h wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was unique when it first showed up. But on e.g. .NET, you already had all the same stuff with WinForms back in 2002. Indeed, WinForms is so similar to VCL, even when it comes to the overall hierarchy (Object <- Component <- Control sound familiar?), you might look at it and wonder if Microsoft hired someone from Borland to work on .NET back in the day. Of course, it was only their chief architect. ~

> WinForms is so similar to VCL But very inferior. And is slow in contrast. Delphi is #1 for GUI. Period. Nothing alike, No QT, No Wx, No Winforms or XALM or anything else. Just what is available in the lowest tier is far more complete that any other tool in the market, and you have sourcecode for the VCL and related components.

The recent Qt Quick designer is miles ahead of what Delphi provides: http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/05/24/qt-quick-designer-qt-creat...

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#216

Post by [deleted] »

mamcx wrote: post #178
int_19h wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was unique when it first showed up. But on e.g. .NET, you already had all the same stuff with WinForms back in 2002. Indeed, WinForms is so similar to VCL, even when it comes to the overall hierarchy (Object <- Component <- Control sound familiar?), you might look at it and wonder if Microsoft hired someone from Borland to work on .NET back in the day. Of course, it was only their chief architect. ~

> WinForms is so similar to VCL But very inferior. And is slow in contrast. Delphi is #1 for GUI. Period. Nothing alike, No QT, No Wx, No Winforms or XALM or anything else. Just what is available in the lowest tier is far more complete that any other tool in the market, and you have sourcecode for the VCL and related components.

[deleted]

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#217

Post by jhoechtl »

jimbokun wrote: post #200
interfixus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me offer my apologies on behalf of the Danish nation for what we have foisted upon the world: Hejlberg's C#, Stroustrup's C++, Lerdorf's PHP, and Heinemeier Hansson's RoR. TP and Delphi, obviously, require no apologies.

I never stopped to consider how much of the world's software is written in a Dane-designed language.

Isn't Pascal from Nicolaus Wirth, a Swiss?

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#218

Post by cwyers »

greenhouse_gas wrote: post #214
cwyers wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because what you were telling them is wrong. Look at every other Delphi competitor from the time period. Microsoft is giving Visual Studio away to casual users and Visual Basic is now VB.Net. Eclipse and IntelliJ come in free versions. There is no longer a market for a million loyal $100 customers for a programming language and ecosystem. There are too many high-quality free languages, compilers and IDEs to make that…

For a while it was true - it seemed like the OS IDEs would win, and _definitely_ no one would actually _pay_ for an IDE. Until JetBrains came on to the scene.

There's a sort of a hobbyist/professional split. There's a lot of grey area inbetween, but it's easier to reason about it if you think of two markets. One will pay, one won't if there are acceptable free alternatives. But it turns out that there are rather big synergies to be had from both camps using versions of the same tooling. So you have enterprises that are willing to buy pro versions of tools at prices that subsidize the existence of users at the free tier. That's nothing like the old Borland model that the post I was responding to wants Delphi to go back to.

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#219

Post by mamcx »

jcelerier wrote: post #215
mamcx wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WinForms is so similar to VCL But very inferior. And is slow in contrast. Delphi is #1 for GUI. Period. Nothing alike, No QT, No Wx, No Winforms or XALM or anything else. Just what is available in the lowest tier is far more complete that any other tool in the market, and you have sourcecode for the VCL and related components.

The recent Qt Quick designer is miles ahead of what Delphi provides: http://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/05/24/qt-quick-designer-qt-creat...

That is hard to believe. I test QT a few months ago (osx) and the toolset is the same joke as any other C++ toolset. Powerfull in the inside if you pray to the proper gods.

Have you use Delphi?

Re: Why I Choose Delphi

#220

Post by mamcx »

cwyers wrote: post #198
mamcx wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies will ruin any language, specially if you get into the idea that is for sell as in the 90s. No way this could work today. We (the community) have tell Borland and sub-sequent owners exactly what to do, and have been never been heared. To see why it failed, read : https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Borland-fail In the height of the enterprise transformation, I asked Del Yocam, one of many interim CEOs after K…

Because what you were telling them is wrong. Look at every other Delphi competitor from the time period. Microsoft is giving Visual Studio away to casual users and Visual Basic is now VB.Net. Eclipse and IntelliJ come in free versions. There is no longer a market for a million loyal $100 customers for a programming language and ecosystem. There are too many high-quality free languages, compilers and IDEs to make that…

The appstore model is almost that.

---

We know the old model will not apply here. That is clear. That is not what we have tell them.

What we have tell them is that the tool must have a opensource compiler, and free tier and a reasonable pro tier. Xamarin was a good sample.

Also, take in account that the millon loyal customer is not that unreasonable to find:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2418435/how-many-delphi-...

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