So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.
Jon Shemitz
Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
embedded Linux. I start a week from Monday (Jan 22) and will probably
stop monitoring the borland newsgroups, as I'll have to find time for
a two hour round trip commute.
I'll probably kill the business phone, but I'll keep the midnightbeach
web site and all its content. I bought Internic's longest term last
time my domain came up for renewal, so the midnightbeach email address
will be valid for a good long time, and perhaps forever - I'll always
be happy to hear from readers, though my response time will suffer.
--
.NET 2.0 for Delphi Programmers
www.midnightbeach.com/.net
TObject
Good luck with your new venture.
I am still reading your last book; about 3/4 of the way through now.
It's my bedtime material - puts me asleep every time, but a wealth
of very useful information.
Simon Kissel
> After 23 years as an independent programmer, most of them with Turbo
> Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
> embedded Linux. I start a week from Monday (Jan 22) and will probably
I really liked your Kylix book back then, it's still sitting on
my shelf...
But well, embedded Linux can be fun even with C instead of Object Pascal
;)
Good bye and good luck!
Simon
Ingvar Nilsen
> After 23 years as an independent programmer, most of them with Turbo
> Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C
Good luck!
I am willing to bet a beer you will not manage to stay out of here for
long :)
--
Ingvar Nilsen
Brand New Web Site! Free Delphi Tool:
http://www.ingvarius.com
Craig Stuntz [TeamB]
-Craig
--
Craig Stuntz [TeamB] · Vertex Systems Corp. · Columbus, OH
Delphi/InterBase Weblog : http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz
Borland newsgroup denizen Sergio González has a new CD of
Irish music out, and it's good: http://tinyurl.com/7hgfr
Victor Helsing
this notefile, it is instances like this that make long time Delphi
enthusiasts very sad indeed. It is the thing that keeps them snivelling
bitterly, hoping beyond hope to preserve a lifestyle and profession that
they love.
In my own mind I imagine a yearly class reunion of dinosaurs, where all come
together to discuss how they are still relevant in the world and express
feckless optimism for the future. Of course, various small fry fail to show
up each year, and are not really missed. But finally, someone says, "Golly,
what happened to T. Rex?"
I am approaching a point in my career where I am comfortable with my fate,
and thank God I do not need to depend on Delphi/Kylix programming for my
living. I knew in my heart that I was taking a big risk when I chose to go
with Delphi on version 1 (abandoning years as a C programmer), and continued
to buy successive versions through Delphi 8. I made the choice to do so
because I WANTED this choice to be correct, not because I believed
intellectually that it would be. I've spent the past several months
desperately trying to convince myself that staying with Delphi is the right
choice, despite objective evidence to the contrary. Will alone can no
longer sustain that romantic delusion.
But so much for my own snivelling. It is a grave loss to see Jon go. I
greatly enjoyed his excellent Kylix book, and wish him the best for the
future.
Good luck, Jon. We will miss you, and thank you for your contribution to
the community!
Victor Helsing
Rita
one of my Linux how to do this that an the other. I will now re-read
your Kylix book since I have started doing body building I can lift it.
ByeBye
xxx
Rita
"Jon Shemitz" <j...@midnightbeach.com> wrote in message
news:45A7F530...@midnightbeach.com...
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> Although I am sure the Borland/Codegear guys must moan when reading
> through this notefile, it is instances like this that make long time
> Delphi enthusiasts very sad indeed. It is the thing that keeps them
> snivelling bitterly, hoping beyond hope to preserve a lifestyle and
> profession that they love.
With no reference to Delphi or any other language/technology: have you
considered the possibility that Jon is moving on to something he
actually wants to do?
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> I start a week from Monday (Jan 22) and will probably
> stop monitoring the borland newsgroups, as I'll have to find time for
> a two hour round trip commute.
Enjoy your new job, Jon. I'm sure people will miss your helpful posts
in the .NET groups.
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Joe Hendricks
> After 23 years as an independent programmer..
Wishing you great success and happiness!
JoeH
Pete Fraser
I have written some plugins to do the 'make' and I can get Code Completion
etc.
Admittedly the host compilers run under windows but I did previously have a
plugin that ran 'make' remotely on a linux box and returned the make output
which BDS2006 could parse. A very productive environment.
Rgds Pete
"Jon Shemitz" <j...@midnightbeach.com> wrote in message
news:45A7F530...@midnightbeach.com...
David Clegg
> After 23 years as an independent programmer, most of them with Turbo
> Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
> embedded Linux.
Congratulations on your new job, and all the best for the future!
--
Cheers,
David Clegg
dcl...@gmail.com
http://cc.codegear.com/Author/72299
QualityCentral. The best way to bug CodeGear about bugs.
http://qc.codegear.com
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's
even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Carl Caulkett
Hey Jon,
Good luck for everything. I always liked the name "midnight beach".
:-)
--
Carl
Lars Fosdal q
>After 23 years as an independent programmer, most of them with Turbo
>Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
>embedded Linux.
Congratulations on the new job, and sorry to see you take leave of the
Delphi community. Can we not even convince you to dabble a little on
your spare time? ;)
Best of wishes,
Lars F.
Ingvar Nilsen
> Can we not even convince you to dabble a little on
> your spare time? ;)
Trust me, he will get the usual non-tech abstinence symptoms after a
few days and rush back <g>
Jan Derk
> With no reference to Delphi or any other language/technology: have you
> considered the possibility that Jon is moving on to something he
> actually wants to do?
You mean that it could well be that Jon is very happy that Kylix was
killed after having written a book on it?
No, I did not consider that possibility.
Frankly, I think that Devgear is nuts *not* to hire someone with such
an enormous amount of proven experience and who can actually write.
Just offer him a job where he can work from home most of the time.
Jon's post does not exactly show a huge amount of enthusiasm for
commuting.
Nick go (I know I should not tell you what to do but) grab the phone
and talk to this guy.
Jan Derk
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> You mean that it could well be that Jon is very happy that Kylix was
> killed after having written a book on it?
That isn't what I asked.
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Paul Nichols [TeamB]
>d to T. Rex?"
>
> I am approaching a point in my career where I am comfortable with my fate,
> and thank God I do not need to depend on Delphi/Kylix programming for my
> living. I knew in my heart that I was taking a big risk when I chose to go
> with Delphi on version 1 (abandoning years as a C programmer), and continued
> to buy successive versions through Delphi 8. I made the choice to do so
> because I WANTED this choice to be correct, not because I believed
> intellectually that it would be. I've spent the past several months
> desperately trying to convince myself that staying with Delphi is the right
> choice, despite objective evidence to the contrary. Will alone can no
> longer sustain that romantic delusion.
>
>
In all seriousness, anyone who stakes their future on a single toolset
or a single paradigm, is begging for trouble; doesn't matter what that
toolset is, or what the paradigm is.
I have been primarily a Java guy for the past 6 years, after having a 5
year career as primarily a Delphi and C++ developer. I still do C++ in
my jobs from time to time, and I even do some NET (small amount) and
even some Perl from time to time. I do Shell Scripting as well, and I
work with all types of Applications, even though most have Web based
front ends.
I have not served as only a developer either. I have served as a
Developer, Project Manager, Business Analyst, and Enterprise Architect.
I would have missed many opportunities if I did not have such a vast
range of experience and could easily transition from one role to
another, just as I could with languages.
I could have stayed with Delphi alone, and missed many business
opportunities. But I could say the same thing about Java (even though I
will admit that the Java opportunities are greater than the Delphi or
even C++ ones now).
However, most of my Employers have been thrilled with the fact that I am
experienced in many roles and that I am very flexible and adaptable. I
would suggest that anyone who wishes to remain in IT and remain
employable, diversify. You do not have to give up something to become
proficient in another. Sure, you will always be stronger in one role
than another, and you will always have a personal affinity and favorite
role you wish to play and a favorite tool or language you wish to work
with. But you do not have to discount the one to also appreciate the others.
Tools should always be thought of as a end to a means, not a means to an
end.
Victor Helsing
"Paul Nichols [TeamB]" <"Paul Nichols [TeamB]"> wrote in message
news:45a83960$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
Paul:
You are right, of course, that no developer should stake his future on a
single tool. I know that as well as most, since I have dpme serious
projects in the following languages (in that order): Fortran IV, TUTOR,
BASIC, TUTOR, PL/1, Pascal, C, Delphi. {I am fluent in half a dozen other
languages as well, but not done serious projects using them.}
I have done serious projects at the assembly level on numerous processors,
starting with the 8080, Z80, PDP-11, CDC Cyber, 6809, 6502, 68000,
386/486/586 families, transputers, etc. Operating systems vary from CP/M,
TRS/DOS, Commodore 64, MSDOS, Windows, Unix and Linux variants.
Even given my reasonably broad experience, I was enchanted when I first met
Delphi about 10 years ago, so much that I chose to convert some major
software written in C (and subsequent new projects) to that platform. When
Kylix was announced, the potential of developing cross platform applications
on Linux seemed real, and I was very excited about having a powerful toolset
to use across {essentially all of} the meaningful application environments.
It is that dream that has been so appealing to many of us who have adopted
Delphi, despite broad experience with other languages and environments. And
all the more disappointing, after many years, to be forced to give up that
dream, to admit a mistake.
People like Jon Shemitz have not only been skilled practioners, they have
been evangelists for the Delphi/Kylix paradigm. Indeed, I can honestly say
I was thrilled to read Jon's book on Kylix, to appreciate insights that had
not occurred to me, to see him explain how to solve certain problems I had
been unable to perceive correctly, let alone conquer on my own.
To see him walk away, knowing that his investment in Delphi and mastery is
greater than my own, is an ominous portent that the cause is doomed. Yes, I
have challenged the "impossible" before, and been successful, but walking
past the skulls of those who have gone before is still a chilling
experience.
I am reminded of reading the comments of Robert Frost about his great poem
regarding coming to a crossroads, and after consideration, choosing the road
less traveled, "and that has made all the difference." The funny and ironic
insight that he offered, and one that I had not previously considered, is
that he did NOT mean to imply that choosing the road less traveled was the
RIGHT or the BEST choice. It struck me at the time that the poem had been
written by the young man, and his later reflection was that of the old man.
Along the same line, unrelated to programming, is Churchill's observation
(as a young man, he was liberal, and conservative in his later years): "A
young man who is not liberal has no heart. An old man who is not
conservative has no brain."
To mix metaphores yet again, perhaps I merely "rage against the dying of the
light."
Go in peace!
Victor
Bob Dawson
> To mix metaphores yet again, perhaps I merely "rage against the dying
> of the light."
Bit melodramatic, what?
Jon's most recent book and forays AFAIK have been into C# and the .net
platform. Now he's going to a job "doing straight C on embedded Linux." His
It's pretty hard to read that as a statement of industry direction.
Or perhaps you think that most free-lance/contract programmers are now going
to be taking fulltime jobs, or that .net is going away, or that PCs are
going away in favor of device-embedded systems, or that we're all doomed to
be writing straight C in the near future...
I wish Jon the best of luck in his endeavors, but I find it hard to see him
as a bellweather here.
bobD
Dennis Landi
"Jon Shemitz" <j...@midnightbeach.com> wrote in message
> as I'll have to find time for
> a two hour round trip commute.
Ah! Been there done that got the scars to prove it.
>
> I'll probably kill the business phone, but I'll keep the midnightbeach
> web site and all its content. I bought Internic's longest term last
> time my domain came up for renewal, so the midnightbeach email address
> will be valid for a good long time, and perhaps forever - I'll always
> be happy to hear from readers, though my response time will suffer.
>
Cya Jon. Best of luck with your new job.
-d
Relaxin
> After 23 years as an independent programmer, most of them with Turbo
> Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
> embedded Linux.
> web site and all its content. I bought Internic's longest term last
> time my domain came up for renewal, so the midnightbeach email address
> will be valid for a good long time, and perhaps forever - I'll always
> be happy to hear from readers, though my response time will suffer.
>
> --
Donald Shimoda
> Frankly, I think that Devgear is nuts not to hire someone with such
> an enormous amount of proven experience and who can actually write.
> Just offer him a job where he can work from home most of the time.
> Jon's post does not exactly show a huge amount of enthusiasm for
> commuting.
>
Agreed.
> Nick go (I know I should not tell you what to do but) grab the phone
> and talk to this guy.
--
Donald.
John Jacobson
> Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
> embedded Linux. I start a week from Monday (Jan 22) and will probably
> stop monitoring the borland newsgroups, as I'll have to find time for
> a two hour round trip commute.
Good luck. Interesting coincidence. I too start a new gig on the 22nd, at a
firm in Colorado. It starts as a Delphi position, but changes over to C++ as
they convert and port. However, I doubt there's any Linux in this one.
Fortunately I get to work at home for the first six months or so.
Hallvard Vassbotn
> I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
> embedded Linux.
Congrats on the job, Jon - shame about the commute!
Embedded Linux C programming - sounds exiting - but I'm sure you'll find
that you have been spoiled with both Delphi and VS... ;)
Thanks for the collaboration on your books - it has been fun and a most
interesting and learning experience.
/Hallvard
42
> Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
> embedded Linux. I start a week from Monday (Jan 22) and will probably
> stop monitoring the borland newsgroups, as I'll have to find time for
> a two hour round trip commute.
Ouch, that sounds terrible on so many levels... However, thanks to this post,
I ordered your .net book yesterday, I hope it cheers you up a bit.
Paul Nichols [TeamB]
> Along the same line, unrelated to programming, is Churchill's observation
> (as a young man, he was liberal, and conservative in his later years): "A
> young man who is not liberal has no heart. An old man who is not
> conservative has no brain."
>
> To mix metaphores yet again, perhaps I merely "rage against the dying of the
> light."
>
> Go in peace!
>
> Victor
>
>
Victor,
I really cannot improve upon what Bob Dawson replied with. Short, terse,
to the point, and absolutely correct.
However, I wouldn't mind sending you a personal communicate, if that
would be ok!
a o u ldekezel@hotmail.com Papa
says...
>
> I ordered your .net book yesterday, I hope it cheers you up a bit.
>
Same here...
Darren Davis
> be happy to hear from readers, though my response time will suffer.
>
Jon, does this mean you won't be writing the companion book "Delphi for .NET
2.0 Programmers" ;) Never the less thank you for the .Net book, I found it
a great aide in moving into the .Net 2.0 C# world.
Best of luck with your move I have great confidence that it will work out
well for you.
D.
Robert Horbury-Smith
> Along the same line, unrelated to programming, is Churchill's
> observation (as a young man, he was liberal, and conservative in his
> later years): "A young man who is not liberal has no heart. An old
> man who is not conservative has no brain."
Not to be taken too seriously though as Churchill had neither ....
R
--
Chee Wee Chua (CodeGear)
<rot13....@enqfbsg.pbz.nh> wrote:
>With no reference to Delphi or any other language/technology: have you
>considered the possibility that Jon is moving on to something he
>actually wants to do?
Blind as a bat? Didn't Jon said C and embedded Linux?
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> > With no reference to Delphi or any other language/technology: have
> > you considered the possibility that Jon is moving on to something he
> > actually wants to do?
>
> Blind as a bat? Didn't Jon said C and embedded Linux?
Are you saying no-one in their right mind would want to do that? <g>
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Chee Wee Chua (CodeGear)
<rot13....@enqfbsg.pbz.nh> wrote:
>> Blind as a bat? Didn't Jon said C and embedded Linux?
>
>Are you saying no-one in their right mind would want to do that? <g>
Well, you said "With no reference to Delphi or any other language/technology"...
apparently, you're blind as a bat, as Jon said C and embedded Linux. ;o)
Jon Shemitz
> Pascal and Delphi, I'm taking a full-time job, doing straight C on
Thanks for all the nice notes, and for the surge in both site traffic
and book sales.
I'm not looking forward to the commuting, but I am looking forward to
steady work (I got really tired of the "bust" part of the
boom-and-bust cycle) and to doing something new. Novelty is always
good, and this will strengthen my resume in the sort of 'industrial
computing' that's in strong demand in Silicon Valley. Maybe my next
job will be at Google ... in any event, cell phone operating systems
are closer to the consumer than the sort of corporate IT that I've
been doing for the last twelve years.
I don't think it's fair to take my move as any sort of indicator of
the health of either .NET or Delphi. I had multiple offers and turned
down a contract at HP, doing Delphi and C# at a decent rate, in order
to take this job. I'm taking a job, not a contract; the commute is not
quite as bad; and this job seems more interesting to me at this time.
I can't say that I'm 100% thrilled about Ansi C (I reread K&R this
week, and blanched at the function pointer syntax) and I do have my
qualms about giving up tools (from object orientation to garbage
collection and the FCL) that were introduced as good solutions to real
problems, but they decided that C++ was not appropriate for machines
with modest memory and I suppose I have to agree. While a 400 MHz
processor doesn't sound so bad (I sure was able to get away with an
awful lot of simple, brute-force code on much slower machines) C++
does make for large executables ... and .NET does rely on having lots
of RAM. Still, good shops have managed to turn out good code in
straight C, and this does seem like a good shop: sharp guys, who 'get'
the point of code reviews and unit tests.
Overall, I'm looking forward to it.
--
.NET 2.0 for Delphi Programmers
www.midnightbeach.com/.net
Rick Carter
>the health of either .NET or Delphi.
I'll second that! I've had employers ask me if I can refer Delphi
programmers, but all the professionals who have come to our meetings
have all the work they want.
Rick Carter
cart...@despammed.com
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG, Cincinnati PC Users Group
--- posted by geoForum on http://delphi.newswhat.com
Chris Burrows
>
> I'm not looking forward to the commuting,
> I can't say that I'm 100% thrilled about Ansi C
Having had previous life experiences of 18 months of four hours commuting
each day, and 10 years of C programming I can understand why you say this.
However, look on the bright side - if there are any real problems associated
with this experience, it can only serve to motivate you to better things.
In my case the commuting was sufficient motivation to cause us to relocate
1000km from Sydney to Adelaide, and whenever I whinge about Delphi I pinch
myself and say 'but just remember how bad C was!'. Now I'm ten minutes away
from my office and most of my work is in Delphi or Component Pascal hardly a
day goes by where I do not stop and think how fortunate I am. However,
sometimes you need to have had the bad times to *really* appreciate the good
times.
Anyway, don't let me put you off! Good luck - I hope it works out well for
you,
Chris Burrows
CFB Software
http://www.cfbsoftware.com/gpcp