Response a negative view about Delphi
lior
I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his opinion
of Java.
Here is his response translated to English:
"Is Delphi dying? The answer is no. Delphi died long time ago.
Window desktop is no longer such an interesting environment.
Pascal has no advantage over Java script, Java or Python.On the contrary,
these are much better syntax.
Delphi has no guarantied patronage. No giant company with money like Sun and
no open source code community.
In my opinion the party is over. There are much younger and prettier
languages around with a rich daddy and a supportive community. We as
developers have no reason to continue developing in Delphi unless it's about
maintaining old legacy code.
In Delphi credit it should be said that it was wonderful. There was no
language I loved more. It had great influence on Java.
I never needed to learn Java. I felt the language was a natural evolution of
Delphi better ideas.
In a few days I became a Java developer (Anders Hejlsberg architect both).
This forum will never be as active as it was because it interests less and
less people.
I hope you have a successful choice of a modern development environment."
Bob Swart
> A once Delphi guru wrote a negative response about Delphi situation.
Who is this person?
> I never needed to learn Java. I felt the language was a natural evolution of
> Delphi better ideas.
Sounds more like C#, which came after Delphi.
> In a few days I became a Java developer (Anders Hejlsberg architect both).
Yup, I think something was "lost in translation" or it's a very bad
misquote...
Groetjes,
Bob Swart
--
Bob Swart Training & Consultancy (eBob42.com) Forever Loyal to Delphi
CodeGear Technology Partner -- CodeGear RAD Studio Reseller (BeNeLux)
Delphi Win32 & .NET books on Lulu.com: http://stores.lulu.com/drbob42
Personal courseware + e-mail support http://www.ebob42.com/courseware
Blog: http://www.drbob42.com/blog - RSS: http://eBob42.com/weblog.xml
lior
I'm not shure he will want his name published here.
He was one of the devolopers of the hebrew and arabic support package for
Delphi 3.
(His DBGrid included BidiMode support per column.Not just for the Grid like
the curret version).
>Sounds more like C#, which came after Delphi.
And buggy.Anyway, what about his opinion of Java/Python advantage ?
Doychin Bondzhev
programming.
The only advantage I see on the desktop is the ability to target
multiple platforms with same code.
For the server side it is very different. Just look at the number of web
application frameworks. Also there are many ways to do OR mapping. It
was developed with the idea that this will be used mostly in business
applications.
Delphi on the other side has great advantage in other areas. It has
great Desktop GUI framework. It is very easy to develop database desktop
application. With VCL for Web you get even more because you also get
same comfort while developing Web based applications.
Can't say anything about Python.
Doychin
John Herbster
marc hoffman
> Pascal has no advantage over Java script [...] On the contrary,
> these are much better syntax.
enough said about what THAT guy knows ;P
--
marc hoffman
RemObjects Software
The Infrastructure Company
http://www.remobjects.com
Arthur Hoornweg
> He dislikes Microsoft developer products. He claims they are cumbersome
> And buggy.Anyway, what about his opinion of Java/Python advantage ?
Answer it yourself.
What all-singing all-dancing Java applications are you using on
your desktop? Can you name ONE must-have Java application?
I had a Java-enabled cellphone once and was utterly frustrated by
its lack of responsiveness. It contemplated each key press for
2 seconds before responding.
--
Arthur Hoornweg
(In order to reply per e-mail, please just remove the ".net"
from my e-mail address. Leave the rest of the address intact
including the "antispam" part. I had to take this measure to
counteract unsollicited mail.)
TJC Support
news:4860...@newsgroups.borland.com...
>
> Window desktop is no longer such an interesting environment.
I think his premise is fundamentally wrong. It may not be interesting to
some programmers, who are more interested in developing web-based
applications. But to the customer, who generally doesn't give a hoot about
_how_ a program works, as long as it gets the job done, the desktop is a
very interesting environment. I see no reason to ever port my applications
to a web-based format, so I plan to continue developing in Delphi until I
retire in another 15 years or so. Assuming, of course, that Windows itself
survives that long.
Cheers,
Van Swofford
Tybee Jet Corp.
lior
>"John Herbster" wrote Who is ...
It's not my opinion. I just quoted a very influential Delphi expert in my
country.
He switches to using web languages. Since I'm not that familiar with Java
I wanted to get some arguments in favor of Delphi over Java.
Brian Moelk
> I had a Java-enabled cellphone once and was utterly frustrated by
> its lack of responsiveness. It contemplated each key press for
> 2 seconds before responding.
My Windows Mobile experience was the same. :)
--
Brian Moelk
Brain Endeavor LLC
bmo...@NObrainSPAMendeavorFOR.MEcom
Brian Moelk
> Not counting raw performance, Javascript OO development is painful and
> not very simple to understand.
Javascript OO is different from most "traditional OO" languages, but IMO
it's not necessarily painful or complex, just different.
Brian Moelk
> "Is Delphi dying? The answer is no. Delphi died long time ago.
Depends on what one means by "dying/dead".
> Window desktop is no longer such an interesting environment.
"Interesting" to whom and for what purpose?
[...]
> In a few days I became a Java developer (Anders Hejlsberg architect both).
As Dr. Bob points out, this factual error doesn't lend to his
credibility as an authority to comment on these issues.
As to the differences between Java, Python, JavaScript and
Delphi...that's a whole different topic.
Marc Rohloff [TeamB]
> Pascal has no advantage over Java script, Java or Python.On the contrary,
> these are much better syntax.
Not counting raw performance, Javascript OO development is painful and
not very simple to understand.
--
Marc Rohloff [TeamB]
marc -at- marc rohloff -dot- com
John Jacobson
> I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his
> opinion of Java.
Hard to take this post seriously when it comes from a "lior", doesn't give
specifics, and the "guru" being quoted is obviously mis-informed (eg. about
Hejlsberg having architected Java).
PL
His name is Effie Nadiv, and although his does seem to be a Delphi
expert, he's not a guru.
> I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his opinion
> of Java.
There's no need to respond because it doesn't really matter what he
thinks, says of does. The fate of Delphi is not up to him.
> Here is his response translated to English:
The single true point he mentions is that Delphi needs to become Open
Source (compiler and libraries) in order to attract new blood and
develop more features more quickly.
Before anyone jumps, Open Source does not necessarily mean "free beer",
and so doesn't mean lost revenues for Codegear/Embarcadero.
There are commercial Open Source products (eg. MySQL) which go under
dual licenses - GPL for GPL projects, and a standard draconian
commercial license for commercial projects.
Delphi is not dead, but is declining slowly. Neither Codegear nor
Embarcadero have the technical and marketing resources to change that.
They simply can't compete with the Microsoft's .NET or with the power of
the masses behind Java, Python, Ruby, PHP etc.
The only hope is that they will finally "get it" and make Delphi Open
Source udner the GPL. In a matter of weeks Delphi will have hundreds of
developers investigating the code and contributing fixes and new features.
As Delphi becomes a viable platform for free and open source programs,
many developers will discover (or re-discover) the power and elegance of
Delphi, and the community will grow.
But these are only dreams. Apparently the people who control Delphi's
fate will rather see it die than release it as Open Source.
Back to work.
PL.
John Jacobson
"PL" <p...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:4861...@newsgroups.borland.com...
> The only hope is that they will finally "get it" and make Delphi Open
> Source udner the GPL. In a matter of weeks Delphi will have hundreds of
> developers investigating the code and contributing fixes and new features.
LOL. Good joke. You must be the reincarnation of George Carlin.
PL
>> Source udner the GPL. In a matter of weeks Delphi will have hundreds of
>> developers investigating the code and contributing fixes and new features.
>
> LOL. Good joke. You must be the reincarnation of George Carlin.
>
I have no idea who George Carlin is.
By the way your reasoning is impressive.
PL.
Steve Thackery
some people here!
Delphi can be used to develop a wide range of application types, including
Win32 desktop apps, .Net applications, Web-hosted applications, and so on.
In most of those areas Delphi is competing with other products, and I would
argue that your "guru" is probably right in his arguments about the
alternatives being more modern, more widely used and more likely to make it
into the next decade or two. For instance, I don't think anybody would
seriously consider starting a new .Net project in Delphi, unless there was a
business need to reuse a lot of source code. And I'm certain that Java will
still be going strong long after Delphi has been forgotten.
However, there is one area where Delphi is really the only choice: Win32
development. Although you can write Win32 code in Visual Studio, in terms
of sheer productivity there is nothing even close to Delphi. It is in a
class of its own.
But does Win32 have a future? You can be damn sure of it. There is a truly
VAST number of Win32 applications out there (including most of the
heavyweight apps from Microsoft). There is simply no way that Microsoft
will switch off support for them in the remotely forseeable future.
Why not? Lots of reasons. Firstly, it would wipe out its customer base
overnight. Can you imagine the stampede to open source?
But there is another reason: it costs little or nothing to keep Win32
working in future versions of Windows. The code is all there. Remember,
you can still run 16-bit DOS applications in Vista! (albeit not Vista 64).
Before long Win32 will be seemlessly virtualised (I predict) to eliminate
most of the residual security issues with it. But it will still work, I'm
certain.
So, I would say that Win32 is still the best choice for desktop
applications, and will probably remain so for a long time to come. And
therefore Delphi should be the NUMBER ONE CHOICE for anyone developing Win32
applications.
That's the technical argument. As for the future of CodeGear - well, I
couldn't honestly give you much reassurance, I'm afraid. CodeGear seems to
carry a heck of a lot of employees for a relatively small product range, and
relatively scarce and modest product updates and releases. I do wonder what
they all do. And I wonder how long their revenue stream will support all
those bodies.
I don't think CodeGear employees are particularly competent - they seem to
make a mess of all sorts of things, and their marketing is unbelievably bad.
Hopeless, actually.
In the short term I think they'll survive, especially now they've got
Embarcadero looking after them. In the medium- to longer term? Hmmm.... I
have my doubts.
Having said that, if you buy Delphi 2007 now it isn't suddenly going to stop
working if CodeGear gets broken up. It's just a Win32 app that develops
other Win32 apps, and as long as Win32 exists, Delphi will work just fine
(possible activation issues aside).
So, I've given you a mixed reply of positive and negative things. Perhaps
you could just extract the good bits!
SteveT
John Jacobson
That's because it is supported by reality. Commercial products that are
open-sourced very soon stagnate and go nowhere, they don't end up with
hundreds of developers investigating the code and contributing fixes and new
features. Look at Turbopower as a good example. When TP announced that they
were abandoning--oops I mean open-sourcing--their libraries, a number of
people said the same things on the TP newsgroups as you just said, that the
libraries will now benefit from hundreds or even thousands of developers'
efforts. What happened is the same thing that almost always happens when
things get outsourced. They quietly died away without any new development,
except for Abbrevia which benefited mostly from one person's efforts for a
while afterward.
Open source projects themselves have an established history of slow
development, if that. The "hundreds of developers" never materialize, and in
fact the few open source projects that do manage to produce something useful
almost always are the beneficiary of a small number of dedicated
individuals, not an army of engineers. When those individuals move on, those
projects tend to die.
lior
"> Hard to take this post seriously when it comes from a "lior", doesn't
give
> specifics, and the "guru" being quoted is obviously mis-informed (eg.
> about Hejlsberg having architected Java).
As for my name, do you know the details about everyone who participated in
this newsgroup?
Do I make a joke of your name jacobson "Son of Jacob" ?
Rabatscher Michael
> your desktop? Can you name ONE must-have Java application?
under the hood)
But no question this app is also not very responsive in opposite to
other editors.
kind regards
Mike
TJC Support
news:48610bcd$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
>
> That's because it is supported by reality. Commercial products that are
> open-sourced very soon stagnate and go nowhere, they don't end up with
> hundreds of developers investigating the code and contributing fixes and
> new features. Look at Turbopower as a good example. When TP announced that
> they were abandoning--oops I mean open-sourcing--their libraries, a number
> of people said the same things on the TP newsgroups as you just said, that
> the libraries will now benefit from hundreds or even thousands of
> developers' efforts. What happened is the same thing that almost always
> happens when things get outsourced. They quietly died away without any new
> development, except for Abbrevia which benefited mostly from one person's
> efforts for a while afterward.
>
> Open source projects themselves have an established history of slow
> development, if that. The "hundreds of developers" never materialize, and
> in fact the few open source projects that do manage to produce something
> useful almost always are the beneficiary of a small number of dedicated
> individuals, not an army of engineers. When those individuals move on,
> those projects tend to die.
Amen to that!
Cheers,
Van
Marc Rohloff [TeamB]
> What all-singing all-dancing Java applications are you using on
> your desktop? Can you name ONE must-have Java application?
I use several Eclipse based IDEs.
Alessandro Federici
news:4860...@newsgroups.borland.com...
>> Pascal has no advantage over Java script [...] On the contrary,
>> these are much better syntax.
> enough said about what THAT guy knows ;P
My same thought.
Also worth quoting the hilarious "Window desktop is no longer such an
interesting environment.".
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
> Open Office (at least I think Java is running there
> under the hood)
Open Office is mostly C++. Download the sources and see for yourself.
But some parts rely on the presence of a JRE:
* The media player on Unix-like systems
* All document wizards in Writer
* Accessibility tools
* Report Autopilot
* JDBC driver support
* HSQL database engine, which is used in OpenOffice.org Base
* XSLT filters
* BeanShell, the NetBeans scripting language and the Java UNO bridge
* Export filters to the Aportis.doc (.pdb) format for the Palm OS
or Pocket Word (.psw) format for the Pocket PC
* Export filter to LaTeX
* Export filter to MediaWiki's wikitext
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org#Java_controversy
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of
the world; the humorist makes fun of himself."
-- James Thurber (1894-1961),
in Edward R. Murrow television interview
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
>
> "> Hard to take this post seriously when it comes from a "lior",
> doesn't give
> > specifics, and the "guru" being quoted is obviously mis-informed
> > (eg. about Hejlsberg having architected Java).
> Ok,the expert confused J++ with Java.Hejlsberg developed J++ not Java.
There is a big difference, since J++ was more or less an MS Java clone.
That still doesn't give your expert a lot of credibility.
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"I agree with the reforms, but I want nothing to change"
-- Ion Luca Caragiale, Romanian playwriter, 1880
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
> > A once Delphi guru wrote a negative response about Delphi situation.
>
> His name is Effie Nadiv, and although his does seem to be a Delphi
> expert, he's not a guru.
>
> > I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his
> > opinion of Java.
>
> There's no need to respond because it doesn't really matter what he
> thinks, says of does. The fate of Delphi is not up to him.
>
> > Here is his response translated to English:
>
> The single true point he mentions is that Delphi needs to become Open
> Source (compiler and libraries) in order to attract new blood and
> develop more features more quickly.
I doubt it very much. Several products have been made open source, and
see what happened to them.
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept
us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry
of grave national emergency." -- General Douglas MacArthur
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
> > Who is this person?
> I'm not shure he will want his name published here.
> He was one of the devolopers of the hebrew and arabic support package
> for Delphi 3. (His DBGrid included BidiMode support per column.Not
> just for the Grid like the curret version).
> > Sounds more like C#, which came after Delphi.
> He dislikes Microsoft developer products. He claims they are
> cumbersome
Well, Anders Hejlsberg went to MS, first to develop Visual J++ (a Java
clone), and then later on, C# and .NET.
He never developed Java. So this doesn't make any sense.
<<
In a few days I became a Java developer (Anders Hejlsberg architect
both).
>>
No, he didn't.
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"Marry me and I'll never look at another horse!"
-- Groucho Marx
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
>
> "PL" <p...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
> news:48610600$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
> > > > The only hope is that they will finally "get it" and make
> > > > Delphi Open Source udner the GPL. In a matter of weeks Delphi
> > > > will have hundreds of developers investigating the code and
> > > > contributing fixes and new features.
> > >
> > > LOL. Good joke. You must be the reincarnation of George Carlin.
> >
> > I have no idea who George Carlin is.
> >
> > By the way your reasoning is impressive.
>
> That's because it is supported by reality. Commercial products that
> are open-sourced very soon stagnate and go nowhere
This is often true, and I'm afraid it could become true for Delphi too,
but it is not always true. Think of OpenOffice.org, which is the open
source version of the commercial product StarOffice (now it is the
other way around: StarOffice is based on OpenOffice).
Fact is that people who love to use Delphi are not necessarily keen on
taking care of developing the product and delving deep into the
compiler, RTL, VCL, etc. It might work, if there is a well-organized
group of dedicated and motivated users with a lot of knowledge and a
very long breath (and industry support), but it is not guaranteed to.
Most likely, such a group would not form.
Products like Linux and OpenOffice.org are usually successful because
of the support of companies and a strictly administered group of
programmers.
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy."
-- Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
> However, there is one area where Delphi is really the only choice:
> Win32 development. Although you can write Win32 code in Visual
> Studio, in terms of sheer productivity there is nothing even close to
> Delphi. It is in a class of its own.
>
> But does Win32 have a future? You can be damn sure of it.
Replace "Win32" with "Windows native" and I guess your statement is
even much more valid. I'm sure we'll see a slow switch to native 64bit
software, sometime in the near future. I assume that Delphi can excel
there just as well as in Win32.
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be
happy." -- H. L. Mencken
marc hoffman
> Also worth quoting the hilarious "Window desktop is no longer such an
> interesting environment.".
well... ;)
Tom Corey
> I think his premise is fundamentally wrong. It may not be
> interesting to some programmers, who are more interested in
> developing web-based applications. But to the customer, who
> generally doesn't give a hoot about how a program works, as long as
> it gets the job done, the desktop is a very interesting environment.
I agree. I'm making a pretty decent living writing software for this
non-interesting environment. Using just Delphi.
I.P. Nichols
>
> Also worth quoting the hilarious "Window desktop is no longer such an
> interesting environment.".
I guess developers are so fickle that they naturally lose interest when an
environment is running on about a billion machines. ;-)
Rabatscher Michael
> But some parts rely on the presence of a JRE:
started when I started OpenOffic ;)
kind regards
Mike
TJC Support
news:xn0frt83m...@newsgroups.codegear.com...
>
> I agree. I'm making a pretty decent living writing software for this
> non-interesting environment. Using just Delphi.
Ditto, and my customer base is growing, which makes Winders desktop pretty
interesting to me. :^)
Cheers,
Van
Alessandro Federici
>> Also worth quoting the hilarious "Window desktop is no longer such an
>> interesting environment.".
>
> well... ;)
What? <G> There's a ton of new issues with Vista that keeps people very
busy!
Sure can't get bored...
Jokes aside, I was looking at the financial part: there's plenty of money to
make on the Windows desktop, so to me and many others is still very
interesting.
Nigel Tavendale
People still need applications to run on it. If you look at most commercial
software packages (word processors, phot editors, CD burner's, CAD
applications etc...) you will find they are almost all desktop apps. In
fact I challenge your freind to write a CD burning application in ASP.NET or
Java without having to prop it up with native code written in C/C++ running
locally. Form some jobs ASP, .NET, Java and the Web are good enough, but by
no means are they good enough for all. You won't see AutoCAD or NERO as
purely web based applications any time soon.
> Pascal has no advantage over Java script, Java or Python.On the contrary,
> these are much better syntax.
The reverse is also true. For compiled exe's one language is as good as the
next. However Java Script and Java won't get you anywhere near the actual
physical layer on an x86 PC. You still have to run them on their "Virtual
Machines" and take a performance hit as a consequence. Pointers may be a
pain to work with but they offer a lot of power noticably absent from JIT
environments like Java or .NET.
> Delphi has no guarantied patronage. No giant company with money like Sun
> and no open source code community.
It's now part of Embarcadero which is part of a group of companies
(including InstallSheild and some others) owned by the same Private Equity
Firm. Not as big as M$ but not insignificant either.
> In my opinion the party is over. There are much younger and prettier
> languages around with a rich daddy and a supportive community. We as
> developers have no reason to continue developing in Delphi unless it's
> about maintaining old legacy code.
Not true. If you want to create high performing desktop apps you need to
have a natively compiled Win32 executable. The two major options for
creating these exe's is M$ Visual C++ or Delphi. In terms of ease of use
and development speed Delphi is far ahead. Sure you can create desktop apps
with Java or C# but Apps written in Delphi or C++ and natively compiled will
always out perform them.
When you feel the need for speed Java/C#/.NET just doesn't cut it.
"lior" <lior...@winint.com> wrote in message
news:4860...@newsgroups.borland.com...
>A once Delphi guru wrote a negative response about Delphi situation.
> I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his
> opinion of Java.
> Here is his response translated to English:
> "Is Delphi dying? The answer is no. Delphi died long time ago.
> Window desktop is no longer such an interesting environment.
> Pascal has no advantage over Java script, Java or Python.On the contrary,
> these are much better syntax.
> Delphi has no guarantied patronage. No giant company with money like Sun
> and no open source code community.
> In my opinion the party is over. There are much younger and prettier
> languages around with a rich daddy and a supportive community. We as
> developers have no reason to continue developing in Delphi unless it's
> about maintaining old legacy code.
> In Delphi credit it should be said that it was wonderful. There was no
> language I loved more. It had great influence on Java.
> I never needed to learn Java. I felt the language was a natural evolution
> of Delphi better ideas.
> In a few days I became a Java developer (Anders Hejlsberg architect both).
> This forum will never be as active as it was because it interests less and
> less people.
> I hope you have a successful choice of a modern development environment."
>
marc hoffman
>> well... ;)
>
> What? <G> There's a ton of new issues with Vista that keeps people very
> busy! Sure can't get bored...
hehe.
> Jokes aside, I was looking at the financial part: there's plenty of
> money to make on the Windows desktop, so to me and many others is still
> very interesting.
of course, yes. Windows will not go away anytime soon as *the* major
development platform.
Steve Thackery
> even much more valid. I'm sure we'll see a slow switch to native 64bit
> software, sometime in the near future. I assume that Delphi can excel
> there just as well as in Win32.
Yes, very good point.
SteveT
somebody
news:4860...@newsgroups.borland.com...
> A once Delphi guru wrote a negative response about Delphi situation.
> I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his
opinion
> of Java.
> Here is his response translated to English:
...
Unless something major happened in the translation, he makes too many
factual errors to be called a guru. One thing, however, I agree with is that
Delphi is pretty much only good for W32 development (or rather,
maintenance), and can go nowhere but down from this point on, unless
Embarcadero does something miraculous with it, which is tough to count on
even for the eternal optimist.
Ivan Levashew
>
> Javascript OO is different from most "traditional OO" languages
>
It is not OO by design, it is PO, prototype-oriented
--
If you want to get to the top, you have to start at the bottom
Ivan Levashew
> Pascal has no advantage over Java script, Java or Python. On the contrary,
The most mysterious sentence. "syntax advantage"? I know for what is a
disadvantage, like "print (2 + 2) * 2;" in Perl or "int C::*" in C++.
Pascal, Java, etc. sounds to be free from these flaws. I don't know what
this guru is talking about.
> Delphi has no guarantied patronage. No giant company with money like Sun and
> no open source code community.
True. The bad thing is that Delphi's foundation is Win32 development.
Win32 developers guide Delphi design whether it's good attitude or not.
Resulting language is not always consistent. There is an increasing
number of asymmetries in Delphi. Reference-counted AnsiStrings vs. not
reference-counted WideStrings. Interface-type variables are being
deallocated automatically while class-type variables are not.
> In my opinion the party is over. There are much younger and prettier
> languages around with a rich daddy and a supportive community.
Younger /= better. I'm against a fashion-driven PL design and
fashion-driven PL choice.
> We as developers have no reason to continue developing in Delphi
> unless it's about maintaining old legacy code.
Yes.
> In a few days I became a Java developer (Anders Hejlsberg architect both).
Who is Anders Hejlsberg? I've heard of Guy Steel, but he was affiliated
with Scheme, not with Pascal.
John Herbster
"lior" <lior...@winint.com> wrote
> It's not my opinion. I just quoted a very influential Delphi
> expert in my country.
Israel?
Lior,
I ask, because often we get posts in this mutual help Delphi
newsgroup from posters who have not be soliciting much help
nor helping other programmers, the posts or subject lines
from same from which seem to be designed to disparage Delphi
and start a worthless discussion. So I was asking where you
came from or what your experience was in order to help
figure out how to respond.
> He switches to using web languages. Since I'm not that
> familiar with Java I wanted to get some arguments in favor
> of Delphi over Java.
Then I suppose that a better subject line might have been
something like "When is Delphi a better choice than Java?"
Rgds, JohnH
Oliver Townshend
>> not very simple to understand.
>
> Javascript OO is different from most "traditional OO" languages, but IMO
> it's not necessarily painful or complex, just different.
Damned hard to debug if you ask me. But maybe that was the development
environment I had to use (MetaStorm).
Oliver Townshend
Oliver Townshend
> in this newsgroup?
Probably not, but giving full names lends an air of credibility.
Oliver Townshend
Gbenga
"lior" <lior...@winint.com> wrote:
<<<cut>>>
>In a few days I became a Java developer (Anders Hejlsberg architect both).
James Golsling (or Dr. Gosling) is the architect of Java. He is from Canada. He had his PhD Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, USA in 1983. The rest is history.
Gbenga
Brian Moelk
> Damned hard to debug if you ask me. But maybe that was the development
> environment I had to use (MetaStorm).
Firebug is pretty darn good. It's not perfect, but it is certainly good
enough to debug most Javascript.
--
Brian Moelk
Brain Endeavor LLC
bmo...@NObrainSPAMendeavorFOR.MEcom
Ed
> A once Delphi guru wrote a negative response about Delphi situation.
> I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his opinion
> of Java.
If you need someone's help to write a positive rebuttal, then
you don't really think there is any positive to say about it
in the first place.
Secondly, it's only his opinion. Regardless of what he
used to do for Delphi, people change and it is 'apparent'
that his needs have changed. Since Java works for him,
that's good for him. He's now using a tool which works
well for his situation.
Each tool has its strength and weaknesses. It's all
about learning to maximize the strength and minimize
the weakness effects.
Just my $0.02.
Edmund
lior
Next time I will validate all the facts before quoting someone else
even if I admire him...
Ivan Levashew
>
> That's because it is supported by reality. Commercial products that are
> were abandoning--oops I mean open-sourcing--their libraries, a number of
> people said the same things on the TP newsgroups as you just said, that the
> libraries will now benefit from hundreds or even thousands of developers'
> efforts. What happened is the same thing that almost always happens when
> things get outsourced. They quietly died away without any new development,
> except for Abbrevia which benefited mostly from one person's efforts for a
> while afterward.
>
> Open source projects themselves have an established history of slow
> development, if that. The "hundreds of developers" never materialize, and in
> fact the few open source projects that do manage to produce something useful
> almost always are the beneficiary of a small number of dedicated
> individuals, not an army of engineers. When those individuals move on, those
> projects tend to die.
>
Firebird developers team makes money from implementing new features. You
pay for the feature, they implement it, and results are maid available
to everybody. It works.
Considering amounts of feature requests for what's missing in Delphi,
such a team could live a bit longer.
PL
I think you have a serious problem with the facts on which you base your
opinion. I ran across some similar posts of yours in the past, and the
crown jewel of your arguments is the example of TurboPower.
I'm not familiar with the exact details of that case, and I doubt that
you know all there is to know in order to analyze why there was no
continuation. Anyway TurboPower is just one single example. Sure there
may be other similar examples.
However there are plenty of examples of successful Open Source projects,
including some that were based off of a commercial product: MySQL,
OpenOffice, Firebird, Firefox & Co., Solaris (which is just now picking
up steam as Open Source), and plenty others.
And there's always the annoying fact that Delphi's popularity is
declining, in great part due to stagnation, resentment from long time
supporters over the direction of development, loss of technological
leadership, and of course loss of developers' interest due to competing
FREE platform.
With all respect to CG's efforts to add some features to Delphi, it's
too little too slow. Delphi is not going to spring back to life just
because it's a commercial product. However it MAY spring back to life if
it becomes Open Source.
You and many others seem to miss two major points regarding Open
Sourcing a commercial product:
- Open Sourcing a product does not mean that it becomes free (beer) for
all. The product can remain fully commercial AND be Open Source. See MySQL.
- The company which owns the product does not cease any and all
development. On the contrary, many successful Open Source projects
depend (at least for a while) on the leadership and organization
provided by a company.
What will Codegear/Embarcadero lose from open sourcing Delphi? They give
up nothing business wise. They will give knowledge and freedom to
developers (which costs next to nothing to provide), and in return they
get free work from developers.
At worst there will not be hundreds of developers interested in helping
Delphi. So there will be only a few dozens with itches to scratch
(Wouldn't you peek at the code, just out of curiosity? And if you find
something you can fix or improve, wouldn't you submit a patch?)
On the other hand there IS interest in a community supported Pascal
platform - the existence of FreePascal and Lazarus is proof. Not just
interest but some serious talent as well.
(I know, FreePascal is not up to the level of Delphi, and Lazarus is not
up to the level of the VCL. But both projects achieved impressive level
of capabilities, and continue to improve. In particular FreePascal which
even surpasses Delphi in some respects eg. multiple CPU architecture,
multiple operating systems.)
The bottom line is that CG/EMBC don't give up any commercial right, and
on the other hand they get at least some free work, and a lot of new
interest in Delphi (as a viable platform for students, casual
programmers, freeware and open-source developers).
Where exactly is the problem?
PL.
PL
> Fact is that people who love to use Delphi are not necessarily keen on
> taking care of developing the product and delving deep into the
> compiler, RTL, VCL, etc.
Another mis-conception about open source developers. Most O/S developers
are not "keen on taking care of a product".
Most either get paid (be Red Hat, IBM, Intel etc.) to work on O/S
software, or they are keen on solving their own problems.
When I ran into problems with BiDi support in one of the components I
use, I fixed the code and submitted a patches to the vendors - although
most of those components are not even O/S.
I just want to solve *my* problem, and as I have access to the code I
can do it. It's my interest to submit the fixes to the vendor, because I
don't want to re-patch every new version.
So why open source the code if people contribute anyway? Two reasons:
1. Under some O/S licenses, fixes must be submitted upstream, and not
depend on the good will and/or interest of the developer.
2. Get wider developer base by attracting developers of freeware /
open-source software, which will only use the product if it's free and O/S.
> It might work, if there is a well-organized
> group of dedicated and motivated users with a lot of knowledge and a
> very long breath (and industry support), but it is not guaranteed to.
> Most likely, such a group would not form.
>
> Products like Linux and OpenOffice.org are usually successful because
> of the support of companies and a strictly administered group of
> programmers.
>
There are many examples of successful projects that are not backed by
any company (eg. The Gimp).
However for Delphi the model is certainly a company which manages the
project and provides significant R&D resources, at least for a while.
Many TeamB members will surely contribute to O/S Delphi (well, if they
spend less time on the Newsgroups...)
And if Delphi is as good as we think it can be - there will be many more
who join and contribute.
I, for one.
PL.
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
> Another mis-conception about open source developers. Most O/S
> developers are not "keen on taking care of a product".
>
> Most either get paid (be Red Hat, IBM, Intel etc.) to work on O/S
> software, or they are keen on solving their own problems.
Right, but that means they must delve into the product sources, for
whatever reason. I doubt many people will do (or be able to do) that
for a product like Delphi.
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"A bird in the hand makes it hard to blow your nose."
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
> The expert confused J++ with Java.
Shows how much of an expert he is. That's almost like confusing
JavaScript with Java. <g>
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing
without work." -- Emile Zola (1840-1902)
Kryvich
> Right, but that means they must delve into the product sources, for
> whatever reason. I doubt many people will do (or be able to do) that
> for a product like Delphi.
While it is true for the compiler and other low-level stuff written
in C, I think many Delphi developers are capable to understand VCL,
and create usefull patchs for it.
m. Th.
>
> Where exactly is the problem?
>
I don't know, of course. But it's a fact that in our community the level
of innovation is at low values. I don't see 'many developers' helping
CodeGear with patches, improvements, bug-fixes etc. either in QC either
outside of it. Also, there exists a somewhat self-confidence about the
superiority of Delphi (at least) in some areas which leads to
stagnation. Again, because nowadays our community is formed in most of
its part by (very) experienced programmers with a certain kind of
character they tend to keep their habits (thing which is also good and
bad, depending of POV). And among these habits I hardly see
participation to an open source project like an open-sourced Delphi.
It's way too different. Compare the culture from (F)OSS projects you
mentioned with what we have here.
0.02c++
--
m. th.
m. Th.
>
> Where exactly is the problem?
>
Another problem is that while (F)OSS has (certainly) it's advantages,
the proprietary software has also. FTR, from my POV CD/EMBT should
follow the present distribution model (give the source of VCL, RTL, DBX
and any other piece of code which can pose interest to the great mass of
developers (IDE parts?.... hmmmm...) - also, NO, the compiler source
wouldn't be an interesting code base for Delphi developers, at least
imho). But they should keep the control (strategical decisions /
directions, copyright etc.) of the product. Of course, here is a fine
line between becoming an benefactor or a dictator. Also, because they
are many, a certain democracy can be accomplished. But now imho they
definitely should stimulate the innovation. I know that they are aware
of this, but we'll see how they'll succeed to leverage the community to
push the product forward. Imho, it's the way to go in today market of
programming languages.
HTH,
-----8<-----8<-----8<-----8<-----8<-----8<-----8<-----
References for the ones who ask :-) :
1.) About community leadership
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDFL
(the definition of BDFL)
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/database/soup/archives/the-myth-of-the-benevolent-dictator-18668
(classical article)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar
(classical article)
and nice one(s) written by our compiler engineer :-) :
http://barrkel.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-open-isnt-as-open-as-it-seems-to-be.html
http://barrkel.blogspot.com/2008/05/in-odd-coincidence.html
(this one points to another one written by Jeff Atwood)
2.) About leveraging communities in programming language ecosystems:
- Java (too many links to post)
- Ruby (widely known - I hope)
- Linux / GnuCpp (not ever mention it... too many links to post)
- Python
http://www.python.org/dev/culture/
- D
http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?search_txt=&group=digitalmars.D
here an interesting one at
http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=72230
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/66bynl
- Scala
http://www.scala-lang.org/community/
- Erlang
http://www.erlang.org/mailman/listinfo
- Groovy
http://groovy.codehaus.org/Developer+Guide
and
http://groovy.codehaus.org/Contributing
And an IDE at:
http://community.sharpdevelop.net/forums/
(...of course at IDEs not to mention Eclipse family...)
...can we keep up the pace with the above?
(Btw, should I continue with the examples?)
Just my 2c,
--
m. th.
Thomas Miller
disagree with him. Delphi might be good on the middle tier, but I would
use ASP.Net or even Ruby before Java. Java can do web facing, but it
isn't much easier or better then Delphi. PHP, Ruby, ASP.Net for web
facing.
Thick client, there is nothing better then Delphi, period!!!!!
lior wrote:
> A once Delphi guru wrote a negative response about Delphi situation.
> I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his opinion
> of Java.
> Here is his response translated to English:
> "Is Delphi dying? The answer is no. Delphi died long time ago.
> Window desktop is no longer such an interesting environment.
> Pascal has no advantage over Java script, Java or Python.On the contrary,
> these are much better syntax.
> Delphi has no guarantied patronage. No giant company with money like Sun and
> no open source code community.
> In my opinion the party is over. There are much younger and prettier
> languages around with a rich daddy and a supportive community. We as
> developers have no reason to continue developing in Delphi unless it's about
> maintaining old legacy code.
> In Delphi credit it should be said that it was wonderful. There was no
> language I loved more. It had great influence on Java.
> I never needed to learn Java. I felt the language was a natural evolution of
> Delphi better ideas.
> In a few days I became a Java developer (Anders Hejlsberg architect both).
> This forum will never be as active as it was because it interests less and
> less people.
> I hope you have a successful choice of a modern development environment."
>
>
--
Thomas Miller
Chrome Portal Project Manager
CPCUG Programmers SIG Chairperson (formally Delphi)
Delphi Client/Server Certified Developer
http://programmers.cpcug.org/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/chromeportal/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/uopl/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dbexpressplus
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> Probably not, but giving full names lends an air of credibility.
I suspect his last name is Ilan, and apparently a first name of Lior in
Israel is not uncommon.
Incidentally, there's an excellent musician here in Australia who goes
only by the name "Lior":
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> Incidentally, there's an excellent musician here in Australia who goes
> only by the name "Lior":
>
> http://www.lior.com.au/
..and pronounces it "lee-yore"
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
lior
> Probably not, but giving full names lends an air of credibility.
or inside information.
That expert opinion is just an example to the current trend.
The company I work in stays with Delphi but it's hard to convince others not
to use
Visual Studio for MS-NET or Java, PHP etc for Internet server development.
Their claim is that Delphi is not well suited to all the demands of Internet
development.
lior
>> Incidentally, there's an excellent musician here in Australia who goes
>> only by the name "Lior":
>> http://www.lior.com.au/
> ..and pronounces it "lee-yore"
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Cool. You might perhaps know what my name (David) means <g>
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
Hmmm... more or less like "bearer of light"?
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human
brain." -- Edward De Bono
lior
>
lior
> Cool. You might perhaps know what my name (David) means <g>
>
I found a religious site that compares "David" to the Hebrew word for uncle
"Dod".
They both have the same Hebrew characters.
So David was loved by god like someone is loved by his uncle. :)
(No connection to surfers "Dude")
John Jacobson
"lior" <lior...@winint.com> wrote in message
news:4861...@newsgroups.borland.com...
>
> "> Hard to take this post seriously when it comes from a "lior", doesn't
> give
>> specifics, and the "guru" being quoted is obviously mis-informed (eg.
>> about Hejlsberg having architected Java).
> Ok,the expert confused J++ with Java.Hejlsberg developed J++ not Java.
That's huge mistake. Nobody that is inforned would make such an error.
> As for my name, do you know the details about everyone who participated
> in this newsgroup?
> Do I make a joke of your name jacobson "Son of Jacob" ?
I wouldn't mind. Go right ahead.
John Jacobson
>
>> Probably not, but giving full names lends an air of credibility.
> Personal details are relevant if I was quoting accusations about
> corruption or inside information.
> That expert opinion is just an example to the current trend.
Well, since it is not an expert opinion, you're wrong in at least part of
that sentence.
John Jacobson
news:48621c76$1...@newsgroups.borland.com...
> So why open source the code if people contribute anyway? Two reasons:
>
> 1. Under some O/S licenses, fixes must be submitted upstream, and not
> depend on the good will and/or interest of the developer.
That "must be" is why open sourcing is usually the kiss of death. Most
companies consider their code to be confidential and will NEVER use any
software that requires making fixes or changes public.
>
> 2. Get wider developer base by attracting developers of freeware /
> open-source software, which will only use the product if it's free and
> O/S.
There are a *lot* of people/companies that will stop using it if it is
open-sourced (especially if it gets the usual kiss of death that
accompanies most open-sourcing of commercial software). I suspect it would
soon have no base of developers if open-sourced.
John Jacobson
> John,
>
> I think you have a serious problem with the facts on which you base your
> opinion. I ran across some similar posts of yours in the past, and the
> crown jewel of your arguments is the example of TurboPower.
I bring up TP because the arguments made prior to it's OSing were identical
to your's.
>
> I'm not familiar with the exact details of that case, and I doubt that you
> know all there is to know in order to analyze why there was no
> continuation. Anyway TurboPower is just one single example. Sure there may
> be other similar examples.
Yep. SourceForge is full of them. Most projects there stagnate in 0.x
versions forever, never moving into being a full "product".
>
> However there are plenty of examples of successful Open Source projects,
> including some that were based off of a commercial product: MySQL,
> OpenOffice, Firebird, Firefox & Co., Solaris (which is just now picking up
> steam as Open Source), and plenty others.
Actually, there are only a few--you've already listed most of them. And if
you look into the way these are being developed, you will see that they were
lucky enough to benefit from a few energetic individuals, even the ones that
list hundreds of "contributors" are usually just the favorite child of one
or two super-programmers that have an interest in them for whatever reason.
> And there's always the annoying fact that Delphi's popularity is
> declining, in great part due to stagnation, resentment from long time
> supporters over the direction of development, loss of technological
> leadership, and of course loss of developers' interest due to competing
> FREE platform.
C# is not really free, neither is Visual Studio in it's most useful
incarnation.
>
> With all respect to CG's efforts to add some features to Delphi, it's too
> little too slow. Delphi is not going to spring back to life just because
> it's a commercial product. However it MAY spring back to life if it
> becomes Open Source.
Very doubtful. Compiler experts almost never contribute their time and
effort to free open source software.
>
> You and many others seem to miss two major points regarding Open Sourcing
> a commercial product:
>
> - Open Sourcing a product does not mean that it becomes free (beer) for
> all. The product can remain fully commercial AND be Open Source. See
> MySQL.
I'd rather see all the examples of companies that thought they were going to
make a profit on open source software but instead are actually having
financial difficulties. There seem to be a lot more of those.
>
> - The company which owns the product does not cease any and all
> development. On the contrary, many successful Open Source projects depend
> (at least for a while) on the leadership and organization provided by a
> company.
Not many, just some. And they are idiosyncratic.
>
> What will Codegear/Embarcadero lose from open sourcing Delphi? They give
> up nothing business wise.
Except almost all of their revenue and any long-term competitive advantage
they might have.
> They will give knowledge and freedom to developers (which costs next to
> nothing to provide), and in return they get free work from developers.
It is not free work. Reintegrating, monitoring, organizing, allocating,
testing and designing code takes a lot of resources even if the developers
(stupidly) work for free.
>
> At worst there will not be hundreds of developers interested in helping
> Delphi. So there will be only a few dozens with itches to scratch
> (Wouldn't you peek at the code, just out of curiosity? And if you find
> something you can fix or improve, wouldn't you submit a patch?)
>
> On the other hand there IS interest in a community supported Pascal
> platform - the existence of FreePascal and Lazarus is proof. Not just
> interest but some serious talent as well.
Actually they are proof that OSS doesn't work.
>
> (I know, FreePascal is not up to the level of Delphi, and Lazarus is not
> up to the level of the VCL. But both projects achieved impressive level of
> capabilities, and continue to improve.
I don't think they are impressive, sorry.
> In particular FreePascal which even surpasses Delphi in some respects eg.
> multiple CPU architecture, multiple operating systems.)
>
> The bottom line is that CG/EMBC don't give up any commercial right, and on
> the other hand they get at least some free work, and a lot of new interest
> in Delphi (as a viable platform for students, casual programmers, freeware
> and open-source developers).
>
> Where exactly is the problem?
The problem seems to be in the low level of understanding of economics
implicit in your arguments. It is not free work, and anyone who has ever
looked at the economics of software development will easily see that. The
main impediment to most software projects is not the fact that the software
developers get paid to work on it, nor that the code is confidential, it is
that it is very difficult to manage software developers and software
development. The main costs of developing software are not the developers'
salaries, it is the problems inherent in communicating clearly between team
members, getting the design right, testing, debugging and QAing, and the
difficulty of doing proper design and accommodating changes to the design
over time. None of these economic costs are lower with open source, in fact
many of them are far worse. You say that you get the work of "hundreds" of
programmers "for free", but what you fail to see is that one's competitors
are also getting all that work for "free" in addition to the work of the
programmers that made the product before it went Open Source--but they are
not having to pay the high economic cost of coordinating all those
programmers.
It is the difficulty of doing proper design that seems to plague most OSS.
Look at Linux as a perfect example. That OS is not nearly as well designed
as Windows XP--it is a piece of crap that most PC users will never even try
to use. The only OSS that seems well-designed is Firefox.
But even if one were to dismiss all this, there remain significant technical
barriers to a successful open-sourcing of Delphi. The IDE code is written in
several different languages that are not available in free IDE's. Several
sections of the code are copyrighted and/or are the proprietary code of
third-parties. There are several patents associated with the code. Etc.
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
> > Hmmm... more or less like "bearer of light"?
> >
> Mybe Illuminated. Or means light Li means something like "To me"
Well, I meant another word. <g>
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
"If people can judge me on the company I keep, they would judge
me with keeping really good company with Laura."
-- George W. Bush
lior
>> "lior" wrote in message
>> That expert opinion is just an example to the current trend.
>
> Well, since it is not an expert opinion, you're wrong in at least part of
> that sentence.
users
to VS,Ruby,PHP,JAVA etc.I know some of the reasons where Borland instability
and
Competitor's prices. But there is the claim that Delphi can't be used to
develop
all layers of Internet. I hope future versions of Delphi will answer the
needs of these
Developers.
"Leonardo M. Ramé"
>> layers of Internet.
Well, server side, practically any language allows you to create servers
(for Web, Email, Ftp, and anything you want), with Delphi is very easy,
and it will work faster than Java or C#, simply because it doesn't rely
on a software layer such as a virtual machine. Also it work faster than
interpreted languages like Php, Python or Ruby, because Delphi is a
compiled language (code is compiled into machine language, nothing is
faster than that).
On the Client side of the Internet, with delphi you can connect to any
kind of server using sockets, so you can create Email, Web, Ftp clients.
If you are talking about Web client side, all browsers uses Html, Css
and JavaScript. You can generate these from your Delphi web server to be
processed by the browser.
The only problem is that Delphi programs doesn't run on other OS's. But
you can compile to other OS's/processors with some changes using
FreePascal. Also you can run your programs using Wine without any
modification.
Leonardo M. Ramé
http://leonardorame.blogspot.com
Alessandro Federici
news:4863...@newsgroups.borland.com...
[..]
> C# is not really free
Says who?
David Clegg
> Cool. You might perhaps know what my name (David) means <g>
<jumps up and down furiously>
Pick me! Pick me!
--
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
"I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city,
keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would
explode. I think it was called, 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down.' " -
Homer Simpson
willr
> A once Delphi guru wrote a negative response about Delphi situation.
> I need your help in writing a positive one.Especially regarding his opinion
> of Java.
i.e "Delphi is dead"
See Mark Twains response to a similar rumor.
--
Will R
PMC Consulting
Yorai Aminov (TeamB)
> He was one of the devolopers of the hebrew and arabic support
> package for Delphi 3. (His DBGrid included BidiMode support per
> column.Not just for the Grid like the curret version).
Are you referring to the Hebrew components from
http://www.comprise.co.il/hebrew.htm, or custom components? If the
former, I remember them well, and I can't say they alone justify a
"guru" status.
--
Yorai Aminov (TeamB)
(TeamB cannot answer questions received via email.)
Shorter Path - http://www.shorterpath.com
Yorai's Page - http://www.yoraispage.com
Chad Z. Hower aka Kudzu
> But most C# developers seem to be using the pro and up versions of VS.
Most people making a living developing do use pro or higher, usually via
MSDN. However there are a LOT, and I mean a LOT of Express users. Many more
than I could ever have imagined. Microsoft does not release the numbers, but
they are huge. In addition projects like Cosmos (www.gocosmos.org) we are
seeing a very large number of users using Express. Cosmos is open source so
you would expect this because we have students etc, but still the numbers
are much higher than I expected.
John Jacobson
"Alessandro Federici" <afed...@no.spam.codysystems.com> wrote in message
> "John Jacobson" <jake@j[nospam]snewsreader.com> wrote in message
> news:4863...@newsgroups.borland.com...
>
> [..]
>> C# is not really free
>
> Says who?
Well, yeah, I suppose people could use the express versions of VS for C#.
Yorai Aminov (TeamB)
> Cool. You might perhaps know what my name (David) means <g>
The name David is not a proper Hebrew word, and its etymology isn't
quite clear. Only one person in the Bible has that name, and unlike
some other names (e.g. Sarah), the text provides no explanation or
meaning.
Semitic languages are based on triliteral consonantal roots. In
Hebrew, David is spelled DWD. Unfortunately, the middle consonant, W,
is also considered a vowel, and is not usually found in such roots.
Based on other, similar roots, some people believe the name is
related to words meaning "friend", "loved one", or "uncle" (oh, and
also "breast", but I'll save this one for Cleggy), and therefore
assume it means "beloved", but there's little or no actual evidence
supporting this hypothesis.
In other words, your name, like mine, has no known meaning other than
"the name of a person mentioned in the Bible".
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> assume it means "beloved", but there's little or no actual evidence
> supporting this hypothesis.
Bummer <g>
> In other words, your name, like mine, has no known meaning other than
> "the name of a person mentioned in the Bible".
There's a Yorai in the Bible? <g>
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> > In other words, your name, like mine, has no known meaning other
> > than "the name of a person mentioned in the Bible".
>
> There's a Yorai in the Bible? <g>
I should have known that was a silly question. Chronicles I, 5:13
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
Yorai Aminov (TeamB)
> There's a Yorai in the Bible? <g>
Just the one. Slightly different spelling (Jorai):
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bible%2C_King_James%2C_1_Chronicles#Chap
ter_5
Tim Jarvis
> But these are only dreams. Apparently the people who control Delphi's
> fate will rather see it die than release it as Open Source.
What a load of rubbish.
--
Captain Jake <jake@[nospam]jsnewsreader.com
> I have no idea who George Carlin is.
Too bad. He was one of the best comedians in history.
--
***Free Your Mind***
Posted with JSNewsreader Preview 0.9.7.3773
David Clegg
> > assume it means "beloved", but there's little or no actual evidence
> > supporting this hypothesis.
>
> Bummer <g>
Nah, all this means is that we get to define what David means. So I
officially decree that from this day forth, David shall mean "He who is
unrivaled in programming skills, good looks, charm, humour, and
humility".
:-)
--
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
"Heh Heh Heh! Lisa! Vampires are make believe, just like elves and
gremlins and eskimos." - Homer Simpson
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB]
> Nah, all this means is that we get to define what David means. So I
> officially decree that from this day forth, David shall mean "He who
> is unrivaled in programming skills, good looks, charm, humour, and
> humility".
Goes to show that a name only reflects what the parents hoped their kid
would turn out to be. It's like calling your kid Amadeus or Albert. <g>
--
Rudy Velthuis [TeamB] http://www.teamb.com
Customer: "I'm running Windows '95."
Tech: "Yes."
Customer: "My computer isn't working now."
Tech: "Yes, you said that."
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
> Nah, all this means is that we get to define what David means. So I
> officially decree that from this day forth, David shall mean "He who
> is unrivaled in programming skills, good looks, charm, humour, and
> humility".
How can I argue with that? <g>
--
Dave Nottage [TeamB]
PL
>> However there are plenty of examples of successful Open Source projects,
>> including some that were based off of a commercial product: MySQL,
>> OpenOffice, Firebird, Firefox & Co., Solaris (which is just now picking up
>> steam as Open Source), and plenty others.
>
> Actually, there are only a few--you've already listed most of them. And if
Sorry, but the facts are different.
> you look into the way these are being developed, you will see that they were
> lucky enough to benefit from a few energetic individuals, even the ones that
> list hundreds of "contributors" are usually just the favorite child of one
> or two super-programmers that have an interest in them for whatever reason.
That's the idea of open source development. Some people do a lot of
work, some make only small contributions in order to solve specific
problems that bother them. I don't see where is the problem with this model.
>> And there's always the annoying fact that Delphi's popularity is
>> declining, in great part due to stagnation, resentment from long time
>> supporters over the direction of development, loss of technological
>> leadership, and of course loss of developers' interest due to competing
>> FREE platform.
>
> C# is not really free, neither is Visual Studio in it's most useful
> incarnation.
Whether C# is free or not (actually it is), does not contradict the fact
that Delphi is declining.
Your argument (if it was factually correct) implies that Delphi should
compete with C# because that model "works". Well, new break: Delphi is
trying to compete and losing all the way.
>> With all respect to CG's efforts to add some features to Delphi, it's too
>> little too slow. Delphi is not going to spring back to life just because
>> it's a commercial product. However it MAY spring back to life if it
>> becomes Open Source.
>
> Very doubtful. Compiler experts almost never contribute their time and
> effort to free open source software.
Facts are actually different - GCC, FreePascal and many many others.
Many of them also happen to be among the best in their respective classes.
>> You and many others seem to miss two major points regarding Open Sourcing
>> a commercial product:
>>
>> - Open Sourcing a product does not mean that it becomes free (beer) for
>> all. The product can remain fully commercial AND be Open Source. See
>> MySQL.
>
> I'd rather see all the examples of companies that thought they were going to
> make a profit on open source software but instead are actually having
> financial difficulties. There seem to be a lot more of those.
Just to remind you again that financial difficulties is the current path
of Delphi.
>> - The company which owns the product does not cease any and all
>> development. On the contrary, many successful Open Source projects depend
>> (at least for a while) on the leadership and organization provided by a
>> company.
>
> Not many, just some. And they are idiosyncratic.
Just because you say so?
>> What will Codegear/Embarcadero lose from open sourcing Delphi? They give
>> up nothing business wise.
>
> Except almost all of their revenue and any long-term competitive advantage
> they might have.
Why?
>> They will give knowledge and freedom to developers (which costs next to
>> nothing to provide), and in return they get free work from developers.
>
> It is not free work.
It certainly is free work.
I find a bug, I fix it, I submit a patch so that I don't have to
re-apply the fix in the future. I solved *my* problem, and Delphi got a
free bug fix.
> Reintegrating, monitoring, organizing, allocating,
> testing and designing code takes a lot of resources
That's true even in a closed development environment, and the same
problems apply when hiring new developers. Assuming hiring more
developers to work on Delphi is good, why not hire them at near-zero cost?
> even if the developers (stupidly) work for free.
I think this is the root of your resentment of open source software. You
just don't understand why should anyone work for "free".
I can't find any better way to explain why O/S developers don't really
work for free, and actually only serve their own interests.
>> On the other hand there IS interest in a community supported Pascal
>> platform - the existence of FreePascal and Lazarus is proof. Not just
>> interest but some serious talent as well.
>
> Actually they are proof that OSS doesn't work.
Disregarding facts, of course.
> The problem seems to be in the low level of understanding of economics
> implicit in your arguments.
I think that actually you fail to get the low level of economics. Let
developers help you at no cost, rather than hire them for high cost.
Can't get simpler than that.
> It is not free work, and anyone who has ever
> looked at the economics of software development will easily see that. The
> main impediment to most software projects is not the fact that the software
> developers get paid to work on it, nor that the code is confidential, it is
> that it is very difficult to manage software developers and software
> development. The main costs of developing software are not the developers'
> salaries, it is the problems inherent in communicating clearly between team
> members, getting the design right, testing, debugging and QAing, and the
Suppose you're right (not entirely but never mind).
There are open source projects by orders of magnitude bigger than
Delphi, and they already solved all those problems. You might dislike
Linux (we'll get to that in a minute), but the fact is that it's a huge
projects that runs pretty much smooth.
The fact that for Delphi there is a commercial entity which manages the
project, only means there are less problems than independent projects.
> It is the difficulty of doing proper design that seems to plague most OSS.
> Look at Linux as a perfect example. That OS is not nearly as well designed
> as Windows XP--it is a piece of crap that most PC users will never even try
> to use. The only OSS that seems well-designed is Firefox.
Once again, the problem with facts. Ask O/S designers which is better
designed, WXP or Linux, and you'll be surprised.
Linux is a better server O/S, as it was designed after Unix, which was a
server O/S. Throughout the years Linux become more and more general
purpose, and today it's easier to adapt Linux to anything from a biggest
super-computers, to the smallest system-on-a-chip. If that's not good
design then probably there isn't such thing as good design.
Non of the Windows family of OSes comes even close to that.
> But even if one were to dismiss all this, there remain significant technical
> barriers to a successful open-sourcing of Delphi. The IDE code is written in
> several different languages that are not available in free IDE's. Several
> sections of the code are copyrighted and/or are the proprietary code of
> third-parties. There are several patents associated with the code. Etc.
That's probably the first fact based argument.
True, there may be problems to solve. But maybe they can be solved and
the cost isn't high.
Eyal.
Dave Keighan
> > from this day forth, David shall mean "He who
> > is unrivaled in programming skills, good looks, charm, humour, and
> > humility".
>
> How can I argue with that? <g>
You just can't ! Sounds pretty accurate to me.
--
Dave
Delphinian
> noticably absent from JIT environments like Java or .NET.
You have references (implicit pointers), so what do you miss which gives
you more power?
David Clegg
> > How can I argue with that? <g>
>
> You just can't ! Sounds pretty accurate to me.
Motion carried :-D
--
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
"Note to self. Stop doing anything." - Homer Simpson
lior
> http://www.comprise.co.il/hebrew.htm, or custom components? If the
> former, I remember them well, and I can't say they alone justify a
> "guru" status.
>
There where some problems with Bidi implementations since Delphi 4.
For example Grid Column Bidi support disappeared.its now only at Grid level.
Label alignment is left when it should be right.Keyboard language switching
etc.
I should have written "expert". A programmer I worked with attended a course
he
Gave about Delphi and very pleased.
Captain Jake <jake@[nospam]jsnewsreader.com
> John Jacobson wrote:
> > you look into the way these are being developed, you will see that they were
> > lucky enough to benefit from a few energetic individuals, even the ones that
> > list hundreds of "contributors" are usually just the favorite child of one
> > or two super-programmers that have an interest in them for whatever reason.
>
> That's the idea of open source development. Some people do a lot of
> work, some make only small contributions in order to solve specific
> problems that bother them. I don't see where is the problem with this model.
Nobody does the part that nobody likes, like writing help and manuals, doing
usability testing, use cases for non-technical users, etc. AND when the one or
two busy-bodies get interested in something else, the project dies right then
and there. Seriously flawed model.
> > Very doubtful. Compiler experts almost never contribute their time and
> > effort to free open source software.
>
> Facts are actually different - GCC, FreePascal and many many others.
> Many of them also happen to be among the best in their respective classes.
GCC maybe. There don't seem to be "many many others".
> > I'd rather see all the examples of companies that thought they were going to
> > make a profit on open source software but instead are actually having
> > financial difficulties. There seem to be a lot more of those.
>
> Just to remind you again that financial difficulties is the current path
> of Delphi.
No, it was the recent path of Delphi, the buyout solved that particular
problem, though I'm waiting to see what happens with the rest of Delphi'as
market problems.
> > Except almost all of their revenue and any long-term competitive advantage
> > they might have.
>
> Why?
Because giving away your best seller is 100% guaranteed to destroy most of your
revenue. That's the simple truth of the matter that Open Source religionists
seem to ignore.
>
> >> They will give knowledge and freedom to developers (which costs next to
> >> nothing to provide), and in return they get free work from developers.
> >
> > It is not free work.
>
> It certainly is free work.
>
> I find a bug, I fix it, I submit a patch so that I don't have to
> re-apply the fix in the future. I solved *my* problem, and Delphi got a
> free bug fix.
Nonsense. What really happens here is more like this:
1) programmer doing this project in his spare time finds what he thinks is a
bug, according to his individual needs for the project.2) programmer thinks he
fixes bug 3) programmer submits his "fix"
4) others find that other things are now broken, according to their individual
needs for the project.
Why does it happen like this? Because open source projects don't have the
resources to research the actual abilities of their participants, nor do the
participants have the incentive to test the parts of the project that don't
interest them, so you end up with what in economic terms is extremely
expensive. People who are naive about economics, and confuse it with
accounting, might think the project is getting "free" work from the
participants, simply because no cash or checks change hands. But the reality is
that the economic costs (time, effort, the value of the next best alternative
uses of that time and effort) are incredibly high.
>
> > Reintegrating, monitoring, organizing, allocating,
> > testing and designing code takes a lot of resources
>
> That's true even in a closed development environment, and the same
> problems apply when hiring new developers. Assuming hiring more
> developers to work on Delphi is good, why not hire them at near-zero cost?
First, it is not true that more is necessarily better. I'd rather have a
handful of highly-skilled senior software engineers working a project full-time
than a hundred middle-of-the-road programmers just out of school. Second, as I
have mentioned before, they are not zero-cost, or even near-zero-cost.
>
> > even if the developers (stupidly) work for free.
>
> I think this is the root of your resentment of open source software. You
> just don't understand why should anyone work for "free".
>
> I can't find any better way to explain why O/S developers don't really
> work for free, and actually only serve their own interests.
Oh, I'm sure there are all sorts of psychological reasons why programmers might
work for "free". They might get an ego boost from their role on the project,
they might want to do at least some coding outside of the 9-5 rat race, they
might firmly believe that the "Bazaar" is a better place to be than the
"Cathedral", or they might have philosophical reasons for working in a type of
non-financial environment. But no matter what their individual reason for it
is, they are undercutting the software development profession by working for
free.
>
> >> On the other hand there IS interest in a community supported Pascal
> >> platform - the existence of FreePascal and Lazarus is proof. Not just
> >> interest but some serious talent as well.
> >
> > Actually they are proof that OSS doesn't work.
>
> Disregarding facts, of course.
No, all you have to do is look at the length of time it has taken them to get
to a product that is even close to what is available commercially.
>
> > The problem seems to be in the low level of understanding of economics
> > implicit in your arguments.
>
> I think that actually you fail to get the low level of economics. Let
> developers help you at no cost, rather than hire them for high cost.
> Can't get simpler than that.
That's not low cost in economic terms, that is low cost in accounting terms.
You keep confusing the two.
>
> > It is not free work, and anyone who has ever
> > looked at the economics of software development will easily see that. The
> > main impediment to most software projects is not the fact that the software
> > developers get paid to work on it, nor that the code is confidential, it is
> > that it is very difficult to manage software developers and software
> > development. The main costs of developing software are not the developers'
> > salaries, it is the problems inherent in communicating clearly between team
> > members, getting the design right, testing, debugging and QAing, and the
>
> Suppose you're right (not entirely but never mind).
>
> There are open source projects by orders of magnitude bigger than
> Delphi, and they already solved all those problems. You might dislike
> Linux (we'll get to that in a minute), but the fact is that it's a huge
> projects that runs pretty much smooth.
It is a dictatorship, so it appears to run very smooth for those that don't
have different needs than the dictator. It doesn't work t all for others. Danny
Thorpe was a good example of someone for whom it did not run at all when he was
tasked with Kylix. The Linux project also doesn't run at all for most PC users.
> > It is the difficulty of doing proper design that seems to plague most OSS.
> > Look at Linux as a perfect example. That OS is not nearly as well designed
> > as Windows XP--it is a piece of crap that most PC users will never even try
> > to use. The only OSS that seems well-designed is Firefox.
>
> Once again, the problem with facts. Ask O/S designers which is better
> designed, WXP or Linux, and you'll be surprised.
Why would I ask O/S designers how well an operating system is designed? Only
the end users count when it comes to judging design. And Linux failed that test
miserably so far.
>
> Linux is a better server O/S, as it was designed after Unix, which was a
> server O/S. Throughout the years Linux become more and more general
> purpose, and today it's easier to adapt Linux to anything from a biggest
> super-computers, to the smallest system-on-a-chip. If that's not good
> design then probably there isn't such thing as good design.
It is not good design overall, it is just good design for a very limited, very
specific purpose. Linux is very poorly designed for what most PC users need
from an operating system. That's why nobody but Linux insiders were surprised
when all the hoopla about Linux giving Windows a run for it's money on the
desktop died with Linux suffering ignominious defeat several year ago.
>
> Non of the Windows family of OSes comes even close to that.
Actually, plenty of large computers and plenty of compact systems run a Windows
operating system. To say that none of the Windows operating systems come close
to Linux in usability on servers is just plain silly.
>
> > But even if one were to dismiss all this, there remain significant technical
> > barriers to a successful open-sourcing of Delphi. The IDE code is written in
> > several different languages that are not available in free IDE's. Several
> > sections of the code are copyrighted and/or are the proprietary code of
> > third-parties. There are several patents associated with the code. Etc.
>
> That's probably the first fact based argument.
> True, there may be problems to solve. But maybe they can be solved and
> the cost isn't high.
That would be a first.
--
***Free Your Mind***
Posted with JSNewsreader Preview 0.9.7.3788
Rick Carter
>>
>> I think this is the root of your resentment of open source software. You
>> just don't understand why should anyone work for "free".
>is, they are undercutting the software development profession by working for
>free.
Any programmer/analyst who is reasonably flexible and creative will have no
problem finding work. I don't see where open source software has made it
impossible for anybody competent to continue to stay employed.
Disclaimer: Easy for me to say, since I'm admittedly an Engineering
Technician who does some programming.
Otherwise, I do agree with just about everything Jake said, and I think
he's said it better than I can.
Open source software has given us some good and valuable stuff (as well as
at least a dozen times more half-finished and abandoned stuff), but it's
not the answer for everything. And I don't think CodeGear ought to be
open sourcing the things that are bringing them income.
Rick Carter
cart...@despammed.com
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG, Cincinnati PC Users Group
--- posted by geoForum on http://delphi.newswhat.com