Goodbye VB - Hello Delphi
VBNoMore
Despite all the neat new features promised, I came to a conclusion that its
not going in the direction that I would have hoped. After developing apps in
VB since its still ver 1.0 BETA back in the 1990, I kept promising myself
that one day...some day I will learn another more advanced tool. It was the
details and the general direction of the .NET initiatives that finally
convinced me to fulfill my promise.
At that stage I considered myself to be an advanced VB developer, constantly
using Win API (graphics/network/system/shell/etc) to do almost all of the
programming task in VB6 to make it fly. Advanced in VB6 aside, I did not
however know one iota of Pascal, C++, Java or anything else.
MS .NET got me pondering deeply, do I want to continue to learn, master, and
then constantly hardwiring this supposedly new tool, or should I just open
up my mind and learn a new tool that has all the features I have always
wanted.
The features that I have always wanted are Fast compiler, Multithreading,
Static- linking. Having been c++ performance envy all this years, I was set
search for a tool that can run neck to neck with c++. So to make long story
short, I've made up my mind: Delphi it is.
After spending 2 weeks getting familiar with the Delphi environment and the
ObectPascal language, I spent the next 3 months rewritting our graphic apps
from VB6 to Delphi 5. Although I had some doubt initially as to whether
there will be a significant increase in terms of performance and efficiency
of the app, the result was really encouraging. The app now runs at top speed
never achieved before, memory usage drops to one third, a lot fewer handles
and gdi objects are used.
Now that Delphi has proved to be an EXCELLENT development tool, new
possibilities open up, roads that seemed blocked before suddenly clear up.
If Delphi is this good, then I begin to wonder if my next 10 years will be
spent with it. Well c++ would have to wait for another decade then.
FYI
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
very few people that admit having gone the other way, and even then usually
only because of circumstances.
> Having been c++ performance envy all this years, I was set
> search for a tool that can run neck to neck with c++. So to make long
story
> short, I've made up my mind: Delphi it is.
If you can spare the time, I would still learn some C++. It will help you
compare two popular OO langauges, as well as give you access to a lot of
source code to pilfer. Delphi and C++ represent two schools of thought on OO
language design, although C++ adherents will make you believe that anything
that doesn't behave like C++ isn't OO.
> I spent the next 3 months rewritting our graphic apps
> from VB6 to Delphi 5. [...] The app now runs at top speed
> never achieved before, memory usage drops to one third, a lot fewer
handles
> and gdi objects are used.
What were you doing programming graphics in VB anyway? That's just plain
silly <g>. Delphi will give you orders of magnitude more performance for GDI
stuff, although, if absolute top performance is necessary, nothing beats
straight API.
> Now that Delphi has proved to be an EXCELLENT development tool, new
> possibilities open up, roads that seemed blocked before suddenly clear up.
> If Delphi is this good, then I begin to wonder if my next 10 years will be
> spent with it. Well c++ would have to wait for another decade then.
If it survives that long as a top language. In another ten years it might be
just one of many equally important and relevant languages. Of course, in ten
years programs will write themselves, so we won't have to anymore.
Uwe W. Radu
Sebastian Moleski (SurakWare)
> language design, although C++ adherents will make you believe that
anything
> that doesn't behave like C++ isn't OO.
I have read that. <g>
sm
VBNoMore
> > from VB6 to Delphi 5. [...] The app now runs at top speed
> > never achieved before, memory usage drops to one third, a lot fewer
> handles
> > and gdi objects are used.
>
> What were you doing programming graphics in VB anyway? That's just plain
> silly <g>. Delphi will give you orders of magnitude more performance for
GDI
> stuff, although, if absolute top performance is necessary, nothing beats
> straight API.
>
Well the VB app was practically almost straight API, using the
forms/controls as nothing more than HDCs. All the fastest GDI APIs
(bitblt,dibsection,etc..) have been utilized, still the Delphi app
(employing the same techniques/non VCL) is faster. At least that should
serve as good example for VB programmers who try to compensate for VB's
defficiency by using Win API. It's simply better in Delphi!
Disassimilated VB drone.
Greg Lorriman
--
Marvellous freeware tools at
http://www.lorriman.demon.co.uk
Miha Markic
> forms/controls as nothing more than HDCs. All the fastest GDI APIs
> (bitblt,dibsection,etc..) have been utilized, still the Delphi app
> (employing the same techniques/non VCL) is faster.
Why should be calling of API's faster? Even if it is faster non relevant in
comparision of an API execution time (mostly).
At least that should
> serve as good example for VB programmers who try to compensate for VB's
> defficiency by using Win API. It's simply better in Delphi!
Sure. Some things are better in Delphi, some are not.
Miha
Small Fish
You'll find the majority of this community very helpful and open-minded.
Discussions of other languanges, platforms, etc. in the appropriate
newsgroups are common.
-Sen
Deepak Shenoy
Delphi links directly to the DLL that the API is contained in. In VB, the
API call is routed through MSVBVM60.DLL. Delphi's call is bound to be
faster, no matter what.
--
Deepak Shenoy
Agni Software
http://www.agnisoft.com
damian marquez
They raise the spirit to start the day with a smile... don't they?
Dominique Willems
news:3a769f6c$1_1@dnews...
>
> "Greg Lorriman" <greg_l...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> >I just loooooove conversion stories!
> >
>
> They raise the spirit to start the day with a smile... don't they?
No no no no no and NO! No more conversions, PLEASE! I want to be the ONLY one who
develops in Delphi, for crying out loud! I keep recommending VB big time to all my
competitors.
Sometimes, I just don't get you guys....
Sigh,
Dom
Kristofer Skaug
news:955bsi$o9...@bornews.inprise.com...
> Now that Delphi has proved to be an EXCELLENT development tool, new
> possibilities open up, roads that seemed blocked before suddenly
clear up.
> If Delphi is this good, then I begin to wonder if my next 10 years
will be
> spent with it. Well c++ would have to wait for another decade then.
Welcome to Delphi!
BTW, feel free to use your own name in this newsgroup - I do and the
resultant spam risk is negligible (I've not even an anti-spam measures
in my e-mail address but get spammed only about once a month on the
average.
If you prefer to stay anonymous then at least might I suggest
"DelphiConvert" as a more positive name than "VBNoMore"! <g>
Kristofer
Marcos Didonet Del Fabro
Now we have a philosophic question:
Do you want to be the only one who uses Delphi and:
- have the advantage of using a very good RAD tool and deliver applications
faster and better than your competitors or
- use a RAD tool that MAYBE has less business opportunities, so you
might be without a job in the future...
Which one is correct??? (I am betting on the first one)
Marcos.
Dominique Willems wrote:
> "damian marquez" <dmarq...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3a769f6c$1_1@dnews...
> >
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
> No no no no no and NO! No more conversions, PLEASE! I want to be the ONLY one who
> develops in Delphi
Too late. <g>
--
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB) http://delphi-jedi.org
Dominique Willems
> Which one is correct??? (I am betting on the first one)
"Business opportunities" improve for me as long as the competition keeps using VB.
:) I am perfectly happy with the current one million users and am not longing for
my neighbour to come and show me his Delphi code.
Kill the marketing department, stop the advertising, and make all developers swear
to secrecy. :)
ACTUALLY, publishing an ad with the above line WOULD be very good publicity.
Cheers,
Dom
Chad L.
> Despite all the neat new features promised, I came to a conclusion that
its
> not going in the direction that I would have hoped. After developing apps
in
Welcome to Delphi. Your story is close to my story as well. I was also a
long time VB user, not as long as you were though, I picked up VB at Version
3.0. Through all the versions of VB I kept waiting for features that I and
other VB'ers wanted. Of course most of those features Microsoft never
added. Now VB.NET showed up on the doorstep. I evaluated VB.NET and was
thoughly disgusted with what I seen. Yeah, now I had most of the features I
wanted, but at what price? Too high a price if you ask me. I made the
switch to Delphi and haven't looked back since. Its a move I should have
made a while back.
Chad
Trey Weaver
Trey
"VBNoMore" <groupm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:955bsi$o9...@bornews.inprise.com...
James Presley
> Well, congratulations for escaping the Borg. <
You are a very funny guy Uwe. HeHe. That is really good <G>. Mind if I use
it?
James Presley
news:3a76af3b$1_2@dnews...
resultant spam risk is negligible (I've not even an anti-spam measures in my
e-mail address but get spammed only about once a month on the
average <
But it takes just one pass for a spammer to harvest all the names (and put
them on CDs for distribution to all his fellow rascals). Right?
(I use my real address while at work because I'm here on a contract. The
mailbox disappears pretty soon. Otherwise I would bash the return address to
discourage easy use.)
AlisdairM
> If you can spare the time, I would still learn some C++. It will help you
> compare two popular OO langauges, as well as give you access to a lot of
> source code to pilfer. Delphi and C++ represent two schools of thought on OO
> language design, although C++ adherents will make you believe that anything
> that doesn't behave like C++ isn't OO.
Or rather, if you can spare *a lot of time* then learn C++. As a
language it looks deceptively familiar, once you have learned any other
OO language. However, there are many subtleties that are often
dismissed while learning that really do matter once you start serious
development.
By all means glance at C++, and notice the simililarities/differences.
An extra perspective always helps. But don't expect to learn it in less
than six months.
But if you do give it a shot, expect to *think* you know it within a
couple of weeks!
Despite the above, C++ is still my language of choice. It is simply a
lot more complex than it first appears, and that complexity haunts even
the simple projects. It is also what makes it 'better' (my opinon,
yours will very likely differ!) for large, complex projects.
AlisdairM
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> lot more complex than it first appears, and that complexity haunts even
> the simple projects. It is also what makes it 'better' (my opinon,
> yours will very likely differ!) for large, complex projects.
It's both its great strength and its downfall. While it has very rich
expressivity, it has so many--often visually ambiguous--semantics that it's
easy to write subtly faulty code. I used to love C++, but I've started to
prefer languages that have more explicit semantics and if possible only one
way of doing one thing. For example, the pre- and post-incrementation are
really quite unnecessary for anything but saving some typing. Productivity
is not gained from that one less line of code.
But this isn't meant to be a knockdown of C++. Those who love it do so with
good reason, and those who love OP do so likewise.
--
Uwe W. Radu
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> API call is routed through MSVBVM60.DLL. Delphi's call is bound to be
> faster, no matter what.
Correct. Besides, depending on how the VB code is compiled, there can be
overhead in simply calling a DLL function.
--
Uwe W. Radu
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
--
Uwe W. Radu
Miguel Victor
Chad L.
> Rudy? Say something!
heh, heh. I too was waiting for Rudy to post. Glad to see I wasn't the
only person to notice :-)
Chad
David Farrell-Garcia
would be my choice. Delphi shines when using the VCL. This provides
protection against new versions of Windows that might break your API calls.
So, if you can stand a slight performance degradation, by using the VCL,
then your APP may enjoy a longer life without serious rewrite. I have an old
D1 (very large app) that was written on and for Windows 3.1 and the same D1
application is being run now by some of our customers on Windows 2000! That
could not have been accomplished without the VCL. So it is our policy to
never call the API directly unless we absolutely have to, and even then we
will isolate that bit of code in a .dll or package so it can be unplugged
and replaced, if necessary.
VBNoMore <groupm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:955bsi$o9...@bornews.inprise.com...
Frank Villafane
actually look forward to your next project <g>; not to mention the collective
"slap on the back" you'll receive from all the ex-VBer's who've been where you
are.
Steve Griffiths
> forms/controls as nothing more than HDCs. All the fastest GDI APIs
> (bitblt,dibsection,etc..) have been utilized, still the Delphi app
> (employing the same techniques/non VCL) is faster. At least that should
> serve as good example for VB programmers who try to compensate for VB's
> defficiency by using Win API. It's simply better in Delphi!
IIRC, Delphi caches device contexts....
Steve Griffiths
Mark Reichert
> If it survives that long as a top language. In another ten years it might
be
> just one of many equally important and relevant languages. Of course, in
ten
> years programs will write themselves, so we won't have to anymore.
I would prefer that would happen after I retire.<g>
--
Please respond only in the newsgroup. I will not respond
to newsgroup messages by e-mail.
Kristofer Skaug
news:3a76c4f4$1_1@dnews...
> But it takes just one pass for a spammer to harvest all the names (and put
> them on CDs for distribution to all his fellow rascals). Right?
Sure, but I've been hanging out here for more than a year now and I *still*
hardly ever get spammed. I have no filtering in my email client either... I
figure in the worst case I'll just switch e-mail address (I have my own
domain name so that's easy). If there were so many "address harvesters" out
there I should've been spammed to death by now, I reckon.
Kristofer
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
> Rudy? Say something!
I did. I am quite a busy man, these days, so it might take a few hours
before I see it (and we have this time difference too).
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
> If you love the language, wait till you get a feel for the Delphi Community.
Trey, please don't quote an entire 55 line message just to add one line
of your own. Do observe the guidelines given by Borland, in particular
the ones on this page: http://www.borland.com/newsgroups/netiquette.html
Thanks for your understanding.
Mike Margerum
off by saying I love the VCL and really like object pascal. I'm going to
give you a few of my thoughts onC++ builder vs. Delphi.
Have a look at C++ builder too. You are still using the excellent pascal
based VCL but you get all of the power of C++. Don't want to start a
language war, just prefer C++. I can only speak for the types of programs I
have written:
- Palm Pilot, sockets, SQL server, ODBC, and a homebrew multithreaded C++
middleware piece with lots of data flying around.
- Securities system doing 1 million calcs a night on a SQL server using ODBC
Express (supreme component suite. just works.) forget the BDE. I'm
talking about products that are here today and stable.
Here's a few reasons I prefer C++:
Templates/STL (Generic programming). Being able to build generic classes
with no pointer casting is a real timesaver for me. I prefer for the kinks
of my program to be worked out at compile time. You can do a lot of this
stuff with descendant classes and virtual funcitons but I think its
needlessly complicated and hard to follow. I guess i prefer a flat object
model.
Stack based/copyable objects (I.E. no TList based pointers/casting mess).
In a large middleware product I have built, I use no pointers (except for
stuff I send back and forth to the palm via sockets and when I interact with
VCL objects). I have never had a memory leak or crash. This is the first
project I can ever say this has happened. Also, I don't have to worry about
destroying my objects because as soon as they go out of scope they are
destroyed automattically. Once delphi gets a garbage collector, I think it
will make OP more palatable.
Very tight compile time checking. I can honestly say by the time i get a
program to compile in C++, it probrably works. Admittedly, compiling is
slllooowwww!
Windows API is easier to work with.
Portability. Hopefully, this point will be moot soon :-)
------------
The reasons I like delphi/pascal (keep in mind this is based on delphi 3.0):
Blazingly fast compiler. I spend a lot of time watching builder compile.
BUT i have many more bugs to work out at runtime with delphi. I've been
using both for 5+ years, this is a fact.
The IDE enahncements like code insight are actually usuable. I've long
since turned them off in C++ builder.
Delphi is great for rapidly building client/server database apps where you
are gluing a bunch of components together. No reason to use C++ for this.
OP is much easier to read and maintain unless you wrote everything yourself.
In general, i would'nt recommend C++ for large projects where you are
guarenteed to have a few C-- programmers doing damage. Delphi would be my
first choice there. At least you can figure out their flawed logic.
------------
To summarize, thanks Borland for letting us have this dicussion. No matter
which you choose, you'll never look back!
Antoine of Borg
"Uwe Wolfgang Radu" <at@at> wrote in message news:3a76362c_1@dnews...
Hey!!
Antoine Borg
Antoine of Borg
Kristofer Skaug
news:9576su$df...@bornews.inprise.com...
> Uwe Wolfgang Radu wrote in <3a76cf8c_1@dnews>...
>
> > Rudy? Say something!
>
> I did. I am quite a busy man, these days, so it might take a few
hours
> before I see it (and we have this time difference too).
<G> Rudy, I bet you have a nice macro function in your news client:
- "Insert overquoting admonition" ( <poster> <numberoflines> )
Ctrl+O+Q
Kristofer
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
> <G> Rudy, I bet you have a nice macro function in your news client:
>
> - "Insert overquoting admonition" ( <poster> <numberoflines> )
> Ctrl+O+Q
My news client doesn't have any macro functions, unfortunately. I
sometimes copy pre-prepared texts from a text file, but most of the time
I write everything manually. Gives it a personal note, IMO.
Kristofer Skaug
> My news client doesn't have any macro functions, unfortunately. I
> sometimes copy pre-prepared texts from a text file, but most of the
time
> I write everything manually. Gives it a personal note, IMO.
Still, these sort of messsages may not be the kind you want to put
most of your personal energy into...
looks to me like it should be possible to write a COM plugin or
something for this ...
just imagine: <Ctrl+O+Q><Ctrl+O+Q><Ctrl+O+Q><Ctrl+O+Q><Ctrl+O+Q>....
Kristofer
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
> Still, these sort of messsages may not be the kind you want to put
> most of your personal energy into...
> looks to me like it should be possible to write a COM plugin or
> something for this ...
Not with Gravity. Anyway, I type very fast, so it is not a lot of extra
work. Most of the messages I type are not of that kind anyway.
Trey Weaver
"Rudy is going to get you!". I thought Rudy was some attorney and broke
some law by talking about the Delphi Community positively.
Trey Weaver
BTW: Please forgive me for breaking the
http://www.borland.com/newsgroups/netiquette.html rules.
See no quotes---->
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
> That's it? I two responses here, three emails and one FedEx package saying
> "Rudy is going to get you!". I thought Rudy was some attorney and broke
> some law by talking about the Delphi Community positively.
LOL! Who sent the FedEx package?
> See no quotes---->
No quotes is the other extreme, and just as bad. Just quote enough to
provide a context, but not more.
NShaw
download the modelmaker demo and the beta for modelmaker code browser.
Nigel Shaw
"VBNoMore" <groupm...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:955bsi$o9...@bornews.inprise.com...
> It was sometime in October 2000 that I learned about MS .Net plan for VB.
> Despite all the neat new features promised, I came to a conclusion that
its
> not going in the direction that I would have hoped. After developing apps
in
> VB since its still ver 1.0 BETA back in the 1990, I kept promising myself
> that one day...some day I will learn another more advanced tool. It was
the
> details and the general direction of the .NET initiatives that finally
> convinced me to fulfill my promise.
> At that stage I considered myself to be an advanced VB developer,
constantly
> using Win API (graphics/network/system/shell/etc) to do almost all of the
> programming task in VB6 to make it fly. Advanced in VB6 aside, I did not
> however know one iota of Pascal, C++, Java or anything else.
>
Mike Mitchell
>.... Of course, in ten
>years programs will write themselves, so we won't have to anymore.
>
Which is much too late. It's ludicrous that we are *still* writing
programs, period! We must develop the tools to hand over the task to
the end users. Once, cars were only driven and maintained by
chauffeurs and mechanics, and then they got easier and easier. Users
are in exactly the right place to know what, if anything, is needed
from the computer. The computer should be their assistant, not their
mentor. Initially, users will get it wrong and make mistakes. (People
still crash their cars, but we don't say "Ah, you should have employed
a chauffeur!".) The state of software development is still at the
nappy (= US "diaper") stage, and instead of cleaning up all the s**t
the whole time, we should be teaching potty training. Just think how
much more we'd achieve through delegation.
MM
GenJerDan
> We must develop the tools to hand over the task to
> the end users. Once, cars were only driven and maintained by
> chauffeurs and mechanics, and then they got easier and easier.
Now they're easy to use, and almost impossible to fix yourself.
It's a trade-off.
--
Daniel J. Wojcik
http://www.genjerdan.com/bfp
Programming, and othe things best done in private.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> chauffeurs and mechanics, and then they got easier and easier.
I'm not sure if we moved into the right direction with cars. Driving a car
by yourself is the computer equivalent of each user writing their own
software to achieve a basic goal. Your car might abstract some of the lower
level workings from you, but essentially you still have to tell it 2GL level
instructions: blink, turn left/right, start, stop, start the engine, stop
the engine. Thank god you don't have to double-clutch anymore.
Uwe W. Radu
Christopher Latta
>I'm not sure if we moved into the right direction with cars. Driving a car
>by yourself is the computer equivalent of each user writing their own
>software to achieve a basic goal. Your car might abstract some of the lower
>level workings from you, but essentially you still have to tell it 2GL
level
>instructions: blink, turn left/right, start, stop, start the engine, stop
>the engine. Thank god you don't have to double-clutch anymore.
Also, in this analogy someone else builds the car for the driver before they
use it for their simple requirements, like the programmer builds the
software for the user. There is no concept of the user building their own
car before using it.
Christopher Latta http://www.ozemail.com.au/~clatta
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice,
but in practice there is a great deal of difference.
Wayne Menzie
<3a7e1cf0_2@dnews>:
>There is no concept of the user building their own car before
>using it.
But Mitchell Chiton and Haynes provide documentation for using the
source you can get from AutoZone. <g>
-- Wayne Menzie
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
> I'm not sure if we moved into the right direction with cars. Driving a car
> by yourself is the computer equivalent of each user writing their own
> software to achieve a basic goal.
Hardly. Cars are still designed by companies, and software is still
written by us. Driving a car is like using an office suite, not like
using a compiler.
Mike Mitchell
<rvel...@gmx.de> wrote:
>Uwe Wolfgang Radu wrote in <3a7e1b17_1@dnews>...
>
>> I'm not sure if we moved into the right direction with cars. Driving a car
>> by yourself is the computer equivalent of each user writing their own
>> software to achieve a basic goal.
>
>Hardly. Cars are still designed by companies, and software is still
>written by us. Driving a car is like using an office suite, not like
>using a compiler.
And we're quite prepared to allow the stupidest people (sometimes it
seems so) behind the wheel of a dangerous weapon and drive it through
suburbs full of schoolchildren at 30 mph, but we get really angry if a
junior secretary attempts to write a Word macro and doesn't get it
quite right.
MM
Mike Mitchell
wrote:
>> On Sun, 04 Feb 2001 22:00:26 GMT, kyli...@hotmail.com (Mike Mitchell) wrote:
>> We must develop the tools to hand over the task to
>> the end users. Once, cars were only driven and maintained by
>> chauffeurs and mechanics, and then they got easier and easier.
>
>Now they're easy to use, and almost impossible to fix yourself.
>
>It's a trade-off.
>
Yes, but now they hardly ever go wrong. If you buy a decent car, like
a Volvo, a Merc, or a VW, you can drive them for ten years with
nothing more than standard servicing, plus fuel, tyres etc. They just
don't go wrong under normal use.
When will we be able to say the same about our computers?
MM
Tony Bryer
wrote:
> Yes, but now they hardly ever go wrong. If you buy a decent car, like
> a Volvo, a Merc, or a VW, you can drive them for ten years with
> nothing more than standard servicing, plus fuel, tyres etc. They just
> don't go wrong under normal use.
>
> When will we be able to say the same about our computers?
When they are ten years old and we are still using them for exactly the
same things as when we bought them.
Tony Bryer SDA UK
GenJerDan
> Yes, but now they hardly ever go wrong. If you buy a decent car, like
> a Volvo, a Merc, or a VW, you can drive them for ten years with
> nothing more than standard servicing, plus fuel, tyres etc. They just
> don't go wrong under normal use.
But that "standard servicing" is becoming more and more difficult.
For instance, to change or clean my sparkplugs I will have to remove
the fuel injector assembly to get at the back three. After buying the
tools to do it. After finding a manual somewhere to find out the
torque so I don't warp the aluminum. Plus (probably) buying a set of
gaskets for the intake/injector assembly.
I remember when I needed $10, a wrench, and 15 minutes spare time to
do it. Ah, progress. :>)
> When will we be able to say the same about our computers?
Opened up a computer lately? They're beginning to look like the
inside of a car's engine compartment. The boss tried to install a new
CR-ROM the other day. In his words "you need to have the strength of
an adult, and the hands of a four-year-old"
Glynn Owen
the motor-mounts and jack up the rear of the engine...
Glynn
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> the motor-mounts and jack up the rear of the engine...
Why go back that far? In a 1989 Honda Civic I had to take off the intake
manifold to replace the alternator. If they have an easier replacement
method it must involve some kind of shrinking ray.
Uwe W. Radu