4 ms·

Let's Buy Delphi

7 points by omnibrain 11y ago

AdrianRossouw 11y ago
man. there's a blast from the past. I am quite glad I didn't go into delphi more when I started out. I decided to stick to open source solutions, and I was proven right when the whole Kylix thing failed to happen. How is lazarus these days?
codewritinfool 11y ago
I loved Delphi.
oliverfriedmann 11y ago
Loved Delphi, too. The object inspector, the visual designer and all the components were a pleasure to work with. I kinda miss the good old days... oh well.
craigvn 11y ago
Delphi was and probably still is the best tool for builing traditional Windows desktop app. But despite having cross platform and web tools it never broke that mold which halted its growth. It doesn't help that a lot of Delphi develppers are old school who still can't spell WWW.
Gys 11y ago
I still use Delphi to maintain some existing Windows projects. The feeling it gives me is very well matched by the design of this webpage...
- iheartmemcache 11y ago
  Eh, I'm by no means a Delphi fan-boi (during the golden age of Delphi in the late 90s (? around there.) I was a teenage gcc/QT kind of guy), but I've had to take over some projects. With the proper VCL components you can get a modern feeling application pretty easily. XE10 might not come in first against IntelliJ, VS or a good emacs setup, but it's definitely not too painful to construct RAD/Line-of-business apps in. In fact, I'd argue up until Lightswitch came out for VS (2007?) it remained the best solution for whipping out fast apps. What specifically in Delphi is grinding your gears? I'm by no means an expert but I've got pages and pages of Delphi resources I've saved over the years.
  - Gys 11y ago
    Sorry, I agree that for a Windows desktop only app Delphi is a good solution, even today. And at some point in time Windows desktop was the only thing that counted. Now there are other platforms as well and for backends and the web I think there are much better, easier to use and more modern tools. Delphi's approach feels a bit over engineered, in the wrong places. Maybe because they try to lock-in instead of being flexible and open.
peterashford 11y ago
Delphi was a pile of steaming crud. I have programmed in worse environments: Visual Basic would be one, but Delphi was seriously painful. All the modernity of Pascal with the safety of C. Layered over... what? 5 or 6 generations of the system, all of which behave differently. Some of which still works - but you'll never know until you try it and find why that wasn't the way to go. shudder

7 points by omnibrain 11y ago

man. there's a blast from the past. I am quite glad I didn't go into delphi more when I started out. I decided to stick to open source solutions, and I was proven right when the whole Kylix thing failed to happen. How is lazarus these days?

codewritinfool 11y ago

I loved Delphi.

oliverfriedmann 11y ago

Loved Delphi, too. The object inspector, the visual designer and all the components were a pleasure to work with. I kinda miss the good old days... oh well.

craigvn 11y ago

Delphi was and probably still is the best tool for builing traditional Windows desktop app. But despite having cross platform and web tools it never broke that mold which halted its growth. It doesn't help that a lot of Delphi develppers are old school who still can't spell WWW.

Gys 11y ago

I still use Delphi to maintain some existing Windows projects. The feeling it gives me is very well matched by the design of this webpage...

iheartmemcache 11y ago
Eh, I'm by no means a Delphi fan-boi (during the golden age of Delphi in the late 90s (? around there.) I was a teenage gcc/QT kind of guy), but I've had to take over some projects. With the proper VCL components you can get a modern feeling application pretty easily. XE10 might not come in first against IntelliJ, VS or a good emacs setup, but it's definitely not too painful to construct RAD/Line-of-business apps in. In fact, I'd argue up until Lightswitch came out for VS (2007?) it remained the best solution for whipping out fast apps. What specifically in Delphi is grinding your gears? I'm by no means an expert but I've got pages and pages of Delphi resources I've saved over the years.
- Gys 11y ago
  Sorry, I agree that for a Windows desktop only app Delphi is a good solution, even today. And at some point in time Windows desktop was the only thing that counted. Now there are other platforms as well and for backends and the web I think there are much better, easier to use and more modern tools. Delphi's approach feels a bit over engineered, in the wrong places. Maybe because they try to lock-in instead of being flexible and open.

peterashford 11y ago

Delphi was a pile of steaming crud. I have programmed in worse environments: Visual Basic would be one, but Delphi was seriously painful. All the modernity of Pascal with the safety of C. Layered over... what? 5 or 6 generations of the system, all of which behave differently. Some of which still works - but you'll never know until you try it and find why that wasn't the way to go. shudder