10 ms·

I liked Delphi a lot, as I liked Clipper a lot, but technology moved on.

by epx 9y ago

heywire 9y ago
Funny that you mentioned Clipper. It's a language that you don't hear about a lot anymore, but it was the first language I learned as a kid (my Dad built point of sale and inventory applications in it for local companies as side work), so it holds a special place in my heart.
- vram22 9y ago
  Mine too. The fact that it had both dBASE-like functionality (was a superset, in fact) plus could generate EXEs was just a great combo. Like in other countries (I'm sure), plenty of small businesses in India relied (and some probably still do) on small custom Clipper apps (such as POS, inventory, etc.) created by small software consultancies or freelancers. You could tell it was written in Clipper by the typical color scheme and look of the form and by the status bar, when you were at such a shop to buy something. And the speed of data entry by the operators, in those apps (without any GUI clutter to slow things down), was phenomenal.
nurettin 9y ago
I am glad a lot of people think like this. Less competition.
- theGimp 9y ago
  Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Who said he wouldn't say those things in a face-to-face conversation? And what's uncivil about them?
    - theGimp 9y ago
      What is the purpose of the parent comment? To score a point? To show us all the commenter is smarter than the vulgus? It passes the "gratuitous negativity" test to me. The same point could have been made without the condescension.
      - rodgerd 9y ago
        Yet you didn't feel the need to lecture the parent comment for s snide dismissal of a programming language and everyone who uses it.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >What is the purpose of the parent comment? To score a point? To show us all the commenter is smarter than the vulgus? To defend their technology/language of choice, who they felt was undeservingly dismissed as obsolete? >The same point could have been made without the condescension. I think the "less competition" is a valid point. People that dismiss languages as "old" or not fashionable enough, often miss opportunities in niche areas -- case in point all the COBOL jobs.
      - S8239eh 9y ago
        Why don't you build an Orwellian society that punishes people instantly for "negativity"? Oh wait, we already have it - this comment will be censored by the YC central committee.
  - nurettin 9y ago
    I wouldn't say things like "gratuitous negativity" to anyone's face IRL. That would come off as annoying at best when two adults are trying to have a conversation.
int_19h 9y ago
dBase-derived languages in general were a lot of fun. And incredibly productive, basically taylor-made for cranking out CRUD apps. I do ponder sometimes why we don't have something quite like that these days. Oh, people do try, but it's never that simple, and there are always a lot of moving bits with plenty of friction between them. The ease with which I could collect a bunch of data from a form and shove it into a record in a table somewhere in FoxPro is still unmatched (remember SCATTER/GATHER MEMVAR?).
- MycroftJones 9y ago
  I don't, but I'd like to. Most of the online documentation on Foxpro is old, and doesn't convey the magic that I've seen happen with it. I'd love to see some combination of Delphi with Foxpro, probably with LISP syntax and Qt bindings. And a little bit of sugar from haskell and kona languages. What made Turbo Pascal great was the help system. For every single standard library function, it had a snippet of code that you could cut, paste, run, and tweak.
  - _mhr_ 9y ago
    I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on this. I couldn't find an email address in your profile, but I have an address in mine, so please shoot me an email.
  - mamcx 9y ago
    With the exception of the LISP syntax, I agree with you! I wanna get a relational / kdb+ / ml hybrid. ---- One of the gems of FoxPro was the always-on terminal. It have his own terminal/repl. In the IDE. Always ON. You can do CREATE FORM name and open the form as a table then do BROWSE and see how was made. And you could activa the terminal on a shipped app, so you can fix things on the fly. And the debugger (specially the var windows) was good. To date, no single debugger/var window have bees as good as was with Visual FoxPro.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    FoxPro also had a great help system, including context help with F1 for whatever was under the cursor. It wasn't quite as good as TP, because it didn't have true hyperlinked text - but it had a separate section in each article just for links ("See Also"), and it had very fast keyword search, so it was "good enough" in practice. And yes, also tons of examples!
coldtea 9y ago
>I liked Delphi a lot, as I liked Clipper a lot, but technology moved on You'd be surprised. Technology might have moved beyond Clipper, but Delphi is even more modern than things in fashion today...
dguaraglia 9y ago
I had a pretty good chuckle at this comment. I couldn't agree more. While I loved Delphi, VB, TurboPascal, ASIC and DJCPP back when they were in vogue, I feel like starting new projects in a decaying ecosystem is a bad idea. Soon enough you'll find stuff there aren't any libraries for, outdated database drivers, or hit a wall when trying to do something most modern runtimes make incredibly easy (something as simple as making an HTTPS request.) At that point you hit a diminishing ROI from using the language you love and it becomes a matter of productivity.

I liked Delphi a lot, as I liked Clipper a lot, but technology moved on.

by epx 9y ago

I liked Delphi a lot, as I liked Clipper a lot, but technology moved on.

Funny that you mentioned Clipper. It's a language that you don't hear about a lot anymore, but it was the first language I learned as a kid (my Dad built point of sale and inventory applications in it for local companies as side work), so it holds a special place in my heart.

vram22 9y ago
Mine too. The fact that it had both dBASE-like functionality (was a superset, in fact) plus could generate EXEs was just a great combo. Like in other countries (I'm sure), plenty of small businesses in India relied (and some probably still do) on small custom Clipper apps (such as POS, inventory, etc.) created by small software consultancies or freelancers. You could tell it was written in Clipper by the typical color scheme and look of the form and by the status bar, when you were at such a shop to buy something. And the speed of data entry by the operators, in those apps (without any GUI clutter to slow things down), was phenomenal.

nurettin 9y ago

I am glad a lot of people think like this. Less competition.

theGimp 9y ago
Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- coldtea 9y ago
  Who said he wouldn't say those things in a face-to-face conversation? And what's uncivil about them?
  - theGimp 9y ago
    What is the purpose of the parent comment? To score a point? To show us all the commenter is smarter than the vulgus? It passes the "gratuitous negativity" test to me. The same point could have been made without the condescension.
    - rodgerd 9y ago
      Yet you didn't feel the need to lecture the parent comment for s snide dismissal of a programming language and everyone who uses it.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >What is the purpose of the parent comment? To score a point? To show us all the commenter is smarter than the vulgus? To defend their technology/language of choice, who they felt was undeservingly dismissed as obsolete? >The same point could have been made without the condescension. I think the "less competition" is a valid point. People that dismiss languages as "old" or not fashionable enough, often miss opportunities in niche areas -- case in point all the COBOL jobs.
    - S8239eh 9y ago
      Why don't you build an Orwellian society that punishes people instantly for "negativity"? Oh wait, we already have it - this comment will be censored by the YC central committee.
- nurettin 9y ago
  I wouldn't say things like "gratuitous negativity" to anyone's face IRL. That would come off as annoying at best when two adults are trying to have a conversation.

int_19h 9y ago

dBase-derived languages in general were a lot of fun. And incredibly productive, basically taylor-made for cranking out CRUD apps. I do ponder sometimes why we don't have something quite like that these days. Oh, people do try, but it's never that simple, and there are always a lot of moving bits with plenty of friction between them. The ease with which I could collect a bunch of data from a form and shove it into a record in a table somewhere in FoxPro is still unmatched (remember SCATTER/GATHER MEMVAR?).

MycroftJones 9y ago
I don't, but I'd like to. Most of the online documentation on Foxpro is old, and doesn't convey the magic that I've seen happen with it. I'd love to see some combination of Delphi with Foxpro, probably with LISP syntax and Qt bindings. And a little bit of sugar from haskell and kona languages. What made Turbo Pascal great was the help system. For every single standard library function, it had a snippet of code that you could cut, paste, run, and tweak.
- _mhr_ 9y ago
  I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on this. I couldn't find an email address in your profile, but I have an address in mine, so please shoot me an email.
- mamcx 9y ago
  With the exception of the LISP syntax, I agree with you! I wanna get a relational / kdb+ / ml hybrid. ---- One of the gems of FoxPro was the always-on terminal. It have his own terminal/repl. In the IDE. Always ON. You can do CREATE FORM name and open the form as a table then do BROWSE and see how was made. And you could activa the terminal on a shipped app, so you can fix things on the fly. And the debugger (specially the var windows) was good. To date, no single debugger/var window have bees as good as was with Visual FoxPro.
- int_19h 9y ago
  FoxPro also had a great help system, including context help with F1 for whatever was under the cursor. It wasn't quite as good as TP, because it didn't have true hyperlinked text - but it had a separate section in each article just for links ("See Also"), and it had very fast keyword search, so it was "good enough" in practice. And yes, also tons of examples!

coldtea 9y ago

>I liked Delphi a lot, as I liked Clipper a lot, but technology moved on You'd be surprised. Technology might have moved beyond Clipper, but Delphi is even more modern than things in fashion today...

dguaraglia 9y ago

I had a pretty good chuckle at this comment. I couldn't agree more. While I loved Delphi, VB, TurboPascal, ASIC and DJCPP back when they were in vogue, I feel like starting new projects in a decaying ecosystem is a bad idea. Soon enough you'll find stuff there aren't any libraries for, outdated database drivers, or hit a wall when trying to do something most modern runtimes make incredibly easy (something as simple as making an HTTPS request.) At that point you hit a diminishing ROI from using the language you love and it becomes a matter of productivity.