6 ms·

For almost 11 years now, I've been working professionally with Delphi. And it would be wrong to say it's been a smooth ride. There's nothing wrong - per say -

by Svip 8y ago

For almost 11 years now, I've been working professionally with Delphi. And it would be wrong to say it's been a smooth ride. There's nothing wrong - per say - with Object Pascal. Or rather, it's not worse than C++, but Delphi - i.e. the library and IDE - is what's lacking behind. It was definitely cutting edge in the mid-90s, but it has not managed to keep with the times. Most Delphi developers rely on Indy, a third party library of various classes, that provide a lot of functionality the base library should have provided. And even Indy isn't that quick at picking up new features as the world moves on. When Embarcadero took over from Borland around 2009, they clearly tried to move it on a direction that would encourage more developers. They created ways to build your Delphi application for iOS and Android, which was meant to get more people to write Delphi. It didn't, since the IDE still cost over $1,000 a year. I'd imagine the people who used that functionality were those who were already 'stuck' with Delphi. Indeed, even as one who engages a lot in the Delphi community, mostly through necessity, notice that very few people join the community without having some legacy application to maintain. And the community as a whole is dwindling anyway. Embarcadero should have focused on core aspects of the language, which they are finally getting around to. You can now declare variables in the middle of function? That's so 21st century! (Although the forward compiler can't figure it out, so you'll see a lot of red lines in your IDE if you do.) I won't be writing Delphi professionally a lot longer, though. As I am taking a new job this March, where I am moving on to Go. So it's more a bittersweet good bye for me. Because Delphi is frustrating to work with on a daily basis, but there is a lot nice about it.

amenod 8y ago
I think the $1000 price tag is totally wrong. I would never pay that kind of money for an IDE unless it was _really_ better than anything else. But this means: - the language has huge community (so I'm not stuck with a dying language) - it allows me to do anything (huge extensibility) Unfortunately it is difficult to change the pricing model once you have existing clients. On one hand they are the only ones paying for your development, so you can't lower the price tag. On the other hand building a bigger community takes time, and it won't happen at this price. So unless they become really creative, Delphi won't survice. Pity, I have used it (yeeeears ago) and it was a brilliant product for building UIs, very easy to use and powerful. Haven't seen anything similar since.
- Svip 8y ago
  The pricing model is the main reason newer people are not getting into Delphi. This is why they tried to lure people with iOS and Android capabilities. But when there are alternatives that are free, why bother? Yes, Delphi has a Community Edition now (which is free), but the fact that are excluded from a large portion of the library, because you cannot afford it, is always going to alienate some people. And it is always going to feel frustrating, when other languages don't have those limitations. My office only uses the Professional Edition, because we cannot really afford the Enterprise Edition, which means there were some problems we ended up 'inventing ourselves', because they were only available in the Enterprise Edition. Delphi probably won't survive another decade (in my estimation), but Pascal will live on as FreePascal/Lazarus.
  - marcocantu 8y ago
    "Delphi has a Community Edition now (which is free), but the fact that are excluded from a large portion of the library" That's not really the case. With Delphi Community edition you get support for 4 operating systems, VCL and FireMonkey, it only lacks access to Enterprise databases like Oracle and some of the multi-tier architectures. Community has a large percentage (80%+) of the features...
    - Svip 8y ago
      You are correct, saying 'large portion of the library' was a mistake. But as I remember, you don't have access to the VCL source code with the Community Edition. The feature matrix says that this is 'limited in Community', whatever that means. We wanted to do MongoDB connections, which comes with FireDAC. But that's only available in the Enterprise Edition. So we ended up rewriting TMongoWire[0] to fit our needs. I am sure you can do most things in Delphi in the Community edition, but it's a little too late, unfortunately. [0] https://github.com/stijnsanders/TMongoWire https://github.com/stijnsanders/TMongoWire
      - marcocantu 8y ago
        You are right about MongoDB... as for "VCL source code" it is available, but with licensing limitations
ivanhoe 8y ago
I started with Delphi3, worked a lot in Delphi4, and then the version 5 came, but in meantime the web became THE THING, and Delphi didn't really find a fit in that new world of open-source tools and web apps instead of monolith desktop apps. Which is a shame, as in 90s it was the best IDE, with one of the best and most useful help systems I ever used.
dublo7 8y ago
I just took a job taking over for a retiring guy in a factory and he wrote everything in vb6 and ladder logic which I swear looks exactly like Delphi. Ladder logic itself is annoying as hell to work with but I do like the little bits of Delphi mixed in for the complicated math stuff. The other guy wrote everything in gcode macros using notepad. Lots of memories though. Giant Enterprise applications we created 20 years ago. Have to admit I really prefer go and rust and python though. I think I still have all those Dr Dobbs in my basement too. :)
surlyville 8y ago
For almost 11 years I worked professionally with Delphi (2-6) before retiring from programming completely in 2006. Then in 2019 I'm back modifying some Delphi programs (microservices against Oracle DB) that I wrote over 15 years ago...and using Delphi 6! Of course, the long term plan is to rewrite in .NET but luckily domain knowledge is worth more.

by Svip 8y ago

amenod 8y ago

I think the $1000 price tag is totally wrong. I would never pay that kind of money for an IDE unless it was _really_ better than anything else. But this means: - the language has huge community (so I'm not stuck with a dying language) - it allows me to do anything (huge extensibility) Unfortunately it is difficult to change the pricing model once you have existing clients. On one hand they are the only ones paying for your development, so you can't lower the price tag. On the other hand building a bigger community takes time, and it won't happen at this price. So unless they become really creative, Delphi won't survice. Pity, I have used it (yeeeears ago) and it was a brilliant product for building UIs, very easy to use and powerful. Haven't seen anything similar since.

Svip 8y ago
The pricing model is the main reason newer people are not getting into Delphi. This is why they tried to lure people with iOS and Android capabilities. But when there are alternatives that are free, why bother? Yes, Delphi has a Community Edition now (which is free), but the fact that are excluded from a large portion of the library, because you cannot afford it, is always going to alienate some people. And it is always going to feel frustrating, when other languages don't have those limitations. My office only uses the Professional Edition, because we cannot really afford the Enterprise Edition, which means there were some problems we ended up 'inventing ourselves', because they were only available in the Enterprise Edition. Delphi probably won't survive another decade (in my estimation), but Pascal will live on as FreePascal/Lazarus.
- marcocantu 8y ago
  "Delphi has a Community Edition now (which is free), but the fact that are excluded from a large portion of the library" That's not really the case. With Delphi Community edition you get support for 4 operating systems, VCL and FireMonkey, it only lacks access to Enterprise databases like Oracle and some of the multi-tier architectures. Community has a large percentage (80%+) of the features...
  - Svip 8y ago
    You are correct, saying 'large portion of the library' was a mistake. But as I remember, you don't have access to the VCL source code with the Community Edition. The feature matrix says that this is 'limited in Community', whatever that means. We wanted to do MongoDB connections, which comes with FireDAC. But that's only available in the Enterprise Edition. So we ended up rewriting TMongoWire[0] to fit our needs. I am sure you can do most things in Delphi in the Community edition, but it's a little too late, unfortunately. [0] https://github.com/stijnsanders/TMongoWire https://github.com/stijnsanders/TMongoWire
    - marcocantu 8y ago
      You are right about MongoDB... as for "VCL source code" it is available, but with licensing limitations

ivanhoe 8y ago

I started with Delphi3, worked a lot in Delphi4, and then the version 5 came, but in meantime the web became THE THING, and Delphi didn't really find a fit in that new world of open-source tools and web apps instead of monolith desktop apps. Which is a shame, as in 90s it was the best IDE, with one of the best and most useful help systems I ever used.

dublo7 8y ago

I just took a job taking over for a retiring guy in a factory and he wrote everything in vb6 and ladder logic which I swear looks exactly like Delphi. Ladder logic itself is annoying as hell to work with but I do like the little bits of Delphi mixed in for the complicated math stuff. The other guy wrote everything in gcode macros using notepad. Lots of memories though. Giant Enterprise applications we created 20 years ago. Have to admit I really prefer go and rust and python though. I think I still have all those Dr Dobbs in my basement too. :)

surlyville 8y ago

For almost 11 years I worked professionally with Delphi (2-6) before retiring from programming completely in 2006. Then in 2019 I'm back modifying some Delphi programs (microservices against Oracle DB) that I wrote over 15 years ago...and using Delphi 6! Of course, the long term plan is to rewrite in .NET but luckily domain knowledge is worth more.