I just don't buy it. Delphi could have done better, but not good enough. I think on its best day it would have had a hard time time competing with Java, much le

I just don't buy it. Delphi could have done better, but not good enough. I think on its best day it would have had a hard time time competing with Java, much less Python or Ruby, and Rails was on the up as Delphi's .NET strategy was on the wane. It needed to be an open source cross-platform compiler to be truly viable in the Linux ecosystem, and Linux would be needed to compete with Windows and its licensing fees. Anything other than C# is always a step or two behind on .NET, and .NET was the best route to web apps on Windows. The only reason AOT is coming back for web apps is FaaS, IMO. FaaS works best with minimal boot-up latency, and FaaS delivers operationally as a way to scale out stateless compute on demand, which optimally means acquiring those compute resources just for the duration of a request or job, and no longer.