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I don't think there is a good way to measure this, but if we settle for TIOBE, Delphi seems to be in decline. [1] I also don't know how much money Embarcadero
by tomashubelbauer 6y ago
I don't think there is a good way to measure this, but if we settle for TIOBE, Delphi seems to be in decline. [1]
I also don't know how much money Embarcadero makes off of RAD Studio licenses, but I wonder if the cost of new developers choosing languages whose primary and most popular tooling is completely free and doesn't require payment/registration to get a license threatens the income stream that is the license sale for the IDE.
I wonder if they'd be better off making the IDE free (ideally, of course, open source, but I don't see that happening) so that the barrier to entry into Delphi development was lowered.
This is of course assuming they make money off of Delphi in multiple other ways (professional libraries?) that this could boost. If they only make money off the IDE, then this would not be possible. I don't know if this is the case, however if it is, it could mean that the Delphi ecosystem is what's slowing the language down which would be an intricate situation to get out of for the Delphi language and its community.
I don't particularly like Delphi, but I know there is a lot of legacy systems (and even some new ones) depending on it, so it would be a shame to see it fold completely in the coming decade. Perhaps the community should come together and "get with the times" in a way that makes the Delphi ecosystem as approachable as it is for other languages (like .NET, JavaScript, Rust and others - no licenses for any primary and most popular tooling there)
[1]: https://insights.dice.com/2020/03/06/delphi-programming-language-dying-tiobe-index/ https://insights.dice.com/2020/03/06/delphi-programming-lang...