5 ms·

I'd rather not comment on current popularity of Delphi, Free Pascal and family. I won't touch commercial situation with a ten feet pole either. But I would lik

by narag 6y ago

I'd rather not comment on current popularity of Delphi, Free Pascal and family. I won't touch commercial situation with a ten feet pole either. But I would like to mention what exactly made Delphi so nice to work with: language enabling design-time information, run-time type information, flexible memory management (some of it automatic, but also possible to do it manually), 95% of time safety but still possible to mess with internals, component architecture, clear exception handling and a very nice community.

blibble 6y ago
plus it generated a single exe file that would run anywhere without installation or 20 dlls in the system directory
- narag 6y ago
  Of course, I only mentioned language-level goodies. But then there was the best database access, rich GUI applications, etc. And my favourite: compiling big projects in seconds.
- koo6 6y ago
  yes/and the superb GUI designer .. Now look at QtCreator or how we build web apps .. it's all a joke, in comparison. That said ... the other product with similar GUI design system was/is ... VB :)
  - skeletal88 6y ago
    Yes, the Delphi GUI designer was and still is the best there was (unless I have some kind on nostalgia glasses on accidentally). I started my dev career on a Delphi CRM project in 2006, then years later when I had to work on an Android application the first thought was "You have to be joking, this is how you desing an UI?". Also used Qt a lot between these two.. So, currently the best UI designer and framework is Qt for me. Everything else seems atrociously complicated and just.. developer-unfriendly, needlessly complex.
    - tomc1985 6y ago
      Have you tried Lazarus? It's the FreePascal IDE and it tickles my VB funnybone pretty well
      - unnouinceput 6y ago
        Lazarus IDE is stuck in its Delphi 7 interface for years while Delphi was seeing fast iterations past years. Have you seen latest Delphi (10.4.2 from Feb. this year)? But most importantly did you tried its godly compiling speed?
        tomc1985 6y ago
        If there's a way to build with it free of charge, I'd check it out
        unnouinceput 6y ago
        You can try its Community Edition. If you're a business building a commercial application then I doubt the license fee, while expensive for small developers, is expensive for the business too.
    - throwaway3neu94 6y ago
      Wat? I've also worked on a Delphi based CRM and I've wasted man months of my life time on a task we called "checking forms". You see, Delphi's UI designer is (was?) pixel based (widgets have fixed x/y/w/h), but strings translated to different human languages have different lengths (in pixel). (Complicated by dynamically calculated and variable length strings.) And so for every release, for every language version (of which there were like 15), engineers would click through every single form in this product. Then fix any widgets were the text was cut off specifically for that language manually in a shitty commercial i18n tool that can show you Delphi forms, but only the outlines of controls. It took an engineer about 3 weeks of effort to go through the product in one language. I may never forget what "Ok" and "Cancel" mean in several languages I otherwise do not know at all. Java and C# changed everything for me with their constraint based layouts. I believe later Delphi versions added that, but it was definitely after others lead the way. (Maybe there was a better way to do it with Delphi, but this was >10 years ago ago, and the product was _old_ even back then, and it was my first job and I didn't question why things were done this way.)
  - romwell 6y ago
    >That said ... the other product with similar GUI design system was/is ... VB :) That's because the guy in charge of Delphi left for Microsoft and is still in charge of Visual Studio :)
    - unnouinceput 6y ago
      Anders is in charge of C#, not VB.
    - narag 6y ago
      VB is older than Delphi. Anders went to Microsoft years later.
    - vram22 6y ago
      This 2014 HN thread is interesting for that and many other points: Delphi – why won't it die? (2013) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613543
  - codebolt 6y ago
    The GUI designer for C# with WinForms is at least equally good, I'd say. I also like WPF but it requires a bit more careful thinking.
    - linknoid 6y ago
      Having worked extensively with both WinForms and Delphi GUI designers, I consider WinForms far better. WinForms designer is actual C# code, you can copy and execute that code outside of the designer. It's possible to search for references to a control in the designer, just the same as any other code. Often in Delphi, trying to accomplish the same thing in code as in the designer had a very obscure relationship. WPF feels much closer to the way Delphi did things, where your GUI is defined in different format than your code. In WinForms, creating a new control requires, well, just write a class that descends from Control, compile, and then you can start using it. In Delphi, creating a new control means you need an independent project, compile it into a package, and figuring out how to install it. I remember fighting Delphi trying to understand the package management system, and it was way more complicated. In WinForms, when you design a new control, it actually executes your code, so design time behaviors actually reflect what will happen at runtime. I remember having stuff in Delphi where a large control would be collapsed into a single line, and you couldn't actually tell what you were working with until you run it.
- xchaotic 6y ago
  Things changed very quickly. I was writing a warehouse management app around 2000 and my first version was in Delphi. The sql components did require additional install and libraries. But v2 was in PHP and served over the Internet as that could run with no client install whatsoever- just a browser. It was much easier to manage the dependencies on my side and not worry about customer antivirus blocking the install etc.
daitangio 6y ago
> I won't touch commercial situation with a ten feet pole either. Why? I mean, Delphi seems a good language... what prevent you from developing with it?
- nicklecompte 6y ago
  I think the parent commenter’s issue with Delphi wasn’t technological but rather the “commercial situation” - that Delphi is proprietary and a bit expensive, which is both an annoyance and potentially a serious liability. Especially given that Delphi, while far from dead, is in a tenuous market position.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
    Lazarus is pretty good, although somewhat unstable
    - mikewarot 6y ago
      >Lazarus is pretty good, although somewhat unstable The most serious problem I have with it (I can't afford Delphi, or I would buy my way out) is the lack of actual documentation. Sure, there is a wiki, but it is just the output of a program stripping docstrings, nothing actually useful when you just need to use a part from a given library. There are no working code examples, or tips about corner cases, etc. Turbo Pascal had very good documentation, and it got better over time.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        I still keep my Turbo Pascal manuals, and some generous souls have uploaded most of them to bitsavers.
  - wdb 6y ago
    The community version of are Remobjects Elements is a joy to use. I am using it in a professional/commercial manner to write closed source libraries for iOS, Android and Wasm all written in Swift.
ozim 6y ago
There was a joke about Delphi convention being canceled because one dev got sick, second had a funeral and third one could go but, what would he do on his own?

by narag 6y ago

blibble 6y ago

plus it generated a single exe file that would run anywhere without installation or 20 dlls in the system directory

narag 6y ago
Of course, I only mentioned language-level goodies. But then there was the best database access, rich GUI applications, etc. And my favourite: compiling big projects in seconds.
koo6 6y ago
yes/and the superb GUI designer .. Now look at QtCreator or how we build web apps .. it's all a joke, in comparison. That said ... the other product with similar GUI design system was/is ... VB :)
- skeletal88 6y ago
  Yes, the Delphi GUI designer was and still is the best there was (unless I have some kind on nostalgia glasses on accidentally). I started my dev career on a Delphi CRM project in 2006, then years later when I had to work on an Android application the first thought was "You have to be joking, this is how you desing an UI?". Also used Qt a lot between these two.. So, currently the best UI designer and framework is Qt for me. Everything else seems atrociously complicated and just.. developer-unfriendly, needlessly complex.
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    Have you tried Lazarus? It's the FreePascal IDE and it tickles my VB funnybone pretty well
    - unnouinceput 6y ago
      Lazarus IDE is stuck in its Delphi 7 interface for years while Delphi was seeing fast iterations past years. Have you seen latest Delphi (10.4.2 from Feb. this year)? But most importantly did you tried its godly compiling speed?
      - tomc1985 6y ago
        If there's a way to build with it free of charge, I'd check it out
        unnouinceput 6y ago
        You can try its Community Edition. If you're a business building a commercial application then I doubt the license fee, while expensive for small developers, is expensive for the business too.
  - throwaway3neu94 6y ago
    Wat? I've also worked on a Delphi based CRM and I've wasted man months of my life time on a task we called "checking forms". You see, Delphi's UI designer is (was?) pixel based (widgets have fixed x/y/w/h), but strings translated to different human languages have different lengths (in pixel). (Complicated by dynamically calculated and variable length strings.) And so for every release, for every language version (of which there were like 15), engineers would click through every single form in this product. Then fix any widgets were the text was cut off specifically for that language manually in a shitty commercial i18n tool that can show you Delphi forms, but only the outlines of controls. It took an engineer about 3 weeks of effort to go through the product in one language. I may never forget what "Ok" and "Cancel" mean in several languages I otherwise do not know at all. Java and C# changed everything for me with their constraint based layouts. I believe later Delphi versions added that, but it was definitely after others lead the way. (Maybe there was a better way to do it with Delphi, but this was >10 years ago ago, and the product was _old_ even back then, and it was my first job and I didn't question why things were done this way.)
- romwell 6y ago
  >That said ... the other product with similar GUI design system was/is ... VB :) That's because the guy in charge of Delphi left for Microsoft and is still in charge of Visual Studio :)
  - unnouinceput 6y ago
    Anders is in charge of C#, not VB.
  - narag 6y ago
    VB is older than Delphi. Anders went to Microsoft years later.
  - vram22 6y ago
    This 2014 HN thread is interesting for that and many other points: Delphi – why won't it die? (2013) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613543
- codebolt 6y ago
  The GUI designer for C# with WinForms is at least equally good, I'd say. I also like WPF but it requires a bit more careful thinking.
  - linknoid 6y ago
    Having worked extensively with both WinForms and Delphi GUI designers, I consider WinForms far better. WinForms designer is actual C# code, you can copy and execute that code outside of the designer. It's possible to search for references to a control in the designer, just the same as any other code. Often in Delphi, trying to accomplish the same thing in code as in the designer had a very obscure relationship. WPF feels much closer to the way Delphi did things, where your GUI is defined in different format than your code. In WinForms, creating a new control requires, well, just write a class that descends from Control, compile, and then you can start using it. In Delphi, creating a new control means you need an independent project, compile it into a package, and figuring out how to install it. I remember fighting Delphi trying to understand the package management system, and it was way more complicated. In WinForms, when you design a new control, it actually executes your code, so design time behaviors actually reflect what will happen at runtime. I remember having stuff in Delphi where a large control would be collapsed into a single line, and you couldn't actually tell what you were working with until you run it.
xchaotic 6y ago
Things changed very quickly. I was writing a warehouse management app around 2000 and my first version was in Delphi. The sql components did require additional install and libraries. But v2 was in PHP and served over the Internet as that could run with no client install whatsoever- just a browser. It was much easier to manage the dependencies on my side and not worry about customer antivirus blocking the install etc.

daitangio 6y ago

> I won't touch commercial situation with a ten feet pole either. Why? I mean, Delphi seems a good language... what prevent you from developing with it?

nicklecompte 6y ago
I think the parent commenter’s issue with Delphi wasn’t technological but rather the “commercial situation” - that Delphi is proprietary and a bit expensive, which is both an annoyance and potentially a serious liability. Especially given that Delphi, while far from dead, is in a tenuous market position.
- fiddlerwoaroof 6y ago
  Lazarus is pretty good, although somewhat unstable
  - mikewarot 6y ago
    >Lazarus is pretty good, although somewhat unstable The most serious problem I have with it (I can't afford Delphi, or I would buy my way out) is the lack of actual documentation. Sure, there is a wiki, but it is just the output of a program stripping docstrings, nothing actually useful when you just need to use a part from a given library. There are no working code examples, or tips about corner cases, etc. Turbo Pascal had very good documentation, and it got better over time.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      I still keep my Turbo Pascal manuals, and some generous souls have uploaded most of them to bitsavers.
- wdb 6y ago
  The community version of are Remobjects Elements is a joy to use. I am using it in a professional/commercial manner to write closed source libraries for iOS, Android and Wasm all written in Swift.

ozim 6y ago

There was a joke about Delphi convention being canceled because one dev got sick, second had a funeral and third one could go but, what would he do on his own?