3 ms·

And in 2021 we still don't have anything as fast to build a full-featured GUI app as Delphi had in 2000...

by bitL 5y ago

lostmsu 5y ago
Visual C# is that and more since 2005.
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  Visual C#'s Windows Forms do not even approach Delphi 1 in terms of functionality and designer ease of use, let alone Delphi 7 (which was released around 2000). WinForms feel more like an abandoned beta version to remake Delphi in C#. Note that i refer to Windows Forms specifically, not the entirety of the .NET Framework.
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    Visual C# is the reason Delphi was abandoned, and the reason is precisely that most people found it to be better.
    - badsectoracula 5y ago
      The .NET Framework is better than what was available in Delphi at the time (at least out of the box) but the visual designer in Visual C# and WinForms in general was and still is (since it has been largely abandoned) way behind Delphi or Lazarus.
    - pkphilip 5y ago
      Delphi was not abandoned because it was technically inferior. It was abandoned because Borland/Inprise started pushing Application Life Cycle products (don't get me started on that) and also pricing Delphi very high and the number of new companies/developers coming into the Delphi ecosystem dropped precipitously because of this. As Delphi lost steam, the development of Delphi too last steam and now we have the situation where Embarcadero marks HiDPI support as a feature in 2021. Embarcadero really, really needs to look at its pricing structure. Giving out a "community" version which does not even have proper database connectivity isn't going to change anything.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  C# in its many forms has many challenges, when it comes to desktop software. Mostly that if you want your software to work on any other OS apart from Windows, there still aren't that many good options. For example, there is Mono with Gtk#, but it's not really widely used, supported and overall seems to be dying, much like MonoDevelop is: https://www.mono-project.com/docs/faq/gtk/ https://www.mono-project.com/docs/faq/gtk/ After that, there was Xamarin Forms, but they're facing similar problems because in the new .NET there will be a new officially supported framework for GUI apps (they got bought out essentially and there has been little development on their project since): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/ The new .NET cross platform UI still hasn't been released either (well, you can check it out if you have the preview builds) and it might be a while until we can actually judge how well the "official" approach works in its stable form: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/get-started/installation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/get-started/ins... There are third party attempts to fill that vacuum of strong options, like Avalonia, but that's also just work in progress, like every other mentioned approach: http://avaloniaui.net/ http://avaloniaui.net/ Of course, there are also others like Eto: https://github.com/picoe/Eto https://github.com/picoe/Eto The point i'm making is that due to the history of .NET, cross platform wasn't a priority and therefore there is a really large amount of fragmentation, as well as the developer efforts are spread thin. Contrast to Java, where you basically had AWT, then eventually Swing, and now there's JavaFX/OpenJFX, all of which are cross platform. Similarly, in Lazarus (a FreePascal IDE) there's the Lazarus Component Library which is where most if not all of the development effort is focused. It's probably also easier to just have to learn one framework and set of tooling around it and be able to work on most projects out there that use that language, as opposed to there being so many different ones.
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    I don't think the subset of people who used Delphi and later moved to Visual C# would be the ones to care about cross-platform much.
    - KronisLV 5y ago
      Hmm, i wouldn't be so sure, since one of the slogans of Pascal (and i guess Delphi too) was "write once, compile anywhere" - i still think that FreePascal/Lazarus is a great choice for multi platform code, though personally i haven't exactly used Delphi in such a capacity to also make that claim. I do think that you make a good point, however, since not everyone cares about cross platform much and in regards to "native" .NET options on Windows, i'd say that everything from WinForms to stuff like WPF is indeed pleasant. That said, many developers out there also can't afford to (or just shouldn't) ignore cross platform development, so options in that regard are also definitely worth talking about!
tomc1985 5y ago
Lazarus comes close

And in 2021 we still don't have anything as fast to build a full-featured GUI app as Delphi had in 2000...

by bitL 5y ago

And in 2021 we still don't have anything as fast to build a full-featured GUI app as Delphi had in 2000...

lostmsu 5y ago

Visual C# is that and more since 2005.

badsectoracula 5y ago
Visual C#'s Windows Forms do not even approach Delphi 1 in terms of functionality and designer ease of use, let alone Delphi 7 (which was released around 2000). WinForms feel more like an abandoned beta version to remake Delphi in C#. Note that i refer to Windows Forms specifically, not the entirety of the .NET Framework.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  Visual C# is the reason Delphi was abandoned, and the reason is precisely that most people found it to be better.
  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    The .NET Framework is better than what was available in Delphi at the time (at least out of the box) but the visual designer in Visual C# and WinForms in general was and still is (since it has been largely abandoned) way behind Delphi or Lazarus.
  - pkphilip 5y ago
    Delphi was not abandoned because it was technically inferior. It was abandoned because Borland/Inprise started pushing Application Life Cycle products (don't get me started on that) and also pricing Delphi very high and the number of new companies/developers coming into the Delphi ecosystem dropped precipitously because of this. As Delphi lost steam, the development of Delphi too last steam and now we have the situation where Embarcadero marks HiDPI support as a feature in 2021. Embarcadero really, really needs to look at its pricing structure. Giving out a "community" version which does not even have proper database connectivity isn't going to change anything.
KronisLV 5y ago
C# in its many forms has many challenges, when it comes to desktop software. Mostly that if you want your software to work on any other OS apart from Windows, there still aren't that many good options. For example, there is Mono with Gtk#, but it's not really widely used, supported and overall seems to be dying, much like MonoDevelop is: https://www.mono-project.com/docs/faq/gtk/ https://www.mono-project.com/docs/faq/gtk/ After that, there was Xamarin Forms, but they're facing similar problems because in the new .NET there will be a new officially supported framework for GUI apps (they got bought out essentially and there has been little development on their project since): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/xamarin-forms/ The new .NET cross platform UI still hasn't been released either (well, you can check it out if you have the preview builds) and it might be a while until we can actually judge how well the "official" approach works in its stable form: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/get-started/installation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/get-started/ins... There are third party attempts to fill that vacuum of strong options, like Avalonia, but that's also just work in progress, like every other mentioned approach: http://avaloniaui.net/ http://avaloniaui.net/ Of course, there are also others like Eto: https://github.com/picoe/Eto https://github.com/picoe/Eto The point i'm making is that due to the history of .NET, cross platform wasn't a priority and therefore there is a really large amount of fragmentation, as well as the developer efforts are spread thin. Contrast to Java, where you basically had AWT, then eventually Swing, and now there's JavaFX/OpenJFX, all of which are cross platform. Similarly, in Lazarus (a FreePascal IDE) there's the Lazarus Component Library which is where most if not all of the development effort is focused. It's probably also easier to just have to learn one framework and set of tooling around it and be able to work on most projects out there that use that language, as opposed to there being so many different ones.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  I don't think the subset of people who used Delphi and later moved to Visual C# would be the ones to care about cross-platform much.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    Hmm, i wouldn't be so sure, since one of the slogans of Pascal (and i guess Delphi too) was "write once, compile anywhere" - i still think that FreePascal/Lazarus is a great choice for multi platform code, though personally i haven't exactly used Delphi in such a capacity to also make that claim. I do think that you make a good point, however, since not everyone cares about cross platform much and in regards to "native" .NET options on Windows, i'd say that everything from WinForms to stuff like WPF is indeed pleasant. That said, many developers out there also can't afford to (or just shouldn't) ignore cross platform development, so options in that regard are also definitely worth talking about!

tomc1985 5y ago

Lazarus comes close