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Delphi is probably the best, but I can't afford it. Lazarus is pretty good, except for the documentation, which needs a huge refactoring effort. You can put to

Delphi is probably the best, but I can't afford it. Lazarus is pretty good, except for the documentation, which needs a huge refactoring effort. You can put together small applications in minutes.

mattl 3y ago
What does the free personal version of Delphi not give you?
- mikewarot 3y ago
  There is no "free" version, only a "if you make less than $X" version, which is a huge red flag for me. Lazarus is free, but due to the way their help files are build, incremental improvements in it are impossible, so it's just a list of arguments for functions, with no real explanations.
  - mattl 3y ago
    Ah, interesting. $5000 isn’t a lot for professional software developers but could be fine for hobby projects I guess. $1300 for the professional version is a steep price jump from $0
PrimeMcFly 3y ago
I had no idea Delphi was even still around.
- jefozabuss 3y ago
  Last time I used it it was with Turbo Pascal probably 18-19 years ago. It was a really decent IDE, nice to see it's still around.
Clubber 3y ago
Delphi was quite good at Windows application development last time I used it, probably 2010. I'd probably stay away if you ever need to maintain it or hire people to use it. There's value in using a popular language with staying power.
- adrianmsmith 3y ago
  > There's value in using a popular language with staying power. That's a good point about popular languages, but you can't complain about Dephi's staying power. Wikipedia shows it as having been released in 1995, and it still seems to be going!
  - Clubber 3y ago
    >but you can't complain about Dephi's staying power. Wikipedia shows it as having been released in 1995, and it still seems to be going! Yes, but it's only really alive due to legacy systems. You don't often see new development done on it, at least in the US. Good luck finding a Delphi developer vs. Java or C#. I think it's still popular in Eastern Europe though. I do love the platform and I used it for probably 13 years, but it's wilting pretty hard today. I would never build anything of substance with it today.
    - fuzztester 3y ago
      I hear now and then that Delphi is still popular in Germany.

Delphi is probably the best, but I can't afford it. Lazarus is pretty good, except for the documentation, which needs a huge refactoring effort. You can put together small applications in minutes.

mattl 3y ago

What does the free personal version of Delphi not give you?

mikewarot 3y ago
There is no "free" version, only a "if you make less than $X" version, which is a huge red flag for me. Lazarus is free, but due to the way their help files are build, incremental improvements in it are impossible, so it's just a list of arguments for functions, with no real explanations.
- mattl 3y ago
  Ah, interesting. $5000 isn’t a lot for professional software developers but could be fine for hobby projects I guess. $1300 for the professional version is a steep price jump from $0

PrimeMcFly 3y ago

I had no idea Delphi was even still around.

jefozabuss 3y ago
Last time I used it it was with Turbo Pascal probably 18-19 years ago. It was a really decent IDE, nice to see it's still around.

Clubber 3y ago

Delphi was quite good at Windows application development last time I used it, probably 2010. I'd probably stay away if you ever need to maintain it or hire people to use it. There's value in using a popular language with staying power.

adrianmsmith 3y ago
> There's value in using a popular language with staying power. That's a good point about popular languages, but you can't complain about Dephi's staying power. Wikipedia shows it as having been released in 1995, and it still seems to be going!
- Clubber 3y ago
  >but you can't complain about Dephi's staying power. Wikipedia shows it as having been released in 1995, and it still seems to be going! Yes, but it's only really alive due to legacy systems. You don't often see new development done on it, at least in the US. Good luck finding a Delphi developer vs. Java or C#. I think it's still popular in Eastern Europe though. I do love the platform and I used it for probably 13 years, but it's wilting pretty hard today. I would never build anything of substance with it today.
  - fuzztester 3y ago
    I hear now and then that Delphi is still popular in Germany.