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I loved Turbo Pascal, but to me the high point of Borland's tooling was Delphi (1995). I don't want to sound like old man yells at cloud, but every time someone

I loved Turbo Pascal, but to me the high point of Borland's tooling was Delphi (1995). I don't want to sound like old man yells at cloud, but every time someone says that building GUIs with Electron is so easy compared to native apps, I just wished they experienced Delphi in its prime. There are some very short/simple demos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_3K_0vjUhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_3K_0vjUhk

pjmlp 3y ago
They can still experience it today with the community edition.
- mikewarot 3y ago
  If you can agree to their very strange terms and conditions. Or, use Lazarus/Free Pascal, which is almost identical, except for the documentation, which needs a massive overhaul, in tooling and content.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    Not everyone is religious against such agreements. Those can profit from very latest version.
    - mikewarot 3y ago
      If you make gears, for example, and sell more than $5000 of gears, you still have to pay for Delphi under that license... it's really weird.
lelanthran 3y ago
> but every time someone says that building GUIs with Electron is so easy compared to native apps, I just wished they experienced Delphi in its prime. Every time someone says that, I mention Lazarus. I stll get a thrill out of using it (one of my github projects is a C library, and the GUI app is in Lazarus, which calls into the API to do everything). The problem I find with Lazarus is that it seems to be slowly dying; yes, they still work on it, but feature-wise they are very behind what can be done with HTML+CSS and a handful of js utility functions. A wealthy benefactor could very quickly get Lazarus to the point of doing all the eye-candy extras that HTML+CSS let you do (animated elements, for example).
hinkley 3y ago
I will happily fill an hour with trash talking Microsoft, but getting the father of Delphi on board is one of the shrewdest things they’ve managed. I wish he’d found a different project to sink his teeth into though.
aaptel 3y ago
Looks pretty similar to C# WinForms that ships with Visual Studio. https://youtu.be/n5WneLo6vOY?si=maped85dMX90KIn1 https://youtu.be/n5WneLo6vOY?si=maped85dMX90KIn1

pjmlp 3y ago

They can still experience it today with the community edition.

mikewarot 3y ago
If you can agree to their very strange terms and conditions. Or, use Lazarus/Free Pascal, which is almost identical, except for the documentation, which needs a massive overhaul, in tooling and content.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Not everyone is religious against such agreements. Those can profit from very latest version.
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    If you make gears, for example, and sell more than $5000 of gears, you still have to pay for Delphi under that license... it's really weird.

lelanthran 3y ago

> but every time someone says that building GUIs with Electron is so easy compared to native apps, I just wished they experienced Delphi in its prime. Every time someone says that, I mention Lazarus. I stll get a thrill out of using it (one of my github projects is a C library, and the GUI app is in Lazarus, which calls into the API to do everything). The problem I find with Lazarus is that it seems to be slowly dying; yes, they still work on it, but feature-wise they are very behind what can be done with HTML+CSS and a handful of js utility functions. A wealthy benefactor could very quickly get Lazarus to the point of doing all the eye-candy extras that HTML+CSS let you do (animated elements, for example).

hinkley 3y ago

I will happily fill an hour with trash talking Microsoft, but getting the father of Delphi on board is one of the shrewdest things they’ve managed. I wish he’d found a different project to sink his teeth into though.

aaptel 3y ago

Looks pretty similar to C# WinForms that ships with Visual Studio. https://youtu.be/n5WneLo6vOY?si=maped85dMX90KIn1 https://youtu.be/n5WneLo6vOY?si=maped85dMX90KIn1