3 ms·

When I converted to Mormonism last year, I met an older missionary couple and bonded with the husband over our love for programming. He's a Delphi developer who

by sdsd 1y ago

When I converted to Mormonism last year, I met an older missionary couple and bonded with the husband over our love for programming. He's a Delphi developer who supports legacy applications. He's had a lot of trouble finding work, but doesn't feel equipped to learn any modern stack. I think his wife is selling clothes online to support themselves.

mickeyp 1y ago
Yes, that sounds like a Delphi developer alright. I worked with Delphi personally and professionally for many, many years. You were at the precipice of unemployment in the 2000s if you used it then. To do it now? You're like a looney toons character suspended in mid-air. There's Delphi work around, to be sure, but you're competing against people with 30 years of commercial experience building -- or rather just keeping them limping along -- today, and they are as desperate as the Powerbuilder, Oracle Forms, FoxPro and Lotus Domino folk in scratching out an income in a stagnant pool. Delphi died an ignominious death a long time ago, and it is truly sad. I miss it; frontend development today is a joke compared to what we could do with Delphi. But so what? It's dead. And it's not coming back.
- baranul 1y ago
  Last time checked, Delphi (Object Pascal) is ranked #10 on the TIOBE index (August 2025). People get all hot and bothered by Rust and others, yet they are still way behind on the charts. Yeah, Delphi is not in the top 5, but is clearly very far from dead. Especially in comparison to the untold number of languages and companies out there.
  - mickeyp 1y ago
    Care to show me a job board bursting at the seams with Delphi jobs?
    - baranul 1y ago
      Delphi/Object Pascal is taught in many places around the world and its usage depends on the country. Because Delphi/Object Pascal is not so popular in your or a specific country, does not mean its not more popular somewhere else. More people and companies use Delphi than many realize, that's why they are still in business. Object Pascal can also be transpiled into other languages, where people are not aware of what the original code was written in. For instance, Russia makes wide usage of PascalABC, which compiles/uses .NET. There is also Oxygene (RemObjects), that can compile to .NET too. Popularity and usage does not equate exactly to the job market. For instance Scratch is more popular and widely used than Rust, because of its reach with the young and schools. And, many jobs can ask for programming skills, like knowing Python (which boosts its ranking). But they are often asking for that language as a supplement or plus, not as the main reason why they are hiring a person.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      In Germany, https://www.jobworld.de/Delphi-jobs https://www.jobworld.de/Delphi-jobs Plus upcoming conference, https://entwickler-konferenz.de/en/ https://entwickler-konferenz.de/en/
gcanyon 1y ago
He should have a look at Filemaker -- it's an active product with customers that need help (last time I checked) and owned by Apple, so it's not going anywhere for at least a bit longer. The dev environment is at a similar level -- I think, I'm not that familiar with Delphi.
egorfine 1y ago
> but doesn't feel equipped to learn any modern stack why?
hippo22 1y ago
[dead]
ivraatiems 1y ago
Why doesn't he feel equipped? Is it an age/speed-of-learning thing, or more of a, there's too many new concepts and not enough time? Genuinely asking, not trying to be snarky. My prior assumption is typically that a capable engineer in one language or stack can learn another relatively easily.

by sdsd 1y ago

mickeyp 1y ago

Yes, that sounds like a Delphi developer alright. I worked with Delphi personally and professionally for many, many years. You were at the precipice of unemployment in the 2000s if you used it then. To do it now? You're like a looney toons character suspended in mid-air. There's Delphi work around, to be sure, but you're competing against people with 30 years of commercial experience building -- or rather just keeping them limping along -- today, and they are as desperate as the Powerbuilder, Oracle Forms, FoxPro and Lotus Domino folk in scratching out an income in a stagnant pool. Delphi died an ignominious death a long time ago, and it is truly sad. I miss it; frontend development today is a joke compared to what we could do with Delphi. But so what? It's dead. And it's not coming back.

baranul 1y ago
Last time checked, Delphi (Object Pascal) is ranked #10 on the TIOBE index (August 2025). People get all hot and bothered by Rust and others, yet they are still way behind on the charts. Yeah, Delphi is not in the top 5, but is clearly very far from dead. Especially in comparison to the untold number of languages and companies out there.
- mickeyp 1y ago
  Care to show me a job board bursting at the seams with Delphi jobs?
  - baranul 1y ago
    Delphi/Object Pascal is taught in many places around the world and its usage depends on the country. Because Delphi/Object Pascal is not so popular in your or a specific country, does not mean its not more popular somewhere else. More people and companies use Delphi than many realize, that's why they are still in business. Object Pascal can also be transpiled into other languages, where people are not aware of what the original code was written in. For instance, Russia makes wide usage of PascalABC, which compiles/uses .NET. There is also Oxygene (RemObjects), that can compile to .NET too. Popularity and usage does not equate exactly to the job market. For instance Scratch is more popular and widely used than Rust, because of its reach with the young and schools. And, many jobs can ask for programming skills, like knowing Python (which boosts its ranking). But they are often asking for that language as a supplement or plus, not as the main reason why they are hiring a person.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    In Germany, https://www.jobworld.de/Delphi-jobs https://www.jobworld.de/Delphi-jobs Plus upcoming conference, https://entwickler-konferenz.de/en/ https://entwickler-konferenz.de/en/

gcanyon 1y ago

He should have a look at Filemaker -- it's an active product with customers that need help (last time I checked) and owned by Apple, so it's not going anywhere for at least a bit longer. The dev environment is at a similar level -- I think, I'm not that familiar with Delphi.

egorfine 1y ago

> but doesn't feel equipped to learn any modern stack why?

hippo22 1y ago

[dead]

ivraatiems 1y ago

Why doesn't he feel equipped? Is it an age/speed-of-learning thing, or more of a, there's too many new concepts and not enough time? Genuinely asking, not trying to be snarky. My prior assumption is typically that a capable engineer in one language or stack can learn another relatively easily.