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> I just wish the Xcode folks would have taken a few more pages from Delphi's playbook. Indeed. Delphi was clearly influenced by NeXT/Interface Builder, but ev

> I just wish the Xcode folks would have taken a few more pages from Delphi's playbook. Indeed. Delphi was clearly influenced by NeXT/Interface Builder, but even back in 1995 it was miles ahead of today's Xcode. For those not familiar with it, Delphi's UI editor was always live. You could create a data source object, enter the database connection info, then create a table view and point it at the data source, and the table would be filled with real data -- all within the editor. Like Interface Builder, the editor was running the real visual components (the equivalent of Cocoa's NSView), but unlike Interface Builder, Delphi focused on providing a true WYSIWYG experience, making it very easy to build new visual components that would be rendered live in the editor. Apple has moved away from this, in fact, with the latest Xcode no longer supporting plugins, and so custom views can no longer be rendered inside Interface Builder. It's incredibly weird and sad that 18 (!) years later, current GUI tools are worse than Delphi was in 1995.

eli 14y ago
Delphi was the first "real" platform I used (version 1.0 on Windows 3.11) and it wasn't until much later that I realized how good I'd had it. In addition to the rather obvious idea that the GUI should be designed graphically, it also had a fast compiler and a good integrated debugger. If I remember correctly the entire Delphi IDE was itself developed in Delphi.
- haddr 14y ago
  At some point of time there was an open source delphi IDE, and it was developed in Delphi, but I think the official one wasn't (at least at the beginning).
  - eli 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure at least most versions of the official IDE were written in Delphi (the IDE--not the compiler, of course). I remember trying to hack plugins into it and it was clearly Delphi code. Random person on SO seems to agree http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7766753/what-ide-is-the-delphi-ide-developed-in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7766753/what-ide-is-the-d...
    - daven11 14y ago
      indeed. The strangest thing is you can debug the delphi ide in the delphi ide. I do this from time to time to debug components that have start up problems
haddr 14y ago
My thoughts exactly. I remember Delphi as beeing de facto choice for rapid software development. I'm regretfull about the fall and demise of the overall platform. Even now many tools are not yet so good as deplhi was around 1997. I remember it outperforming MS Visual Basic. I don't know what has happened that Borland stopped beeing the best place to work for great engineers, but that could be probably some great case studies for contemporal tech companies. Really pity that we have to reinvent again where we've been 15 years ago...

eli 14y ago

Delphi was the first "real" platform I used (version 1.0 on Windows 3.11) and it wasn't until much later that I realized how good I'd had it. In addition to the rather obvious idea that the GUI should be designed graphically, it also had a fast compiler and a good integrated debugger. If I remember correctly the entire Delphi IDE was itself developed in Delphi.

haddr 14y ago
At some point of time there was an open source delphi IDE, and it was developed in Delphi, but I think the official one wasn't (at least at the beginning).
- eli 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure at least most versions of the official IDE were written in Delphi (the IDE--not the compiler, of course). I remember trying to hack plugins into it and it was clearly Delphi code. Random person on SO seems to agree http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7766753/what-ide-is-the-delphi-ide-developed-in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7766753/what-ide-is-the-d...
  - daven11 14y ago
    indeed. The strangest thing is you can debug the delphi ide in the delphi ide. I do this from time to time to debug components that have start up problems

haddr 14y ago

My thoughts exactly. I remember Delphi as beeing de facto choice for rapid software development. I'm regretfull about the fall and demise of the overall platform. Even now many tools are not yet so good as deplhi was around 1997. I remember it outperforming MS Visual Basic. I don't know what has happened that Borland stopped beeing the best place to work for great engineers, but that could be probably some great case studies for contemporal tech companies. Really pity that we have to reinvent again where we've been 15 years ago...