Re: Delphi? Futureproof re vb!

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Personally, I didn't like Delphi when I looked at it back in its Version 2 or 3 days. I guess things could have changed, but the underlying Pascal language didn't "feel right" to me. I haven't looked at it recently, but I thought I heard they were moving toward a .NET implementation of Delphi, although I'm guessing they are remaining backward compatible with their old syntax. If that is the case, I would expect most new books and tutorials would favor the .NET side of things over the older syntax side. Perhaps someone with current Delphi experience will be along to address these issues.

As for me, when the day comes that VB6 is "no more", my preference will be for a product called REALbasic...

http://www.realsoftware.com/products/realbasic/professional_edition.php

There is a cheaper (less features) Standard version available too. Now, REALbasic is not completely syntax compatible with VB, so you will still have a learning curve, but there are a lot of nice (and considerably more) features built into it compared to VB. Just so you know, though, future upgrades are subscription based, so there is an on-going cost factor to consider. There is a trial version available if you want to get a feel for the product (their tutorial file will give you a decent overview).

Rick


"Suzy" <not@valid> wrote in message news:476020b4$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi all

I bought a book to see if there was some sense in "upgrading" to dot net! (assuming that newer is better). The book is the Dummies Guide to VB Net Express. The book so far has about a fifth of the space taken up saying in effect what a retrograde step vb net is, thought up by programmers thinking as programmers and not users, with the "help" even worse, and that VB express is an attempt to "go back". About a twentieth of the book gives new (to me...) syntax, and the whole of the rest describes programming concepts which are easy to understand (variables, loops etc) and are in fact exactly as vb6. Apparently dot net express is an attempt by Microsoft to get back to the vb6 concept which they should never have left!

I am unwilling to ditch all I have learned about vb6, which I find adequate for all I want to do, and at the same time it is obviously a waste of time to get into dot net given that a) it is so uninstinctive and "up-themselves" (pardon this) programmer-orientated, by which I mean "never mind the user"; let us revel in our own world", and b) who's to say that after making the effort I won't be marooned again by Microsoft as they change platforms again?

So, the alternative seems to be Delphi. Could anyone comment? Is the similarity of Delphi to vb6 enough to allow easy transition? Will Microsoft try to break the workability of Delphi with future Windoze versions? Given that Vista is also apparently a disaster, I wonder if I should ditch Microsoft entirely and go to say Red Hat?


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