Re: Delphi? Futureproof re vb!


"Tom Shelton" <tom_shelton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23IvZa8QPIHA.1188@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 2007-12-12, Suzy <not@valid> wrote:
Hi all



Might I just say, that going to Delphi, is probably not a wise choice.
First, your in your precieved situation because you tied yourself to a
vendor specific language - one that is not available from anyother
vendor. It seems to me that moving to Delphi is going to put you into
EXACTLY the same situation. No, if you want to avoid future "lock-in"
then you need to choose a language that either has a standard attached
to it or is availabe from multiple vendors. You can further enhance
this by choosing one that is available cross platform as well...

Maannnyy thousands using Free Pascal and Lazuras might take exception to
Delphi locking you to anything.

It's just a choice of an IDE where the language is Pascal and the Visual
Component Library furnishes the GUI components from Borland.

And you can't be serious when you recommend C++ as a RAD system.


So, here are the languages that I would look at:

1) C++: Standardized, Multiple Vendors, lots of available tools ranging
in price from free to multi-thousands of dollars, can be cross platform (that
depends on the coder).

2) C#: Standardized by ECMA and ISO. Multiple vendors - Microsoft,
Novell (via the Mono project). At one time, there was 3rd
implementation by the FSF, called dotGNU, but I'm not sure what ever
became of that project. Currently, there are official Mono implementations
for Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, and MacOS X. All are binary
compatable,
meaning that your exe compiled with VS can run on all those OS's
(provided of course that the libraries/classes have been implemented -
and currently that's like 99%). It also works the other way -
applications that I write and compile on my Gentoo Linux box can run
fine on my windows boxes (again, provided I don't use Mono specific
libraries/classes). Further, Mono has it's own VB.NET compiler as well,
so you don't even have to use the C# language :)

3) Any of the open-source scripting type languages also are viable
options - Perl, Python, Ruby, etc.

4) Java - especially now since it has been open sourced.

No matter what you choose to do, there will be a learning curve.
Especially if you choose a language in the C family, like C++, C#, or
Java. But, then again your going to have a learning curve going to
Pascal anyway. I played with Delphi once - stank to high heaven, IMHO.

--
Tom Shelton


.

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