Re: Should i leran delphi instead?

From: Bredal Jensen (Bredal.Jensen_at_mimosa.com)
Date: 08/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 15:45:17 +0200

The current version of Delphi *is* or claim to be the only non .Net IDE to
support the .Net Framework class Library.
I think they call it VCL.Net .

"Joseph M. Newcomer" <newcomer@flounder.com> wrote in message
news:qq13j0lfnuoqa24su8ss4at74od6g6nph6@4ax.com...
> They're just systems. Languages and runtime environments. Actually, for
raw productivity,
> VB is considered excellent, if all you care about is a sexy GUI.
>
> Here's a story: one of my clients came to me. He'd just paid another
consultant some large
> number of dollars for an extremely sexy GUI interface written in VB. He
was now a month
> from deployment, and discovered that behind that GUI, there was nothing.
It was just a
> GUI. No database interface, no network connectivity. But a sexy GUI.
>
> Could I help? He'd even pay me a bonus if I got anything working by the
time he was
> supposed to deliver, because of the penalty clause in his contract.
>
> I reimplemented the entire GUI with one exception, built the database
library interface
> (not ODBC, by the way), and the network communication, in three weeks
using MFC. He had a
> week to test and found very few bugs, mostly trivial cosmetics and a
couple dumb
> uninitialized pointer errors.
>
> The missing feature? In VB, the buttons changed color when pushed and
reverted to the
> original color when released. My buttons were stock buttons, not
owner-draw (the client
> did not want to include the owner-draw time in the budget).
>
> There is very little I cannot do in MFC that other GUI design tools
provide. But I've
> found that most of these tools have so many built-in assumptions about the
environment
> they run in that they cannot support anything else, such as raw API
interface,
> asynchronous network interfaces, general asynchronous I/O, event log
interfaces, complex
> messaging, multithreading, and synchronizaiton. I have had to consult with
any number of
> firms whose problems fall into these domains; their programmers don't know
how to do these
> things, and the systems they are using do not provide necessary support.
So before you
> focus on something as trivial as GUI support, make sure the systems are
open-ended and can
> support real programs behind the GUI, not just be designed to create
pretty toys. Early
> Java systems were a prime example of cute-toys-but-no-substance as far as
GUI design.
>
> From my experience, Java or C# might be better choices. Java can't handle
asynchronous
> I/O, and I'm not sure if C# can, Neither has a document/view model. Most
Java programmers
> I know who have learned C# claim that C# solves a number of fundamental
problems of Java,
> and none have said that C# has any technical flaws. The reasons for
choosing one over the
> other usually depend upon external factors.
>
> I don't know enough about the current versions of Delphi to comment on how
well they
> address any of these issues. I used an earlier version and it was, to put
it mildly,
> pitiful. Drove me crazy trying to integrate my changes into an existing
piece of code,
> because most of what I needed to do it (back then) did not exist in the
language, and only
> with great difficulty doing raw API calls. But I think that may have been
the first Win32
> version, and I only took it on as a favor to a client. Perhaps it has
improved a lot in
> these areas. Besides, I truly hate the Pascal language. It has all the
syntactic elegance
> of FORTRAN without the powerful semantics (I once spent a year maintaining
about 10K lines
> of Pascal code, one of the worst years I ever spent. Surprisingly, Delphi
doesn't seem to
> do much about the basic flaws of Pascal).
> joe
>
> On Sat, 28 Aug 2004 17:53:54 +0200, "Bredal Jensen"
<Bredal.Jensen@mimosa.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >My short experience in using MFC to try and build first class User
interface
> >application
> >is leading me to beleive that i may be using the wrong tool.
> >Things are not simple. I have spent one week using using delphi and the
> >result is oustanding.
> >Things that users would consider nice to have are extremely complicated
to
> >do with MFC.
> >Why is that the case.
> >
> >Does anyone know about a comparative analysis of delphi <-->Vc++/MFC.
> >
> >
> >Thank you?
> >
>
> Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
> email: newcomer@flounder.com
> Web: http://www.flounder.com
> MVP Tips: http://www.flounder.com/mvp_tips.htm