[fpc-pascal]Kylix and M68k Port

[Michael A. Hess]

Matt Emson wrote:
> 
> It's going to be a hit. Believe me. It already has thousands of
> developers.

Actually I doubt it. I'll tell you why.

I am an ardent Delphi and Pascal fan. I wouldn't be involved with FPC
and Lazarus if I wasn't. However I am constantly discouraged when
looking at Delphi usage by the rest of the world. In a word it isn't
used. In fact it goes beyond not used to never heard of. Over the last
year I have consulted with several companies and they were large
companies and the other members of the companies IT programming staff
never even heard of Delphi. They didn't know what it was. When I say it
is Pascal their comments were, "Isn't pascal dead?". I have even been
told that college professors will not show pascal or talk about pascal
because in the collegiate world pascal is considered dead.

I don't like it a great deal but Visual Basic is the choice of a large
portion of the developers out in the world. Unfortunately it is because
it comes with that major business name "Microsoft" attached. Many of the
shirt & ties in the companies want to be sure to use a tool that they
think is stable and can be supported. This might be wrong but it is what
they think and what Microsoft has managed to instill into the thought
processes of these individuals.

The one sure fire way I have of judging the effect of either a hardware
platform or a software product is to visit a book store. The growth or
popularity of a product can be tied directly to the number of books
about the subject in the book store. As the Mac slowly dwindled in sales
and popularity the number of books diminished. Today you are lucky to go
into a 'Borders' or 'Barnes & Nobles', two of the largest sellers in the
U.S., and be able to find books on the Mac. Usually it is relegated to
about one shelf on one rack out of about 20-25 racks. The opposite can
be seen for Linux itself. Every month more and more shelf space and in
fact whole racks are starting to be filled with just Linux books.

Now we look for Delphi books. In Barnes & Noble you are lucky to find
one. In fact when I was in there just last week I found one. Yes just
one book on Delphi. Other than articles in Linux rags or web sites about
Kylix I don't see any major articles about Delphi on Windows. Why?
Because very, very few commercial products are built using Delphi. Sad
but true.

OK do you want another example? How about jobs! I did a search on DICE
using the following keywords: Delphi, Visual Basic, Java, C++.

Here are the hits for the number of jobs with each of those keywords.

 Language           Jobs
--------------------------
  C++             41,903
 Java             33,072
Visual Basic       8,339
 Delphi              508

On all of the DICE site there are only 508 jobs that list Delphi in any
way shape or form. If that is all the jobs available using Delphi in
it's present form in Windows, exactly how many more will possible exist
in Linux? I don't see them.

I would like to think that Delphi will continue to exist and that it
will knock Visual Basic off of that pedestal that it sits on in the
business world, but I am doubtful.

This commentary wasn't in a vain to compare or promote Delphi over FPC.
I think they both have a huge place in the world and neither should be
tring to replace the other. I just hope that Delphi continues to exist.

Commentary off.    :-)

-- 
==== Programming my first best destiny! ====

Michael A. Hess      Miracle Concepts, Inc.
mhess at miraclec.com   http://www.miraclec.com