[fpc-pascal]Kylix and M68k Port

[Matt Emson]

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

I'm sorry, you don't mention where you're from. I'm guessing the states. Correct
me if I'm wrong.

The problem with the US is that it's so fragmented. I'm a Delphi developer,
have been for over 3 years, and have never looked back. I have no problem finding
new jobs - in fact I get job agencies still hasssling me from CV's I sent out
8 months ago!! The company I work for is a Consultancy and Training organisation
- we make a mint ;) We only do Delphi, Java and a little C++ Builder.

>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. 

Did you look beyond your own backyard? Delphi is extremely popular in Europe.


>In a word it isn't used. 

I certainly get paid a lot for doing nothing then ;)

>In fact it goes beyond not used to never heard of. 

Only true if the organisation has no real IT department or their IT department
isn't on the ball.

>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've only ever had to explain what Delphi is to non-programmers. Maybe we're
better informed in the UK :P

>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.

Delphi isn't considered Pascal though is it? It's an Object Pascal dialect with
a RAD IDE.

>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.

VB7 will shake the VB world up. There's no VB for Linux (nor will there ever
be until M$ admit Linux is cool.)

>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. 

I can walk into Borders in Oxford Street, London and find a Mac section. I suppose
it depends on where you look ;) Blackwells has a large Mac section as well.


>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. 

Borders in London has abbout the same amount of shelves, and the Mac section
is about 3/4 - 1 whole rack.

Linux has about 3 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.

Multiple titles does not equal quality publication. Much of the Linux badwaggon
press is generic and plaguristic.

>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. 

I'll admit that Delphi books can be a little thin on the ground, but Delphi
is the type of anguage where you only need one or two books. Delphi in a Nutshell
is all I really refer to.

>Other than articles in Linux rags or web sites about
>Kylix I don't see any major articles about Delphi on Windows. Why?

Because you don't subscribe to Delphi Informant or 'the Delphi Magazine' ? Because
you don't read PC Plus (a uk magazine) that has a programming section dedicated
to Delphi?? Like I said.. backyard, look further ;)

>Because very, very few commercial products are built using Delphi. Sad
>but true.

Go to the Borland Website. Search for the VCL scanner, and run it on your machine.
Then be surprised ;) Microsoft even shipped a version of VB where one of the
supporting tools was written in Delphi. Search for 'Delphi' on the web. Search
for Delphi on Amazon (.co.uk and .com - results may be different) and also bol.com.


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

Your search is a little misleading though..

>Here are the hits for the number of jobs with each of those keywords.
>
> Language           Jobs
>--------------------------
>  C++             41,903

That includes: Unix (linux, aix, hpuk, solaris etc), Visual C++, C++ Builder,
Generic Windows, Mac, Vax/VMS, IBM Mainframe.. etc

> Java             33,072

Java is a buzzword at the moment, and also the darling language of choice. Of

course there'll be a lot of jobs!!

>Visual Basic       8,339

That will incluse VB3, VB4, VB5, VB6, VBA (Access, Word, Excel etc)
Ever tried taking a VB6 app and porting it back to VB3?!?! lol.. something you
can do with Delphi fairly easily.

> Delphi              508

Take a look at 

news://forums.inprise.com 

there's a forum there called something like 'public.XXX.delphi.jobs'.

>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.

508 real jobs, versus 41,000 vapour jobs.. Cool ;)

>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.

Just be patient ;)

Matt