[fpc-pascal] opendelphi.org

[Vinzent Hoefler]

On Thursday 16 March 2006 08:24, Marco van de Voort wrote:

> While I'm not a .NET lover  (I wrote the FPC section on .NET), but
> while we all know that .NET is at best M$'s copy of Java,

Well, it may be a copy, but if you take a closer look at it, it's 
actually better than Java, at least on the technical side.

> that doesn't mean that .NET is not a danger:

I never said that. :) But that also depends on what you define as 
"danger". If you want to attract former Delphi-Developers who already 
embraced .NET, it is, yes. But OTOH, if your target audience gets a 
little bit broader and would include developers that just need to get 
the job done, it's not, I guess.

> - it is reasonably well implemented and integrated.

Yes. Although most people don't seem to care about such things.

(Remembering the rumours that the Java Hotspot Compiler has been written 
in about 3.5 million lines of nasty C++ code, I'd say, it could be even 
much worse and nobody would notice or even care.)

> - the framework is huge. This is more important than it seems. Less
> 	components to buy, more people using a standarised set of
> 	components. It has its attraction.

Agreed. But from my experience, once you're basing the whole discussion 
on that, frameworks can never be large enough.

First: Technically, at some point, frameworks can actually tend to be 
too large, latest when you spend more time looking for the right thing 
that that you'd need to implement it by yourself.

Second: As a programmer, you usually only need a _very_ small subset of 
any large framework. With the current project here at work (ported some 
ten years old Turbo-Pascal based software), I already have quite a set 
of classes, but if I take a look on what I needed from the FCL, it was 
not much more than the TStringList, TStream and the TThread class. :-)

It's amazing what you can do if you have the right simple building 
blocks. For me, software development at the end is nothing more than a 
good planned Lego(tm). All the parts just have to fit together...

And now that I have some more inside data, I can even prove that I have 
been no less efficient than my fellow Java coders who have a much 
larger framework already at hand. Well, I believe to know why: For 
instance, it took them about the same time to figure out how to use the  
logging classes in Java the right way as if I needed to implement my 
own thread safe logger class in object pascal.

> - Managers still believe in managed languages, and might for some
> time to come

Nope. In fact, managers don't care about languages or everybody would've 
used Ada since years already. Usually managers don't even know that 
there's more than one to choose from. Or if they do then they just know 
the usual myths like "too old, too complex, ..." BTST.

If you'd ask a manager about programming languages, I would be surprised 
if they could name much more than the usual suspects like C, C++, Java. 
But the same guy will tell you, that their developer are very efficient 
and they all do CORBA, MDA, OOA, OOD, OOP, RUP, UML, XML, ... 
-"technology".

> - training and sales

Yeah right. You mean like giving away 50'000+ bucks for a proprietary 
version control system when you can get a more or less standard one for 
free, but then they can't afford a decent language. ;-)

> 	- About each and other shrinkwrap development tools vendor is dead
> or nearly dead.  The few left are into .NET and M$ can easily keep
> 		them at arms length technically forever

Depends on the viewpoint. I know some vendors that don't care about MS 
and .NET too much. But, well, they earning their money mostly with 
real-time embedded and safety-critical stuff like military, air-planes, 
nuclear power-plants. Hopefully it will be a long way until MS gets 
accepted as a tool vendor and such in that area. Of course, it's not 
getting you very big bucks, but it still seems to pay the rent.

>         - Microsoft hardly has to do sales anyway. As OS and Office
> vendor it already has a foot in the door. Strategic developers and
> educational  institutions are given licenses often near free -

Legalized software piracy, yes.

> Also
> the massive MS training operations automatically generate MS
> developer tools sales.

Still, a lot of people seem to like Java better.

> IMHO it is less .NET itself, but the alarming conversion rates of
> businesses to MS tools (and that is often not a technical choice).

Converting to MS tools has never been a technical choice. :->

> (Oh, and the fact that memory prices have sunk much lately also
> doesn't propel my enthusiasm for .NET)

Well. I have 20 times more RAM now, than my first harddrive had and 
Windows2000 still isn't starting up faster than my Windows 3.1 was.

That's called progress, I think. Time will tell. But after having a 25 
years old technology that some guy hacked up in a garage still being 
the most used desktop system, I don't have much hope.

But I'm really getting away from the subject, I think.


Vinzent.