January 19, 2006
Bitwise Magazine Reviews Delphi 2006
Bitwise Magazine is an online magazine for developers. In the January 2006 issue there is a review of Delphi 2006 done by a long-time Delphi developer plus a more limited review done by a Visual Studio developer. I have to say I liked the idea a lot.
What I don't like is that the articles seem to miss a few key points. First, as BDS is based on .NET 1.1 it certainly cannot have the WinForms 2.0 design guidelines or the .NET 2.0 edit-and-continue capabilities. These are not VS2005 features, per se, but features borrowed from the SDK and that can be used by any IDE. Wait until Borland adopts the new SDK and we'll see. It's OK to complain that Borland is late adopting 2.0, but singling out these missing features seems unfair to me. There are some other glitches: for example I guess VS "GUID creation tool" doesn't do much more than Delphi's Ctrl+Shift+G in the editor, getting you a new GUID. And Borland's UML support is not even mentioned. Also, BDS ToolsAPI is undocumented and hidden and adding a new personality is out of reach, but implying you cannot extend the BDS IDE is certainly wrong. Craig Stuntz has further comments in the non-tech newsgroup about the language review. I agree with his point: records methods are required for full .NET compatibility. And fully-functional value types do make sense in a language anyway (that's why object types were kept in the Delphi language for so many years).
Having said this, I do appreciate the fact the product review is there and I think that overall it does a fair job highlighting interesting features and limitations of Delphi 2006.I wanted to point out there is also an even more interesting article in the same issue by the same authors titled THE .NET DEBATE. I found this very amusing and interesting... a suggested read indeed!
3 Comments
Bitwise Magazine Reviews Delphi 2006
I think that Dermot's review is а kind of one-sided. As Marco already noted, Dermot presented several drawbacks of BDS which aren't really drawbacks. He just didn't know where to find these features. Personally I work both in VisualStudio (since v.2003) and Delphi (since v.3!). And I have done comercial projects in VS2003, D7, D8 and D2005. Pardon me, but working in D8 was reeeeeeal pain in the @ss. Though I completed project successfully, it was the worst year in my dev. experience. And my personal feeling is that, if we want to compare VS2003/VS2005 and D2005/D2006 these two IDE families have approximately the same, let's say, " comfortability" level. Some feautes are very pleasant in one IDE and I miss them in competitor's IDE and vise versa. E.g. code folding in BDS is much better. In VS I feel more comfortable working with Solution Explorer and project build setup as a whole. To conclude, there is a russian proverb, the shortest path is the known path. If somebody works in some IDE for years, it will be hard to switch to another product. It's just a matter of habit.Comment by Denis [] on January 20, 10:19
Bitwise Magazine Reviews Delphi 2006
I readed with interest all articles you refer. It's a lot of time I'm following this "IDE War". I've some considerations (in relation to all this IDE): 1. We must consider customer's requests We can speak of all the features of these wonderful IDEs, we can observe that Delphi must have more diffusion (and low cost) but at the end we must evaluate better development language and IDE to fast deploy our application following customer's requests. For example: I know I can develope a Pocket PC application using CF in Delphi but probably is better to use VS that offers more tools to debug this kind of application. 2. "One language" systems I'm developing a portable application for Blackberry mobile phone. In this case there is JUST one language (JAVA) that allows to use all API of the BlackBerry. In this case I don't have any opportunity to use Delphi or VS. I must use the IDE (JDE) downloaded from BlackBerry site. 3. Languages Diffusion I remember that in my Company I introduced Delphi (version 2) and I use it every day (Version 5 or 7) and my boss didn't know it. Delphi is a "developing system" and It isn't "only" a language (even if for a lot of Persons Delphi = Object Pascal). This is a point of power (for productivity and high integration) but also a point of weakness (Object Pascal is unknown if compared to Java, C# or VB). Probably Borland must increase Object Pascal diffusion by releasing old free editions of Delphi and also encourage young deveolopers and students introducing personal and "students" editions. 4. Simplicity The word ENTERPRISE that appears everywhere can discourage young developers to approach an IDE instead of another. I remember my approach to Delphi 1. It's simple but it offers big power. Actual IDEs are very complete and probably too complete. I like very much if Borland will release an "only Delphi IDE" mantaining old "philosophy".Comment by Bertoncini Luca [http://sviluppoesviluppo.blogspot.com] on January 22, 21:59
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Bitwise Magazine Reviews Delphi 2006
Comment by Mark Andrews on January 19, 19:47