February 9, 2007
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
First, there has been a leak regarding future versions of CodeGear products. An email from a partner mentions:
- Delphi Spacely, a Win32 Development for Windows Vista and AJAX
- Delphi Astro, a Delphi for PHP
More officially, over the last few days there has been a flurry of posts by Michael Swindell in the thread Why PHP?, clarifying some of the information and adding more. Here are a few quotes (please read the full thread to put them in the proper context, emphasis is mine):
- We are increasing focus on Delphi, native in particular; Native Delphi and C++Builder development will be done year round and we're increasing our focus and support over past years
- We will also be coming out with PHP products without detracting from Delphi
- Delphi and VCL will be the "center of the universe" for CodeGear RAD products
- You will see a renewed focus from us on RAD and native code because most of our customers want it, it's something we do very well, the competition is focusing on other things, and there aren't really any viable open source alternatives
- The basic concept of a Linux cross-compiler which is at the heart of Simon Kissel's proposal is interesting; if we were to revive Kylix, it would most likely be developer studio plug-in; I would love to do more Kylix, it just has to be a sound business move that doesn't hurt our Delphi and C++ users/products; What would a second generation CLX look like? Could it be completely open source and community developed with CodeGear support?
- Dynamic languages such as PHP and Ruby new areas where we will be going. Some products will be more in the RAD camp, aligned with Delphi and VCL, and others will be more in the Open Source/Eclipse/Enterprise world.
- We will be realigning the editions and the notion of the Studio this year. We will have separate Win32 focused Delphi and C++ releases, then later a studio that includes .NET and Win32. We will also be releasing products on a more frequent basis - smaller releases with focused features and high quality which is going to make studio subscriptions a much more popular and cost effective model for customers. Nick is updating the Roadmap and will be launching it in coordination with some announcements we have coming on.
I particularly like the renewed focus on Win32 (something no-one else is doing, as Micheal mentions) and the frequent release/subscription model. We'll see how things turn out, but this CodeGear company seems really different from Borland...
13 Comments
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
The more I hear about Delphi and PHP and being VCL and RAD aligned, I go back to qstudio (www.qadram.com/products.php), which is exactly that: an IDE for RAD development in PHP based on a class library called WCL. Is there something onto it?Comment by DanielPCosta [http://dpcosta.wordpress.com] on February 9, 18:17
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
They didn't choose a good code name... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Spacely <G>Comment by Luigi D. Sandon on February 9, 18:35
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
"We will have separate Win32 focused Delphi and C++ releases". Hopefully CodeGear will release them at the same time, instead of C++ users having to wait months.Comment by Stuart Kelly on February 10, 16:11
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
Hello! And what about Delphi for NBL="Next Big Language" :) http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/02/next-big- language.html On the following page Delphi is mentioned as a candidate for next big language: http://scobleizer.com/2007/02/11/google-dev-the-next- big-programming-language/ Cheers, RomanComment by doknir [http://doknir.blogspot.com] on February 12, 00:37
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
Hooray! Concentrating on NATIVE code instead of following and having to change with the chameleon .net. At least Delphi coders can concentrate on getting the job done, not having to follow the .net means not having to make sure "their" app works with every nuance of dot net flavour - and their app works faster too!Comment by Peter Sanders on February 12, 01:57
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
Wow !!! Great news!!! And if CodeGear release Delphi for Win32 without need to preinstall .NET and J# it will be superb. The new Delphi IDE also should be VERY fast and ROCK stable. And please CodeGear do NOT release ECO for Win32. I do NOT need it. Instead of that make Delphi VCL full Unicode compatible. It is big issue for me and my team now.Comment by Simeon Bodurov on February 12, 23:15
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
I must admit that in light of the recent comments from Simon Kissel I had given up hope of ever seeing Kylix given the breath of life. After spending time scouring the web I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing out there that comes close to Kylix for RAD in the Linux arena (that I can find I hasten to add). I have been using Kylix for some time now for machine automation purposes for both the machine logic (in conjunction with RTAI) and GUI operator interfaces with great success and it poses a severe problem if it were to be abandoned. After reading this blog I now have fresh hope that CodeGear will do something about Kylix and start supporting as it well deserves. Here's hoping ...Comment by Paul Lowman on February 14, 04:14
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
I can't wait to try it out. I have some project ideas already in mind. I am really happy AdoDB was chosen to interface to the backend. Earlier I had hoped QaDram would develop into a usable interface but that never happened. Well really need to try this out and see how well it performs.Comment by ibandyop on February 20, 18:15
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
CodeGear looks like the original Borland - the pre Ashton Tate Borland that provided PC developers with the very best tools available. I (along with some others) gave up somewhere in the Inprise-back-to- Borland era when quality dropped off alarmingly and questionable feature bloat was turning software developer tools into (usually late) monsters. It just wasn't all that different from working with Micro$oft, so Borland was dropped. However, I'm watching CodeGear with increasing optimism. Delphi/PHP seems to be a promising tool for 'web' development and a revitalized and refocussed Delphi could quickly become (again) my preferred choice for Windows work. Kylix seemed to come tantalizingly close to becoming a serious toolset for Linux applications development, and I really do hope that Codegear can bring that product back to life. And whilst JBuilder has always been the best developer toolset available to most Java developers I believe that CodeBase - and developers using CodeBase tools - can make more money - and satisfy more customers - by concentrating on making Delphi THE 'write once, compile precisely, blazing execution' solution than it can in the vendor cluttered 'write once, debug everywhere, crawling execution' Java paradigm with its bands of warring zealotsComment by SJ Gillingham [http://www.coralseasoftware.com] on February 22, 02:32
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
Yes, yes, yes.Finally we come back (I think…)to have an independent Delphi. All the programmers are of congratulations.Comment by Jorge Rodrigues on March 6, 00:26
Kylix needs to be renamed and Horray for PHP & Ruby RAD IDE!
Please bring FUN and FLOW back into the programming workplace like it was when using Delphi. Lots of work accomplished with little hassle. Having tried to like PHP and struggling with Ruby, I certainly hope that CodeGear produces more products which incorporate the wonderful benefits of Delphi-based RAD development with components. I've always wondered why Kylix was wasn't named "Delphi for Linux"? Maybe it can now be renamed and join the "Delphi for" group of products.Comment by Chris [http://vietnamzen.com] on March 27, 18:31
Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
What's in a name? Is Delphi the IDE or the language? I've used Pascal since the early days of TurboPascal and the introduction of the Delphi IDE. It used to be that Delphi was the IDE and then it became the language. I think it would be better to think of the IDE as being the DELPHI part. This means we could have Delphi for xxx, you name it eg Delphi for Pascal (Delphi as it currently is) or Delphi for Win32, Delphi for .NET and the reason I was thinking of this; Delphi for PHP. Originally when I heard of Delphi for PHP I wasn't sure what this product was going to be. Was it a code generator for generating PHP code using the IDE or was it for writing PHP code using the IDE? Anyway, I'm glad you're getting back to producing tools that we as developers actually need for building real apps without the bloatware. Cheers.Comment by jdevon [none] on March 30, 17:00
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Michael Swindell on Next Delphi, PHP, and Kylix
Comment by Alex Gregory [http://www.delphifusion.com] on February 9, 13:21