June 25, 2008
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
A Delphi one-time user, Branden Tanga, blogs about RAD Studio annoyances... without really getting Delphi!
A Delphi one-time user, Branden Tanga, blogs about RAD Studio annoyances... without really getting Delphi! I understand he has limited experience with the product but his negative impressions are only partially based on facts. Read his blog post first... keep reading it... now if you are done, see my counter-points below:
- "hitting the tab key with one word selected doesn't indent it", as we in Delphi use Ctrl+I, but Delphi has multiple editor bindings, maybe there is also one doing what he asks, I don't know... maybe he has a point here
- "frames that make up the MDI interface of RAD are all undocked frames that make up the MDI interface of RAD are all undocked, I've never seen this, although applying the proper setting is is one click away
- "If you launch your application from within RAD, it must be managed within RAD", is a positive feature for me. If you are debugging, you stop an app in the debugger rather than using Task Manager, imho.
- "You have to pay 3rd parties for extra widgets" unless you use the hundreds of free and open source VCL controls, come on. As he sais, Delphi can use the Windows API, so you don't need to get extra components, although you might find it easier...
- "There is no free version of CodeGear RAD"... unless you consider the Turbos, which are still partially available, and don't consider that unlike Microsoft, CodeGear should make some money on its tools. If the idea is "I don't want to pay", that's fine... but I won't consider it an annoyance!
- "There is absolutely no way to write Delphi code for free." Well, same as above... although partially incorrect as there are other Object Pascal compilers out there.
- "There are properties and objects that are COMPLETELY HIDDEN from the developer, and the only way to access them is through RAD's wysiwyg editor." This is an absolute nonsense. It is factually wrong. Everything you can do in the form designer, you can do in code.
There are many things in Delphi that are far from great, but this easy bashing with little or no foundation and quite a few factual errors really upsets me!
17 Comments
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
My annoyance with Mr Tanga is that he doesn't know diddly about Delphi. He condemned his own blog writing such rubbish anyway.Comment by Daniel on June 25, 20:57
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
If he was a smart guy it shouldn't wrote that article... Just another MS fanboy :))Comment by Andrew on June 25, 21:16
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
1. True, but can be fixed with KeyBindings. The free DDevExtensions plugin does this automatically. 2. True, but workaround is very easy. 3. True. Delphi can't handle external termination of your app. I share this annoyance. 4. False. VS lacks widgets too. Paying money is pretty much the idea behind 3rd party. Some Delphi/Win32 controls are free and most are cheaper than .NET controls. 5. False. TurboDelphi is an excellent free version. 6. False. For the free stuff: Try notepad with FreePascal. For the WYSIWYG integration: If you compare this VS/.NET concept with Delphi, you might even think that the concept is copied from Delphi. The advice not to use Delphi seems to be supported by minor annoyances only. I had those annoyances when I first started with VS2003/.NET 1.1. Please do not let minor annoyances trip you up.Comment by JonnyWee on June 25, 22:16
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
Yes, main complaints of an inexperiences, and apparently inflexible user. There are many older versions of Delphi available for free (CodeGear can make whatever license claims they want about it having to be bought from ONLY them, but I have serious doubts about the legal enforcabilty of that clause, and the implications that they would turn away new developers needing help just because they bought a second hand version instead of trying to convert them into potential long term customers is just absurd) That said, the last point actually has some validity. From the X,Y location of TComponents (less likely to be what he is talking about) to the Row and Column properties of controls in hosted in a TGridPanel (annoying), there are indeed "magic" properties that you can only get to from the form designer. Actually, digging through the source to TGridPanel, you might almost be able to control the components grid locations programatically, but the design is so incredibly bad that any attempt is more likely to end in frustation and failure. (A great idea, and a neat trick, but a seriously ugly implemention)Comment by Xepol on June 25, 22:19
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
Marco, I just checked this guy's blog... never found any comments. Probably he's writing crap? So let him continue writing... crap. Levend.Comment by evend on June 25, 22:56
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
Hear, hear. I totally agree. I must defend him a bit, because I shared a couple of thoughts when I first started working with Delphi. But your points are right on the spot. He should hang in there just a little bit more. I tried to tell him through comments in his own blog, but for some reason my comments weren't accepted. Oh well, he'll find his way here i think.Comment by Bart Roozendaal [http://sevensteps.blogspot.com] on June 25, 23:17
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
Not-with-standing that yes, a lot of his complaints can seemingly be fixed by playing with RAD Studio settings, the fact that this would presumably be non-obvious and require a level of knowledge of the product not readily obtained simply by using it/reading the docs does itself provide valid grounds for complaint. (or equally indeed that the initial experience is so disappointing that one is not inclined to persevere and FIND the relevant options) On the specific point of "Free" versions of RAD Studio, it is a little disingenuous to point to the Turbos as free versions of the product seeing as how they are NOT free versions of the CURRENT product. In fact strictly speaking they are free versions of a completely different product (single language, personalities of superceded language/VCL versions). And a product line (Turbo's) that, the last we heard from the horses mouth, were discontinued. Certainly a product line who's future is not clear. Also I suggest that the complainer was thinking, in terms of "freeness" along the lines of the free availability of a command line compiler - something that is increasingly typical in this market: pay for the IDE, but compile for free to your hearts content if you're happy to cut your code in Notepad. i.e. You criticise the complaint on the basis that yes, indeed, anything you can do in the IDE you can ALSO do in code in Delphi just as with other languages. BUT you miss the point that in order to then COMPILE your code (i.e. have any meaningful and useful result from your code) you HAVE to BUY the IDE, since you can't get an IDE-less compiler for free. By all means be critical of other peoples criticism, as long as you first have understood WHAT they are criticising.Comment by Jolyon Smith [http://www.deltics.co.nz] on June 26, 00:03
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
I have posted a comment on his blog but I guess it will not be published... To sum up, only point 3 is relevant... The rest is FUDComment by Stephane Wierzbicki on June 26, 00:29
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
I'd say that point #1 is also relevant. To me, expected behavior for most users is that selecting a block of text and pressing TAB will indent it (as will SHIFT+TAB 'undent' it). It took me some getting used to using CTRL+SHIFT+I. That is until today when another commenter mentioned that DDevExtensions renders this irrelevant. Besides Delphi, I use Notepad++ for quickly viewing source code and it supports this TAB indent binding. It's an issue of preference, but one I can understand. However most of his other points are a result of poor "research". Did anyone else notice that the tagline on his blog is: "Publishing this content is meant to force me to research new technologies and the ways to implement them, and thus forcing me to grow as a person, and as a developer." Except by "research new technologies" he means open them up and see if they act like Visual Studio and C#. I posted a comment on his blog as well, but it has yet to show up.Comment by Mick on June 26, 02:27
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
Wow, I really seem to have struck a nerve eh? It doesn't really bother me if people read or don't read my blog. As some of the commenters have said, I have zero comments on anything, which is perfectly fine with me. On the flipside of this, this is the first time I have ever commented on anyone else's blog. *shrug* first time for everything I guess. To those who have at least attempted to educate me, I thank you. I'll read the links you sent, hopefully that will mitigate some of my annoyances with Delphi. To those who just called my post crap.... if expressing your e-rage helps you, do whatever you feel you need to do. While it doesn't bother me if no one reads my blog, I *did* post it online where anyone can read it, so fair is fair, anyone should be able to comment on it. I originally had moderate comments on and I didn't get to them quickly - my apologies. If your comment isn't up there, that means I missed it, comment again and I'll catch it this time. While I now understand that some of my post isn't true (from reading the comments), I stand by my assertion that Delphi is annoying. However, I will at least attempt to learn otherwise.Comment by Branden Tanga [http://www.beigehat.com] on June 26, 05:58
Annoying User do not understand Delphi's life
"hitting the tab key with one word selected doesn't indent it" FACTS: 1) a TAB is a character, not a command 2) a selected word will be overriden by input of any character CONCLUSION: hitting the tab key with one word selected MUST override it. QEDComment by Loïs Bégué [http://www.arpoon.de] on June 26, 10:47
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
Just as a side note for all "I want everything for free" guys (and who don't like the free Turbo Delphi for what ever reason): There is FreePascal (www.freepascal.org), which is highly compatible to the Delphi Language (Delphi's Pascal variant). There are also various projects which can explicitly be built on either Delphi or FPC (such as www.indyproject.org) They even have "Lazarus" which is - well - a Delphi IDE clone, including all the bits and bytes you need to make that possible. www.lazarus.freepascal.org In fact Lazarus offers a bit more than Delphi does: it runs even on the Mac ... I am not an FPC/Lazarus user - as I own several Delphi / RAD Studio editions, but I know many Delphi users who work on both fronts.Comment by Olaf Monien [http://blogs.atozed.com/olaf] on June 26, 11:47
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
>>While I now understand that some of my post isn't true (from reading the comments), I stand by my assertion that Delphi is annoying. << - Tell the Linux guys who use the VI-editor to 'get with the times' as it doesn't look like Word at all. - There is no free version of Office 2007 either, so how does this match with your statement on a free Rad Studio? - If there is no way to write Delphi code for free, my question then is whether you got WinXP or Vista for free? Or any of the serious MS tools? Did you get your computer for free as well? - Yes, one can use notepad to write C# code and compile it with a free version. At what speed and with which knowledge? Like you said 'get with the times'. >>Don't use it if you don't have to<< Of course you're entitled to have an opinion on a topic - that is called freedom of speech. But bashing a product you hardly know and still standing by your poor opinion after the reactions on your blog... Good luck, poor Mr Tanga!Comment by Daniel on June 26, 12:28
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
While most of Branden's post was factually incorrect, there is a valid point in that the current help system is still missing too much. If you are new to Delphi, there is no way to know what the keyboard mappings are for the block commands. You can't even tell what the complete list of block commands is. On my blog, I had pretty much had the same comments as everyone else here.Comment by Chris Miller [http://anotherlab.rajapet.net] on June 26, 21:09
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
Branden Tanga wrote: > While I now understand that some of my post isn't true (from reading the comments), I stand by my assertion that Delphi is annoying. However, I will at least attempt to learn otherwise. Branden, I have a humble request. Please evaluate Delphi for 1 month. Install the open-source (and high quality) JCL and JVCL components. Follow Nick Hodge's "30 demos in 30 days" and then post a follow-up review: http://blogs.codegear.com/nickhodges/index.php?p=26687 The 30 demos in 30 days will acclimate you to the Object-Pascal language and the Delphi IDE much more quickly than experimenting on your own. I know it helped me a great deal. I know there are some that are bashing your post, but I think that if you did a bit more research, you'd be able to provide a more insightful review. Delphi is not perfect, but I believe it is the most productive RAD tool on the market today. Either way, I'd love to hear your review after 30 days of use (and after going through the 30 demos in 30 days).Comment by Mick on June 26, 21:40
Terminating a Debugged application outside Delphi
Actually, you can terminate a application you are debugging outside Delphi with Task Manager, TaskKill (a command line tool which comes with XP) or even Process Explorer (Which is available from SysInternals via Microsoft's web site.) I know that that used to be the case, but that certainly appears to not be the case on the machines I use today. Not sure if it is Delphi 2007 that changed, or XP.Comment by Jim McKeeth [http://www.DavinciUnltd.com] on June 27, 02:37
Post Your Comment
Click here for posting your feedback to this blog.
There are currently 0 pending (unapproved) messages.
User Finds Delphi Annoyances
Comment by Sergio Pappalardo [http://www.silvercybertech.com/] on June 25, 20:39