Marco Tech Blog

September 15, 2006

10 days of Turbos

The new Turbo editions of Delphi have been released ten days ago. Here is some more info.

posted by marcocantu @ 0:51AM | 17 Comments [0 Pending]

10 days of Turbos 

People like to talk about VB developers moving to 
Delphi because the migration to vb.net is not a 
brainless operation.

This isn't just foolish, but flat out insulting to VB 
developers.  Do we think they are idiots?  The 
migration to Delphi is a HECK of a lot more 
complicated than the migration to VB.NET - in fact, 
it is impossible short of a complete rewrite (unlike 
the migration to vb.net which has a wizard to get you 
easily 95% of the way automagically leaving you to do 
the last 5% while learning the new features of vb.net)

Besides, I suspect that VB developers want to learn 
and move to Pascal with about the same enthusiasm 
that Pascal developers have for C++.

VB.NET is a pain because there is stuff to learn, but 
it is NOTHING like learning a whole new language and 
rewriting your projects from scratch.

Let's leave that myth where it belongs.

Turbo Delphi is great for pascal heads and those who 
want to learn pascal and don't mind having a hard 
time finding work (compared to something with VB or 
C++ or Java skills).  It is NOT any better an option 
for VB developers than other languages are for Delphi 
developers.

Comment by C Johnson on September 15, 02:29

10 days of Turbos 

Commercial development possible with Turbo Explorers?

Not according to the license agreement.

Explorers are time limited, and are therefore 
Evaluation Licenses.  The license does not stipulate 
that any time limit must be realistic, reasonable, 
sensible or anything else other than a time limit.

100 years is still a time limit.

Note that under the terms of the license the 
prohibition on commercial use applies /DURING/ the 
evaluation period.


Note also that the FAQ says that you "can" developer 
applications for personal and commercial use.

It does not say that you "may".

(I "can" drive my car at any speed I like - if I 
exceed the speed limit I will still be liable for 
prosecution as that is an offence;  something I 
legally "may" not do, even though I physically "can")


Even if you dont feel the distinction between "can" 
and "may" to be important (after all, a FAQ is not a 
legal document), well, erm, the FAQ isn't a legal 
document.  The License Agreement is.

Indeed, the license specifically precludes the 
possibility that a FAQ (or anything else, other than 
"PROGRAM NOTES") may grant or restrict rights not 
covered by the license:

"This License constitutes the entire, final 
and exclusive agreement between you and Borland ..."


Contents of a FAQ which contradict the license terms 
represent an inaccurate FAQ, -NOT- a variation in 
the terms of the license.

Alternatively of course, it is possible that the 
license is wrong, in which case Borland need to 
issue a corrected license agreement to all their 
Explorer users quick-smart.


The other possible reference for determining license 
type is the License Manager application installed 
with the product.  This will confirm the time 
limited nature of the license.  This also contains 
an entry indicating that the license is not a "Trial 
license", but the license agreement does not define 
a "Trial License", so as a description of a license 
type this is pretty meaningless.

In fact, the license agreement specifically states 
that there are only two types of license 
"Evaluation" and "Named User".

An Evaluation License is DEFINED as one that is 
limited to a period of time.


imho anyone using Turbo Explorer's for commercial 
development should first obtain an official letter 
from Borland's legal department clarifying the 
position (as recommended in the license agreement, 
in fact).


This is I think especially important given the ease 
with which the restrictions on use of the product 
intended to provide the stick with which to drive 
users toward the carrot of purchasing Turbo Pro have 
been circumvented.

As it stands, Borland could do an about face on the 
policy of not enforcing the terms of the license 
agreement, and it may be in their interests to do so 
if sufficient Explorers do not get converted into 
Pro's.

Comment by Jolyon Smith on September 15, 04:03

10 days of Turbos 

Hi,

"Considering this is the number of "completed 
registrations and activations - meaning, they went 
thru the installation and registration process, 
license was sent, installed and activated"

Since there is no activateion of the Turbo Explorer 
editions, there must be something wrong here.

twm

Comment by Thomas Mueller [http://www.dummzeuch.de] on September 15, 11:07

10 days of Turbos 

C Johnson: you should read whole sentences before 
attacking. Marco was talking about *Win32* VB 
developers. What other choices have they?

Comment by Kent Morwath on September 15, 11:38

10 days of Turbos 

--C Johnson
You say:
"Turbo Delphi is great for pascal heads and those 
who want to learn pascal and don't mind having a 
hard time finding work (compared to something with 
VB or C++ or Java skills)."

There are people that don't want to do .NET, for 
whatever reason, which among them are surely VB
(Win32) developers, so I would like to add that 
Delphi is also an option for VB Developers that 
don't want to do .NET
So targeting VB developers is a good thing but it 
will not hit all VB Developers.

Comment by Roland [http://beensoft.blogspot.com] on September 15, 11:41

10 days of Turbos 

 Folks --

Pay absolutely no attention to the post above by
Jolyon Smith.  He's completely wrong and totally off
base, besides being a hopeless pedant.

You can develop commercial applications with the Turbo
Explorer editions.  That's a fact.  

Nick Hodges
Delphi Product Manager

Comment by Nick Hodges [http://blogs.borland.com/nickhodges] on September 15, 17:49

10 days of Turbos 

 C Johnson said "VB.NET is a pain because there is 
stuff to learn, but it is NOTHING like learning a 
whole new language and rewriting your projects from 
scratch."

That there is something to learn isn't the issue.  
The issue is that MS has changed the language 
definition *again* (again).  This time quite 
drastically, and after promising a number of us in 
person that they wouldn't do it again.  Previous 
changes also included changes to fundamental data 
types, without deprecation.  This time was even more 
drastic than previous language breaks.

So, the issue is whether it's safe to keep your 
application code assets in that language.  It simply 
is not reasonable, not because of the rewrite 
required to move to VB.Net, but because of the 
additional rewrites that will be required after that.

A number of VB luminaries have indicated, privately, 
that they'd love to see a Basic in BDS.  Still, 
Delphi isn't all that bad even for a VB head like 
myself.  We simply can't trust MS with our code, so 
we're moving.

Dan

Comment by Dan Barclay on September 15, 17:57

10 days of Turbos 

Roland, the same can be said of them working in C++, 
and that of course is where the argument falls apart 
and they probably already have C++ based on the way 
that MS markets and sells Visual Studio (I believe  
you can get just VB, but that strikes me as the 
extreme minority way to get code if you are doing any 
serious development, pro level MSDN subscriptions 
being so darn cheap with so many perks to justify the 
yearly costs)

Comment by C Johnson on September 15, 18:11

10 days of Turbos 

C Johnson: when MS VC++ became a RAD tool? Do you 
believe VB programmers could feel at home using MFC? 
<g> IMHO if a VB programmer needs a RAD tool to 
build native application VC++ is hardly the way to 
go. And C/C++ is far more difficult to learn than 
Pascal.

Comment by Kent Morwath on September 15, 19:39

10 days of Turbos 

Finally we have FREE GREAT DEVELOPMENT TOOLS.

THANKS DEVCO!

THINK POSITIVE!

Comment by Bertoncini Luca [http://sviluppoesviluppi.blogspot.com] on September 15, 22:50

10 days of Turbos 

I had to leave Delphi in order to stay employed, so I 
learned .NET.  I detest C-like syntax, so I learned 
VB.NET, but I already knew VB.

Trying to think why anyone would write Delphi ASP.NET 
apps instead of using VS.NET:  you really like 
Pascal; if it does the job better or easier; you hate 
MS.

Win32 Delphi made it so big because it is the best 
Win32 developer environment, period.  Is this type of 
dominance available with Delphi .NET?  This seems to 
be a big question.

Comment by Steve on September 16, 00:34

10 days of Turbos 

Meanwhile Borland hired two new VPs (how many are 
they, now? <G>), hope the Turbos won't pay their 
initial pay...
I am waiting the spin-off eargerly, We won't buy any 
new product until we are sure not a penny goes to 
Borland.

Comment by Kent Morwath on September 18, 00:10

10 days of Turbos 

It's sad to see that while MS collects "gurus" 
(Hejlsberg, Teixeira, Thorpe, Russinovich, and many 
others), Borland still collects unknown VPs only - 
but that's the difference, after all.
Hope to see the new company soon!

Comment by Luigi D. Sandon on September 18, 12:35

10 days of Turbos 

Nick Hodges wrote:

---
Pay absolutely no attention to the post above by
Jolyon Smith.  He's completely wrong and totally off
base, besides being a hopeless pedant.

You can develop commercial applications with the Turbo
Explorer editions.  That's a fact.
---

Weirdly enough, he never denied that. In fact, he
explicitly agreed that you *can* do that. What he said
- and you failed to contradict - is whether you *may*
(ie, are legally permitted) to do it.

I find it incredibly amusing whenever someone says "X
is wrong" and then proceeds to repeat the same thing X
said.

Also - Nick, even with a title of "Delphi Product
Manager", cannot override what the license says. *If*
the license doesn't say that you are allowed to write
commercial applications with the new Turbos (I never
bothered to read it, since I ignore those by default),
anyone who does it anyway is taking a chance. If your
legal dept allows you to take that chance "because
Nick said so", you work in a great company :)

Comment by Marcel Popescu [] on September 18, 18:11

10 days of Turbos 

It would be great if DevCo would make Turbo Kylix. I
think a (free) cross platform pascal solution would
really boost interest.

Comment by Guy on September 19, 05:15

10 days of Turbos 

Guy: there are Turbos *because* there is BDS - the 
investment was already done - and with the 
professional Turbos can boost both sales and 
interest.
There a little for a free Linux solution now. It 
could boost interest - but not sales.
I'd like a cross-platform solution, but I don't need 
it to be free. I need it to be powerful and fully 
supported.

Comment by Kent Morwath on September 19, 16:33

10 days of Turbos 

 Nick continues to get more charming every day. 
Meanwhile, in the real world, Aliant decided to 
change a deal it had with Rogers Communications. How 
did it do it? By virtue of A COMMA in their contract. 
And this re-interpretation according to grammar rules 
that Nick would undoubtedly classify as "pedantic", 
is going to cost Rogers $2 million dollars.

Go to the link below and read the article "The $2-
million Comma":

http://myweirdbusiness.blogspot.com/

Comment by Joe on September 26, 00:55