I wished I had more time this week for the blog, but I had to write the core architecture socket-based Win32 service for a company I'm consulting for, made a mistake with a PocketPC program, and had other unrelated troubles, so I'm here on Friday summarizing in a single post 4 or 5 different ones I wanted to make this week.
Delphi Sale
First of all, there has been some more info on the Delphi sale (and the odd sale pre-announcement) shared by Allen Bauer in his blog. Interesting reading, even if a non-technical one. I also noticed a striking coincidence by reading in the March issue of Software Development magazine Warren Keuffel writing that "tool builders are suffering" between Microsoft's below-cost tools and FOSS (free open source software): "the shrinking population of mid-size tool builders is facing the challange of competing with not only subsidized, but also free tools". This is certainly the case of the old Borland. He concludes: "what will happen to the innovation that has driven the tool business?".
This is certainly an interesting question. There is innovation in FOSS and there is in Microsoft, but it is often driven by platform agendas and other reasons, not by the quality and innovation of the tools architecture. Which means DevCo could have an interesting role, again.
Delphi Roadmap
The initial information about David I's presentation in Japan (translated back to English from Japanese reports) caused a flurry of comments last week. Now we can see the complete presentation slides, available here in PDF. There are been many blog posts, for example Daniel Wischnewski shows the most relevant slide directly. Most of the expected new features (full .NET 2.0 support, Win64 support, Vista support, Avalon support) are there, but dates have been changed and Vista support is expected before Delphi for Vista, which sounds odd.
What should I say? I'm a little puzzled, as this seems to be an update of the original September 2005 roadmap and a reverse of direction of the November 2005 one. I guess will have to wait to figure out the real roadmap under the NewCo. Anyway, in the full PDF David I discusses the status of the Borland IDE spin-off and also quotes my blog. Nice!
Delphi Marketing
David I is also featuring in a nice flash presentation of Delphi 2006. If this is an example of the new style of Borland marketing, it is really appreciated. Well done!
Magazines
Finally, not only Delphi Magazines are closing. Software Development Magazine (that I've quoted in this and a recent post) is shutting down, or, to be more precise, being merged with Dr. Dobb's Journal (in the best tradition of corporate press releases you have to read it twice to figure out it is telling they are closing a magazine!).
Software Development Magazine, originally Compuer Languages, is one the magazines with the longest history and the most respect in the business, so this is quite sad, even if not unexpected. I happen to know some of its editors... I've never been a fan of Dr. Dobb's Journal, let's see if/how it evolves.
Bye
That's all for now. Stay tuned.