Marco Tech Blog

August 9, 2006

IDE Study (by Evans Data)

All of the comments on a recent Evans Corp study referred to articles cover Microsoft vs. IBM, but Delphi is a very close "neglected" third.

David I posted some time ago about a study on IDEs by Evans Data (you have to pay for the study, which I did not... sorry, I'm using indirect sources). David I mentions Delphi wins in several categories, including the compiler/interpreter category where is has a clear lead, with 20 points over Visual Studio. On the EvansData web site, you can see that Delphi falls behind in Quality and Size of the Developer Community (I'd agree with size, not with quality!), loosing 70 points to VS.

Now what triggered my attention and this post, is that today a blog on InformationWeek states that Rational App Developer had 1,386 point, Visual Studio.Net is closing the gap with 1,310 point.... while Delphi was third with 1,302. Now, if this is true, Delphi was only 8 point (that is a mere 0,4%) behind, with 70 points lost for the community! Still, most other press sources kept saying this is a battle between two, IBm and MSFT!

At times, magazine twist data a little too much for me... maybe DevCo should buy more adspace to have a fair coverage? Very sad!

posted by marcocantu @ 5:20PM | 5 Comments [0 Pending]

5 Comments

IDE Study (by Evans Data)

"you can see that Delphi falls behind in Quality and 
Size of the Developer Community (I'd agree with size, 
not with quality!)"

That is the attitude that has helped get us where we 
are.  Quality IS way down, and if more people 
complained, Borland would have HAD to fix it years 
ago instead of continuing to let it slide.

Even a few borland employees have finally admitted 
that Delphi isn't what it once was and want to figure 
out how to get back to the days where Delphi 1 and 2 
where rock solid and snappy in every respect.

Ignoring the problems doesn't mean they aren't 
there.  Saying that there are less problems than 
xxxxx doesn't mean they aren't there either.

Comment by Xepol on August 9, 21:30

IDE Study (by Evans Data)

 I absolutely agree with Xepol's post. While it is
true that better visibility for BDS would be a good
thing and would stop those "Delphi is dead" posts,
reducing the number of open reports on QC and
especially those as nasty as memory leaks in the IDE
is what would make developer switch.

I've been using Delphi since version 1 and sometimes
Delphi 2006 pisses me off to no end. So much so that
I'm constantly considering going back to my trusty ol'
Delphi 7. I won't do it of course, but the simple fact
that I'm thinking about it means something. And I'm
probably not alone either.

I've also been using Visual Studio 2005 Pro quite
extensively during the last couple of years for Win32
C++ development and I frankly can't believe you can
compare the quality of the VS 2005 and BDS 2006. Maybe
in the compiler category, but I'm using Borland's
product for two things: 1) the VCL which doesn't
require a runtime component and allow me to build new
components to use to design time, and 2) the form
designer which is way beyond what Microsoft is
currently offering in VS, even under WinForms (for my
needs anyway). 

I find the C++ personality of BDS if somewhat average
compared to VS 2005. And why the hell can't I rebind
shortcut keys yet?!

The sad thing is that if VS would include the two
things I mentioned I would probably consider making VS
my primary dev platform.

> Ignoring the problems doesn't mean they aren't
> there.  Saying that there are less problems than
> xxxxx doesn't mean they aren't there either.

And saying that the IDE is better than xxx doesn't
mean it's true either.

Comment by Eric Fortier [http://www.tlnewsreader.com] on August 10, 11:36

Quality

Eric and Xepol,

I certainly agree that Quality has been an issue with
recent versions of BDS and it does matter a lot. BDS
2006 is OK, on that respect, but not great.

The way I read/misread that "quality" was in "Quality
of the community", and in this respect I think the
Delphi community is small but very focused and
providing on average bettere technical responses than
other communities I've worked with.

BTW, I also agree these studies are limited (how many
repondents have used each IDE? how do you compare a
native compiler with a platform one?). My point was
not that Delphi is a close third, but that this is
totally ignored by most reviews!

Comment by Marco Cantù [http://www.marcocantu.com] on August 10, 13:45

IDE Study (by Evans Data)

Good point Marco. I don't think anyone can refute that
people standing behing Delphi are usually extremely
loyal and knowledgable.

Anyone having read posts from Peter Below on the
newsgroups know what I mean. There doesn't seem to be
much this guy doesn't know!

You're a good example of a quality community member
yourself, IMO!

Comment by Eric Fortier [http://www.tlnewsreader.com] on August 10, 22:18

IDE Study (by Evans Data)

 I don't see Delphi so far behind in terms of IDE. At 
least the free Turbo Delphi doesn't seem far behind 
VB 2005 Express. The documentation seems a little 
less careful with some obvious typos. I tried, it is 
6 times slower than Fortran for matrix multiplication 
but still faster (15%) than VB 2005. Not bad at all.

Comment by Peter Sand on September 12, 17:17

Post Your Comment

Click here for posting your feedback to this blog.

There are currently 0 pending (unapproved) messages.