[DUG] A Friday Qustion on Monday.

[JeremyN at FrontierSoftware.com.au]

> This topic of D2006 leads me to pose the following thoughts for comment.

Interesting ones at that

> Borland has taken big steps in aquisition to provide software for 
> lifecycle design and development, including memory optimization 
> software, leak tracking and feature tracking tools.  All these 
> things seem wonderful (if you can afford it). 

So everything should be free? Do you give your work away for free? Complex
tools take time and cost money to build. If you don't see the benefit in
these items, why should they bother you, then again if you don't see the
benefit in these tools, one wonders what makes up your development process.

> So why are there so many issues with delphi after production release. 

Rome wasn't built in a day. These tools are slowly being phased in
internally and you can get this impression by listening to any of the online
chats or reading blogs

> We are trying to be sold on Unit Testing, Memory Tracking, Bug Tracking,
etc etc, 
> with all these new features in delphi, and the other products such as
starteam, 
> NUnit & DUnit, and Optimizeit suites to name a few. It seems like Borlands
main 
> marketing is in opposition to Rational for lifecycle tools, rather than
focusing 
> on the requirements of the simple programmer requisites. It used to be
that most 
> people thought of them without question as the IDE and compilers of
choice, but 
> I think this is taking a back leg to High Level tools.

Borland is more than an IDE/Compiler company. They sure didn't get an 11
million dollar sale to British Telecom selling IDEs.

> I have to query weather the Delphi team is following the unit testing and
design 
> philosophy that it is selling to us as the best thing since sliced bread.

Don't think Borland has ever stated that unit testing is the best thing
since sliced bread. It is something that has been out in the community for
many years now and has its uses. You can't write unit tests for every part
of your code and its not even feasible to do so, but for core functionality,
unit testing can be a god send. We have over 200 unit tests in one project
I'm working on.

> At the end of the day the most important thing to me is solid code, 
> and a good working IDE that supports my need of solid clean code, 
> and doesn't throw tantrums every five minutes. 

Unfortunately some people have clients and have requests. They also have
projects that have millions of lines of source with more than 1 person
developing on it. They have analyst who have to liase with the developers
and help desk personal that liase with analysts and developers. If you think
that one or two developer shops are the norm for Borland products, you have
another thing coming.

> The brain is an excellent tool for all the other stuff.

That would have to be the quote of the century.

Steve Trefethen talking a little about the R&D process (quite timely
actually).
http://blogs.borland.com/stevet/archive/2005/06/13/8441.aspx

cheers,
Jeremy