[DUG] Future of us Delphi programmer in New Zealand?
John Bird
johnkbird at paradise.net.nz
Thu Apr 9 13:45:14 NZST 2009
Well a good thing is to look at actual data.
A couple of standard surveys:
http://www.langpop.com/
worth scrolling down thru all the different graphs.
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
The one for last year had Delphi at #8, and showed since 2003 to 2008 that it has somewhat increased in popularity. It rates Delphi as #11 now so doesn't provide the historical graph this year for Delphi (only the top 10 are shown). Delphi is an oddity in being much more popular outside US (Firefox is the same - there are now more Firefox V3 users in Europe than IE7 users).
A couple of things are clear:
The biggest langiuges are consistently C and Java
Strong interest in C++, Ruby, Python, PHP, Visual Basic and C#.
Also featuring a lot are Javascript, Perl, SQL. Javascript optimised compilers/runtimes are a big growth area, as large parts of Firefox are written in Javascript (There are some 66 .js files in a firefox installation totalling some 2MB). It is also a significant player in many web pages for performance and functionality.
There is an interesting graph showing the growth of dynamcially type languages vs statically typed.
As far as C# goes, I am still wondering what sort of projects (other than lots of business inhouse projects for Windows PC's) are using C#, as the proof is what uses it in practice - It doesn't look like for instance that Microsoft uses much dot net in their core Windows and Office products.
I have seen technical white papers which unfortunately I did not get copies of (as MS were rather unhappy about it and they have generally disappeared) analysing Windows Vista's binaries, to find that only about 5% were built using identifiable parts of the .net framework, and most of these were in the media parts of Windows. I also was somewhat surprised when I installed D2007 - the IDE uses the .NET V2 framework and as part of the installation it had to install this - that is it is NOT part of a standard Windows Vista installation.
Others comments on C# welcomed!
I would hazard a guess that the most interesting technologies today are those that would allow the holy grail of being accessable over as many of the following environments as possibel: Windows/Mac/Mobiles/Unix. The most promising of these (seen from a great distance because I am not familiar with any of them to use) are XUL (Mozilla), various Open GL, QT (used in Safari for Mac and Windows versions), and .NET which gets good reviews for doing Windows and Web stuff.
Personally I suspect that desktops will start to phase out, replaced by mobile devices with RDP connections to servers or web servers for the grunty stuff, and I don't think anyone has figured out that environment yet, and MS does not have a clear lead there.
I have seen this before, working for years with those well engineered DEC PDP's, with the large complex OS being eaten up by the woefully underpowered PC's when they appeared and quickly took over. IBM and DEC (numbers 1 and 2 computer companies) were caught completely flat-footed with high cost computers and monolithic OS's and so got killed. DEC does not even exist any more - it used to be bigger than Microsoft.
I reckon the woefully inadequate mobile devices - Phones/ Iphones/Android/iPod Touch etc are about to do the same thing again to the desktop PC. In such a case the question is bigger than which language is the best - its more which OS will be predominant or exist in a few years.
John Bird
JBCL
Contact:
johnkbird at paradise.net.nz
03-3844527, 027 4844528
http://jbclnz.googlepages.com
http://www.jbcl.co.nz
----- Original Message -----
From: Kyley Harris
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: [DUG] Future of us Delphi programmer in New Zealand?
haha.. I simply am watching the market and trends of delphi in this country, and I've kept track of many of the companies I know that use delphi.
Most of the companies that had delphi developers now have 1 or 2 maximum on staff. the rest is outsourced offshore, or they are now using other languages and following modern trends of c# etc.
I am in the position of writing and selling software, so choosing delphi is fine.. my customers are not concerned by the language used, only the end product..
More and more, I see other bigger companies ditch delphi for other languages.. So I said no hope, meaning.. If you loose your delphi employment, and are seeking a new job as an employee, rather than as an independant software vendor.. its getting slimmer and slimmer pickings in the market.
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 10:49 AM, Leigh Wanstead <leighw at softtech.co.nz> wrote:
Why no hope?
If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Have a nice day
Regards
Leigh
-----Original Message-----
From: delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz]On Behalf Of Kyley Harris
Sent: Thursday, 9 April 2009 9:55 a.m.
To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Future of us Delphi programmer in New Zealand?
As a company, fine.. as an employee? no hope :)
On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Leigh Wanstead <leighw at softtech.co.nz> wrote:
Before this happy Easter holiday, I am thinking what future about us Delphi
programmer in New Zealand? Will we have to program in C#? ;-)
I am programming AVR/Microchip assembler in my spare time. I am a fast
learner. ;-)
Have a nice day
Regards
Leigh
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Kyley Harris
Harris Software
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