[DUG] Budget/Turbo editions of Delphi

Wed Sep 23 11:49:29 NZST 2009

When I did COMP102 & 103 at Victoria Uni they were teaching Think Pascal 
on old (even then) Apple Macs. We were issued with 2 720k floppy disks, 
one to boot the operating system, the other one for the compiler and our 
code. If you were lucky you could get on one of the newer machines (they 
were still old) which had 10MB Hard disks. They switched to Java 
sometime later and I have no idea what they are teaching now.

Alister Christie
Computers for People
Ph: 04 471 1849 Fax: 04 471 1266
http://www.salespartner.co.nz
PO Box 13085
Johnsonville
Wellington 

Jolyon Smith wrote:
>
> FWIW - I think the Academic market is lost to Pascal now.
>
> Academia these days is not as much about learning principles (for 
> which Pascal and therefore Delphi is ideally suited) as much as 
> preparing drones for the business world, in which case Delphi – much 
> as we might wish it weren’t so – simply is not _as_ relevant as C#, 
> Java or .NET etc.
>
> BUT – if there were to be an Academic Edition (I think there already 
> is), it should not be constrained by the entirely separate and 
> different needs of a personal, part-time hobbyist user (and neither 
> should a hobbyist edition struggle or contort itself to accommodate 
> the needs of a student).
>
> e.g. students should learn about refactorings and model driven 
> development, but a hobbyist really doesn’t need these things (sure 
> we’d like them for free, but we don’t **need** them – our time 
> **isn’t** money).
>
> Plus an Academic license should normally be attached to the seat in 
> the institution, not the individual occupying that seat in a given 
> semester, so pricing of an Academic license is more likely to be a 
> volume deal where the student isn’t actually paying for the license 
> (directly – although it will likely be in the course fees to an 
> extent) as opposed to pricing of a hobbyist/community edition which 
> specifically targets and needs to appeal to the pocket of an 
> individual user.
>
> *From:* delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz 
> [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz] *On Behalf Of *Kyley Harris
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 22 September 2009 1:33 p.m.
> *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
> *Subject:* Re: [DUG] Budget/Turbo editions of Delphi
>
> Gary.. I fully agree that cheap or free access to the language tools 
> to students, or any "Learner" is key to building the success of a 
> development language.. They will then want to take those skills to any 
> company or work driven environment.. I think a full blown free version 
> is the best way to go, with a compiler built in limitation on the EXE 
> execution time... as you say.. 30 minutes or so..
>
> This also lets people build demonstration applications that can be 
> produced on request to potential employers.
>
> When I first learnt pascal and ansi c, i was 14, and bought a copy of 
> Turbo Pascal 4 for about $40 and got all my training material via a 
> couple of Advanced Algorithm books, Database Construction books.. 
> (meaning make your own DB and indexes.. Lol ) and a bunch of bulletin 
> board tutorials.. Without this "Free*" resource.. life as a 14 year 
> old would have been impossible
>
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Gary T. Benner <gary at benner.co.nz 
> <mailto:gary at benner.co.nz>> wrote:
>
> *[Reply]*
>
> HI all,
>
> As a Delphi teacher for some many years I found the Turbos irrelevant, 
> as components are a fundamental part of good OO programming, and it 
> was impossible to teach Delphi properly without new components being 
> able to be created and installed in the IDE.
>
> Personally I'd like to see a $25 fee for Academic Delphi - get's the 
> Students into the system - and that the compiler be limited to what 
> they could do ... eg. a nag screen at the start of any application not 
> started within Delphi, and something like a 30 min time limit for 
> application execution. .. etc
>
> Otherwise the Delphi should run as per the real thing.
>
> Students will get cracked versions otherwise, and they can be very 
> creative at that.
>
> HTH
>
> Gary
>
> A*t 12:59 on 22/09/2009 you wrote *
>
> >To : delphi at delphi.org.nz <mailto:delphi at delphi.org.nz>
>
> >CC :
>
> >From: John Bird, johnkbird at paradise.net.nz 
> <mailto:johnkbird at paradise.net.nz>
>
> >Content Type: text/plain
>
> >Attached:
>
> >
>
> >If Turbo versions of Delphi are not available, it is a great idea to have
>
> >them as PR to get students getting free versions to learn on. Without
>
> >Embarcadero losing money on commercial sales.
>
> >
>
> >Interested to hear others ideas how such editions could work.
>
> >
>
> >My ideas:
>
> >
>
> >-Preventing installation of components as in the past is simple - but 
> some
>
> >large scale commercial programs could still be made, so I think it needs
>
> >more.
>
> >
>
> >-Either disabling printing if included (Rave reports) or all printing
>
> >carries a water mark "Student Edition - not for commercial use".
>
> >
>
> >-All program windows contains some signature eg "Student edition" in the
>
> >title bar
>
> >
>
> >-some smart restrictions on what can be produced.......eg cheap or 
> free DB
>
> >licences limit to often only 5 connections. Maybe limit units to 4000
>
> >lines of code, or forms to 30 components total, and listviews and 
> grids to
>
> >200 lines,
>
> >
>
> >-Programs might only run for 1 hour maximum and exit with a reminder 
> screen,
>
> >or will not run at all after say 1-2 years.
>
> >
>
> >-Alternatively charge strictly on a usage basis - eg start with $20 free
>
> >credit. Every compile takes 10cents of credit, every debugger run 
> takes 20
>
> >cents off, editing takes off 1 cent per hour. When credit is used up IDE
>
> >stops working, and you have to uninstall and reinstall. (Transaction 
> based
>
> >charging like this is a favourite of mine, incorporated into some of my
>
> >programs).
>
> >
>
> >-Expiry date on IDE, have to uninstall and reinstall to get more.
>
> >
>
> >-Student edition could cost say $25 or be free, depending on how 
> restricted.
>
> >
>
> >A combination of more than one of these would mean commercial developers
>
> >would still get the real versions, and be not too mean on students.
>
> >
>
> >Choose what is good to limit, and let them otherwise have a fully 
> functional
>
> >version - in reality they won't be writing very large programs, so 
> that is
>
> >what to limit.
>
> >
>
> >Personally I would favour the combination of
>
> >-Watermarks on printing
>
> >-limits on grid size and number of components on a form
>
> >-programs run for 1 hour maximum.
>
> >
>
> >John
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >_______________________________________________
>
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>
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>
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>
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>
> >
>
>
>
> Gary Benner
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
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>
>
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>
> -- 
> Kyley Harris
> Harris Software
> +64-21-671-821
>
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