[DUG] Delphi Specials

Thu Oct 21 18:02:42 NZDT 2010

Aw nuts you are just being a stirrer.

I actually use D5 and D2007 both a lot for work.  So thats my experience – I greatly prefer D2007.

For me a pro upgrade is $600-700 so thats also true.

The point about Windows updates are:

MS updates Windows still (mind you only XP SP3 onwards now) not because they want to or like to but because the security holes are so big they would look really really bad if they didn’t.

What I am saying is do not punish Borland and Embarcadero for making a product that was reliable and well usable for 10+ years.   Reward them by spending a small amount of money to keep them in business. And into the bargain enjoy a much better version of Delphi.

Another reason for having the latest is to make use of the XP and Aero theme support.   In my mind, with that you hardly need 3rd party components because the standard VCL looks so good.

I am grumpy about buying 8 versions of Windows mainly because I couldn’t move the licences from PC to PC and until windows 7 the OS was pretty crap anyhow.  I have however moved Delphi from PC to PC and been grateful to be able to.

I still have my D5 installation, only once I upgraded I never opened it again to compile anything.  Not once – the new version worked straight away and I just jumped into it.    In my case I jumped from D5 to D2006 with not the slightest hassle.

To answer the original question, without customers the eventual future is that it will rather than die it once E gets insufficient revenue from it they will hopefully open source it.   Then good people like Jeremy N and others will spend time fixing the bugs for free, and people like you will still keep complaining about unfixed bugs.   Hopefully by that stage you will start helping with the coding.

I come back to my original point – either you spend some time helping to fix the bugs or you pay for versions where others have done it for you.   In the end someone does need to get rewarded either with money or at least some thanks and recognition.

Sibelius once said in response to a critic who called his music old fashioned

“No-one ever built a statue of a critic”

John

From: Jolyon Smith 
Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 5:07 PM
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List' 
Subject: Re: [DUG] Delphi Specials

Ø  Well thats nuts.

Which neatly described what followed, rather than what was being replied to.... ;)

> you would have to be nuts to want to work in D5 if you spend any time programming.

I suggest that is not for you to say on behalf of others.  You are free to have that view for yourself, but if a version of software works well enough for someone, suggesting that they should pay a not insignificant amount of money and incur the productivity penalty of having to familiarise with a significantly different version of the product is presumptive at best and nonsense at worst.

Ø  Pro upgrades are only around 600-700 at the moment anyway

Nope.  The poster is deemed unclean and not worthy of upgrade pricing anymore.  New user license required.

I believe this is what Embarcadero are currently calling their “Bog Off” promotion – Oh no, wait, that’s “BOGOF - Buy One Get One Free”, not “you haven’t kept upgrading so you can BOG OFF and use Visual Studio instead for all we care”.

> pro includes pretty much all that was in Enterprise back in D5 days....

Well, you still can’t connect to remote servers using the proprietary DB API.  Doesn’t stop you using ADO of course, which makes the restriction even more ridiculous imho.

And let’s think about this for a minute... you are suggesting that a version of the software which contains a bunch of stuff that wasn’t considered necessary for a particular user back when they bought their licenses and suggesting that getting those undesired/unnecessary features is a good reason to pay through the nose to get current now?

> for instance Window 2000 XP (pre SP2)  are now out of support

EXCUSE ME?

Every version of Delphi goes “out of support”, in those terms, as soon as the next version is released.  Windows 2000/XP don’t stop working when their support period ends either, just like Delphi (assuming there is still someone servicing product activation requests, for the more recent versions), but you DO still keep getting updates and fixes for MS products, LONG after their replacement products have been introduced.

Compare and contrast THAT with Delphi.

Just my 0,02 

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