Thank you for clarifying that David, that was really clear and very helpful, and has changed my impression already of where things are at, it all sounds much more positive for Delphi's future than I first gleaned from Jolyon's first comments on his own blog.<div>
<br></div><div>Jolyon, be careful of casually commenting your way into corporate defamation one day.<br><div><br></div><div>Paul<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2009/10/16 David Brennan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dugdavid@dbsolutions.co.nz">dugdavid@dbsolutions.co.nz</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div lang="EN-NZ" link="blue" vlink="purple">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Malcolm was saying that there were only a few big items in
Delphi 2010. The touch/gesture support feature is probably the main one, whereas
Delphi 2009 had Unicode, Generics, Anonymous Methods, etc.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">But instead they added lots and lots of little new features to
improve the IDE and debugging. For some people these will count as big features
– for example the new Data Visualiser support could be HUGE for us
assuming it is relatively easy to write your own (and the capabilities are
flexible enough) as it would allow us to browse our custom data structures much
more easily during debug time. It sounds like all these features do a lot to
bring the Delphi IDE up to true world class level. That’s pretty
important to me so Delphi 2010 sounds very worthwhile to me.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">They also fixed a lot of bugs. Presumably these bug-fixes are
not going to be ported back to previous versions. I accept that and am simply
happy that they have now fixed these bugs and I hope they keep fixing more bugs
in subsequent versions. I know other people have a less tolerant view (possibly
people who are encountering more of these bugs in their older versions!).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">So as Jolyon says the reality is somewhere in between and will
depend a bit on what you personally value.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">FWIW I would love to be able to use Delphi 2010 but I don’t
see it happening any time soon because I think testing and adapting to Unicode is
going to be too big a project for us to justify in the next 6 months or more,
possibly indefinitely until we get a customer who absolutely must have Unicode
(we could do it more easily by just leaving our database string fields as ansistrings
but that really defeats the purpose – sounds like most of the pain with
none of the gain).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Sigh.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">David.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<div>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt"> <a href="mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz" target="_blank">delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz" target="_blank">delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Jolyon Smith<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, 16 October 2009 3:17 p.m.</span></p><div class="im"><br>
<b>To:</b> 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'<br>
</div><b>Subject:</b> Re: [DUG] Has Malcolm Groves Been Misrepresented?<p></p>
</div>
</div><div><div></div><div class="h5">
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">I also went on – in a subsequent <u>comment</u> – to
say that things that Malcom didn’t seem to consider were that big, *<b>were</b>*
in fact very noteworthy and worthwhile additions, imho.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">I think the actual position is somewhere between the two views.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">i.e. Delphi 2010 *<b>is</b>* more than just a “bug
fix”, but it’s not as *<b>major</b>* a release in terms of headline
features that 2009 was, for example.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">Perhaps Malcolm simply didn’t express that particularly
well in Auckland. (there’s a danger that since people often
complain that bugs don’t get fixed, attention is then drawn to “how
many bugs we fixed” which then distracts away from “how much of,
and how big, the new stuff is” – I was commenting on the perception
that I felt Malcolm conveyed, not agreeing that that perception was necessarily
correct).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D">I myself was perhaps not clear enough on that point (the
observations were in comments, not a blog post – I spend more time on
posts than on comments)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<div style="border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10.0pt"> <a href="mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz" target="_blank">delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz" target="_blank">delphi-bounces@delphi.org.nz</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Paul A Norman<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, 16 October 2009 2:59 p.m.<br>
<b>To:</b> NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [DUG] Has Malcolm Groves Been Misrepresented?</span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040">I was
not at the Auckland presentation, and have had to rely on others' reporting of
it. Jolyon who normally appears to be very careful in what he says and writes
has said on his blog:</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040">"<span>Malcolm Groves stood up in Auckland and openly told us
that in his view, apart from 1 or 2 things, and really in *his* opinion only 1,
Delphi 2010 was basically a bug fix release with lots of little tweaks here and
there. They charged full price for it of course and won’t be retrofitting
those bug fixes to Delphi 2009 or 2007 (where they would be of most use).</span></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040"> </span></p>
</div>
<p style="margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040">"I stress – that’s not my characterisation of
the release as not delivering much in the way of “new stuff”, it
was his.</span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040">"David"
wrote on Jolyon's blog:</span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:12.75pt"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040"> </span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040">"While
I usually agree with you Jolyon I don’t feel Malcolm Groves told us
Delphi 10 was mainly just bug fixes. What he did say was that there were only
one or two big killer features but there were hundreds of small improvements.
Some of these small improvements were no doubt bug fixes, but many are
enhancements and new features which from the sound of it really improve the
IDE."</span></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040">Please,
Jolyon, David and any one who was there, what is what? -- Because like a lot of
people, my decisions on ongoing use and purchase of Delphi very much
depends on whether you have to factor in the next version as a paid for bug fix
or not, on what you buy.</span></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9.0pt;color:#404040">Paul</span></span><span lang="EN-US"></span></p>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
</div>
</div></div></div>
</div>
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