Correspondent from New York
Doing spring cleaning the past weeks
Technical Support, the other side
Customer: Good morning. Hi, I have a problem with your app. It keeps barfing, having plenty of access violations and we are getting tired of bugs, stop screwing us around and fix your damn bugs.
Vendor: What bugs? My apps. we produce are of excellent quality, we have plenty of documentation, our application has tons of features and very robust.
Customer: (click) - phone disconnects and no longer a customer.
The problem with Delphi developers goes like this: They are one-man bands, unable to get extra QA or extra documentation. They keep saying Delphi is the best development tool, ever. So, if it is the best development tool, then why is it that Delphi developers produce poor quality components and shoddy websites?
Almost two years ago, this blog published an article called "QA Dept: CodeBot or SysRPL's Components" after Mr. Anthony Walter complained that CodeGear (or whatever) stole his components (or ideas) and put his components into Delphi 2010. That later caused him to remove lots of source code on his site. So our reviewer reviewed what was left on his website.
Consider this situation. Everyone touts Delphi to be the best development tool, ever. It has plenty of components, plenty of documentation, but when it reaches the hands of the developers who are using it, the opposite occurs. They can only produce broken components, broken products, broken apps, broken documentation, use PHP/VBulletin or PHP/WordPress or PHP/PhpBB for their websites or ASP.NET (e.g., DevExpress.com) or Ruby (e.g., using RedMine or SVN version control website) or Python (e.g., GIT or Hg).
Two years have passed, we would expect that Mr. Anthony Walter would have fixed all the bugs on his website (and maybe used dedicated server to host a Delphi/Win32 website), fixed his documentation. But the otherwise occurred. That guy has so many website issues(1), he should change ISPs or web-hosting facilities. If he has problems paying for Delphi, he should stop using it and use another language. If he has documentation issues, then he should consider using non-Delphi products to document his code. If he has problems finding a Delphi job -- here's a suggestion: there are hundreds or thousands of VB.NET and C# jobs out there.
Another person said it nicely:
"I looked at the site --including the Delphi Applicaton Explorer.
DAE could be useful when you need that sort of thing as would/might others be.
But, seeing that there's quite a number of people begging/requesting that downloads be re-anabled, I am not sure what to make of this site.
Given that no code is open, what's the point?
Is this some sort of bait-and-switch?
Will it then turn commercial?
If so, why not simply start off commercial?"
The shackles of Delphi is the delusion is the false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence(2). Delphi developer -- code-heal and bug-fix-yourself.
References:
(1) https://forums.codegear.com/thread.jspa?messageID=398872
(2) http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=delusion
Doing spring cleaning the past weeks
Technical Support, the other side
Customer: Good morning. Hi, I have a problem with your app. It keeps barfing, having plenty of access violations and we are getting tired of bugs, stop screwing us around and fix your damn bugs.
Vendor: What bugs? My apps. we produce are of excellent quality, we have plenty of documentation, our application has tons of features and very robust.
Customer: (click) - phone disconnects and no longer a customer.
The problem with Delphi developers goes like this: They are one-man bands, unable to get extra QA or extra documentation. They keep saying Delphi is the best development tool, ever. So, if it is the best development tool, then why is it that Delphi developers produce poor quality components and shoddy websites?
Almost two years ago, this blog published an article called "QA Dept: CodeBot or SysRPL's Components" after Mr. Anthony Walter complained that CodeGear (or whatever) stole his components (or ideas) and put his components into Delphi 2010. That later caused him to remove lots of source code on his site. So our reviewer reviewed what was left on his website.
Consider this situation. Everyone touts Delphi to be the best development tool, ever. It has plenty of components, plenty of documentation, but when it reaches the hands of the developers who are using it, the opposite occurs. They can only produce broken components, broken products, broken apps, broken documentation, use PHP/VBulletin or PHP/WordPress or PHP/PhpBB for their websites or ASP.NET (e.g., DevExpress.com) or Ruby (e.g., using RedMine or SVN version control website) or Python (e.g., GIT or Hg).
Two years have passed, we would expect that Mr. Anthony Walter would have fixed all the bugs on his website (and maybe used dedicated server to host a Delphi/Win32 website), fixed his documentation. But the otherwise occurred. That guy has so many website issues(1), he should change ISPs or web-hosting facilities. If he has problems paying for Delphi, he should stop using it and use another language. If he has documentation issues, then he should consider using non-Delphi products to document his code. If he has problems finding a Delphi job -- here's a suggestion: there are hundreds or thousands of VB.NET and C# jobs out there.
Another person said it nicely:
"I looked at the site --including the Delphi Applicaton Explorer.
DAE could be useful when you need that sort of thing as would/might others be.
But, seeing that there's quite a number of people begging/requesting that downloads be re-anabled, I am not sure what to make of this site.
Given that no code is open, what's the point?
Is this some sort of bait-and-switch?
Will it then turn commercial?
If so, why not simply start off commercial?"
The shackles of Delphi is the delusion is the false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence(2). Delphi developer -- code-heal and bug-fix-yourself.
References:
(1) https://forums.codegear.com/thread.jspa?messageID=398872
(2) http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=delusion
Posts
1 comments:
There is some truth in the 'delusion'. Don't get me wrong, Delphi sales has a lot to do with selling electric blankets to grannies. They buy something because they had little fun on the bus tour and now would be ashamed not to purchase something and by separating them from competitive offerings no other option is left. Then they sit at home alone and sign up for the next bus tour. All vendors do this, Apple too but the way the cage is built is a more subtle one.
Our world turned into a 24*7 world and agreed a 24*7 world requires of course international division of labor.
Neither the .net world nor the Java world are really capable of friction free solutions but they have advantages. You can start at a higher level of abstraction and focus on the solution and the GC takes care of the exceptional situations and of course a different kind of quality assurance can be put on top assuming the underlying is a lot better tested in a lot more real life scenarios and the requirements retrieved cover a broader audiences demand. This is the real benefit.
Ok EMB will always tell RAD Studio is the best option, because it's their product. You will not sell when you say, 'Oh we have the best option beside the wide spread VS the best second choice for your toolchest'. This will not work.
Quality and team belongs together. One man is simply not capable and honestly who buys from a one man show today, in Austria the mid-ranges don't buy from a 10 employee company anymore independent from the technology.
This one man works for a few people with an existing customer base whose absence would make the application legacy. For young people, the world does not need super heros.
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