On a note, I still think Embarcadero should include mobile development with Delphi by default, rather than offer it as an add-on pack. But that's just my opinion. I always get RAD Studio though, so it doesn't really matter to me. I think I might actually get Enterprise rather than Professional this time, not sure yet, I'll have to give the feature matrix another look.
EDIT: I'm going to give the demo a try. I'm certainly looking forward to the tech preview event in Belgium next week.
Lars Fosdal Surprised by what? I'm impressed that finding the info I want seems to get more difficult, rather than less. And on the sales side, am I the only one who thinks it's silly to charge for media when a customer has paid a couple of grand for product?
Bill Meyer What are you refering to, with finding information more difficult? It looks pretty clean and clear to me (though it might be nice to link to the feature matrix in there somewhere, at least more clearly than in the links at the bottom of the page). As for the pricing, Pretty much what I expect from Embarcadero. I suppose it's somewhat different for me because I can still rely on academic pricing. If there's anything Embarcadero really got right, it's the academic licenses.
Media costs money to manufacture and store, and the world is mostly online. I'm not surprised by media charges. I am mostly surprised about EMBT still repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different result.
Lars Fosdal Media costs very little these days, and if they pay $20 for a DVD (pretty insane, IMHO), including it with a $2k-$4K product doesn't seem unreasonable.
Lars Fosdal The fact does indeed remain that for example MS has tons of traction due to their free Express editions. I do understand that EMBT doesn't really believe in that, changing models like that isn't an easy change to make. The starter edition was a step in the right direction, but I think not quite enough to actually motive people to choose Delphi over another language, is they have no experience with Delphi or programming in general. A free edition with the same limitations and a closed source VCL/RTL/FMX might come a long way. I really love Delphi as a language though, it's a great language and I really hope it'll gain more traction over the next few years. The iOS/Android support should certainly make it a very interesting option for developers.
Lars Fosdal As to the mistakes, I agree, but I guess the lesson to us is that it seems to be taking them where they want to go. Or if it's not, then the management is really much worse than I would like to think, since little has changed in the approach for quite a while.
lee clark I'm sort of surprised that Embarcadero is still offering media to begin with. Given that a lot of development tools can only be obtained through downloads these days.
Lars Fosdal I sorta got the update often notion out of my head after suffering through a lot of turbulence in some third party components. Stability is a Good Thing. ;)
lee clark Certainly! I study computer science at the KULeuven university in Belgium. We use pretty much Java for everything. Most people don't even know what Delphi is anymore at my age. I think it's very important to motivate young people to get into Delphi development. It would greatly benefit the language and demand for it in the future.
lee clark A huge issue I think, is that education, at least over here in Belgium as far as I'm aware, does not adopt Delphi anymore. Students would have to sort of get around to using it by themselves, like I did. But the choice between Delphi and Java or .NET for example is usually made pretty quickly, if Delphi is even considered. Despite the great academic pricing, the free languages will usually/always win out, for people who have no experience with Delphi, and as such, don't know that the academic price, can be justified.
It might be a good idea to promote Delphi more through education related events. For example, I pretty much every year participate in a national programming contest here in Belgium, which is organized by the academic community and held at a university/college each year. They offer a variety of languages which you can use, .NET languages, Java, Ruby even languages like Prolog and Haskell. (All of which I have personally been taught at some point at the university) Every time I participate, I ask if they are adopting Delphi. Every time the answer is that I should use FPC, because they won't be supporting Delphi. At the event, there's always some representative from Microsoft as well, promoting .NET development. I think supporting events like this might also be a good way of bringing Delphi closer to new developers.
That's just view on the issue anyway. I hope it might offer a useful perspective.
lee clark I doubt that it could hurt, but I know that in California (where I used to reside) many schools actively preach against any Pascal or derivative. In that environment, it's probably just a waste of time.
Good grief yes - in a way its a shame that the output is native arm code, under eclipse or android studio you could at least target the atom versions of android and use the intel hardware acceleration to make things halfway bearable.
Awesome, Android! I'm totally getting this.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised. By now I shouldn't be, but I am still surprised.
ReplyDelete:-) thanks Lars Fosdal
ReplyDeleteI forgot to say that I was not positively surprised.
ReplyDeleteOh btw - I will actually be in Oslo for the launch, lee clark - with my team mates.
ReplyDeleteGreat, Lars Fosdal good to hear that looking foreward to meeting you in person sir.
ReplyDeleteOn a note, I still think Embarcadero should include mobile development with Delphi by default, rather than offer it as an add-on pack. But that's just my opinion. I always get RAD Studio though, so it doesn't really matter to me.
ReplyDeleteI think I might actually get Enterprise rather than Professional this time, not sure yet, I'll have to give the feature matrix another look.
EDIT: I'm going to give the demo a try. I'm certainly looking forward to the tech preview event in Belgium next week.
Lars Fosdal Surprised by what? I'm impressed that finding the info I want seems to get more difficult, rather than less. And on the sales side, am I the only one who thinks it's silly to charge for media when a customer has paid a couple of grand for product?
ReplyDeleteBill Meyer What are you refering to, with finding information more difficult? It looks pretty clean and clear to me (though it might be nice to link to the feature matrix in there somewhere, at least more clearly than in the links at the bottom of the page). As for the pricing, Pretty much what I expect from Embarcadero. I suppose it's somewhat different for me because I can still rely on academic pricing. If there's anything Embarcadero really got right, it's the academic licenses.
ReplyDeleteMedia costs money to manufacture and store, and the world is mostly online. I'm not surprised by media charges. I am mostly surprised about EMBT still repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different result.
ReplyDeleteBill Meyer off the record (if off the record is posting this on G+) yes I agree with you about the media.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal would be great to have a chat when we meet in Olso.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal Media costs very little these days, and if they pay $20 for a DVD (pretty insane, IMHO), including it with a $2k-$4K product doesn't seem unreasonable.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal The fact does indeed remain that for example MS has tons of traction due to their free Express editions. I do understand that EMBT doesn't really believe in that, changing models like that isn't an easy change to make. The starter edition was a step in the right direction, but I think not quite enough to actually motive people to choose Delphi over another language, is they have no experience with Delphi or programming in general. A free edition with the same limitations and a closed source VCL/RTL/FMX might come a long way. I really love Delphi as a language though, it's a great language and I really hope it'll gain more traction over the next few years. The iOS/Android support should certainly make it a very interesting option for developers.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal As to the mistakes, I agree, but I guess the lesson to us is that it seems to be taking them where they want to go. Or if it's not, then the management is really much worse than I would like to think, since little has changed in the approach for quite a while.
ReplyDeletelee clark I'm sort of surprised that Embarcadero is still offering media to begin with. Given that a lot of development tools can only be obtained through downloads these days.
ReplyDeleteOnline shop prices:
ReplyDeletehttps://store.embarcadero.com/542/purl-dbanner
One thing is certain: Paying for SA is money saved - well, at least if you prefer upgrading every time, like me.
Frédéric Hannes I suspect some corporate accounts may require it. But I think it just looks petty.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal I sorta got the update often notion out of my head after suffering through a lot of turbulence in some third party components. Stability is a Good Thing. ;)
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal Frédéric Hannes Bill Meyer Just to run something passed you, in Africa we are giving away Delphi 2010 Pro Academic, would this be a step in the rite direction for other regions?
ReplyDeleteBill Meyer True, it should probably just be included with the licenses for free, given that they're already as expensive as they are.
ReplyDeletelee clark Certainly! I study computer science at the KULeuven university in Belgium. We use pretty much Java for everything. Most people don't even know what Delphi is anymore at my age. I think it's very important to motivate young people to get into Delphi development. It would greatly benefit the language and demand for it in the future.
ReplyDeleteBill Meyer I agree that we should get free media.
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal You mean it's not ready?
ReplyDeletePhillip Woon - Were the XE, XE2, XE3 and XE4 ready when they were released?
ReplyDeleteLars Fosdal I usually fully adopt a Delphi release only after about 6 months, which means that there's usually 1 or 2 update packs already available.
ReplyDeleteFrédéric Hannes - We generally do the same for production code.
ReplyDeletelee clark A huge issue I think, is that education, at least over here in Belgium as far as I'm aware, does not adopt Delphi anymore. Students would have to sort of get around to using it by themselves, like I did. But the choice between Delphi and Java or .NET for example is usually made pretty quickly, if Delphi is even considered. Despite the great academic pricing, the free languages will usually/always win out, for people who have no experience with Delphi, and as such, don't know that the academic price, can be justified.
ReplyDeleteIt might be a good idea to promote Delphi more through education related events. For example, I pretty much every year participate in a national programming contest here in Belgium, which is organized by the academic community and held at a university/college each year. They offer a variety of languages which you can use, .NET languages, Java, Ruby even languages like Prolog and Haskell. (All of which I have personally been taught at some point at the university) Every time I participate, I ask if they are adopting Delphi. Every time the answer is that I should use FPC, because they won't be supporting Delphi. At the event, there's always some representative from Microsoft as well, promoting .NET development. I think supporting events like this might also be a good way of bringing Delphi closer to new developers.
That's just view on the issue anyway. I hope it might offer a useful perspective.
Delphi is dead!!! Oh wait, only the EMBT homepage currently is ... :P
ReplyDeleteWell, no software is really ready when it get's released. That reminds me of a saying:
ReplyDeleteI don't usually test my code, but when I do, I do it in production.
Just downloading...
ReplyDeleteI completely understand what Lars Fosdal is saying here and why :-)
ReplyDeletelee clark I doubt that it could hurt, but I know that in California (where I used to reside) many schools actively preach against any Pascal or derivative. In that environment, it's probably just a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteI got my email to download XE5. When I was in college (in the 80's), we did all our programming in Pascal .
ReplyDeleteI am downloading now, if only to see if the problems I encountered with the last beta are fixed >_<
ReplyDeleteI wasn't on the beta, but I'm all over the trial. The emulator experience is a bit wonky. Tomorrow I'll try again on a real Nexus 7 tablet.
ReplyDeletehttps://forums.embarcadero.com/thread.jspa?messageID=595226򑔚
The emulator is the same one you use on eclipse/android studio - SLOW
ReplyDeleteReal hardware is an absolute must, unless you have extraordinary patience.
ReplyDeleteGood grief yes - in a way its a shame that the output is native arm code, under eclipse or android studio you could at least target the atom versions of android and use the intel hardware acceleration to make things halfway bearable.
ReplyDelete