Intrigued by the number of people who still use Delphi 5 or earlier, I'd like to know more. Do you still actively use ...
Intrigued by the number of people who still use Delphi 5 or earlier, I'd like to know more. Do you still actively use ...
I'd appreciate a comment explaining why you still work with such an ancient version.
I'd appreciate a comment explaining why you still work with such an ancient version.
A few months ago I was urged to extend some old program of mine written with D5. Porting to a newer version didn't work out well as the target platform remains Win95. After some trying I finally gave up, as working with D5 was so ineffective compared to the current Delphi versions, that even if the customer would pay the amount needed, I simply won't do it just because I felt so uncomfortable with it. So, no Delphi 5 for me again.
ReplyDeleteD5 was the oldest I've used, unlike Uwe Raabe , I can't say I enjoyed using D5, but wasn't that depressed working with it, most of the Delphi applications I've worked on uses over 95% of standard VCL and code completion worked well enough to save me time
ReplyDeleteDelphi 6, because of the free Personal Edition .. but I uses an Enterprise version :)
ReplyDeleteA project like FlashPascal could be ported to Seattle, but I have to remove all the binary string and convert them to TBytes, the final product will be bigger without any advantage ... so why should I do this ? In fact the only reason could be to port this project to MacOSX....but I don't think that there's a FMX version of SynEdit.
http://flashpascal.execute.re/
If price(newest_delphi_version) < $300 then use newest_delphi_version else use Delphi_1
ReplyDeleteТарас Поліщук That should be: if subscription.price < subscription.ROI then subscription.buy else raise EYouAreDoingSomethingWrong.Create;
ReplyDeleteMost of our D5 software is converted to D2007 or newer. But we still use Turbo Pascal 7 in many applications.
ReplyDeleteLeif Uneus Why Turbo Pascal? That's a little bit older a version than I'd expected anyone to answer...
ReplyDeleteDavid Millington we too use Turbo or rather Borland Pascal 7 at work for maintaining one particular program running on 4 different computers under DOS (from Windows 98). There is some hope to reduce this number to 1 during next year but I wouldn't bet on it.
ReplyDeleteThomas Mueller I am very impressed that you are still supporting Windows 98 as well as using Turbo Pascal. I guess you beat me on legacy, i just converted a Visual Basic 4 application to a 32-bit VB 6 on Windows XP.
ReplyDeleteI attempted to speak to the client to let me quickly convert it to Delphi but they told me that it wasn't broken, so I needed to set up a notebook with WIndows XP and VB6.
Let alone it used Crystal Reports 6 that i needed to convert as well. What a strange trip it has been....
Richard Baroniunas actually we need a DOS based PC as base for some sensors in some of our measurement vehicles. We took Windows 98 only because it was available. It's legacy code all right, but it works perfectly. Unfortunately the interface cards we are using are no longer available and have started to die on us, so we finally have no choice but to reduce the number of installations and migrate to Windows (+some custom hardware to make the system real time). On the other hand, I look forward to a DOS free IT environment.
ReplyDeleteI use them all! Mostly Delphi 6, but I do use all the versions, all the way back to Delphi 1 (and even drop to TP 7 on occasion), and all the way up to the latest greatest (XE10).
ReplyDeleteJoe C. Hecht why? I mean, I can't see any reason to use Delphi 2-2006 if you can use Delphi 2007. Delphi 1 for 16 bit programs, I can understand.
ReplyDeleteThomas Mueller The best reason of all: I have paying customers that use specific versions. It is very easy to keep VM's of the old versions around (not so with the later versions - they are disk hogs). I have every version of Delphi and C++ Builder installed and ready to go. Most off the work I get is for Delphi 6 and XE3. Occasionally, I do get a request to update an old TP or BP project (and I happily take it). FWIW, for me, it's mostly just a compiler. I do most of my work in a text editor, and compile on the command line. This is mostly true even for UI work, even for XE10. I do stay current, and I service my customers, no matter if the work is Delphi, C, Perl (or whatever), and I work with just about every platform there is.
ReplyDeleteDavid Millington We have many different types of monitoring equipments that runs on W98 DOS (Or FreeDos). The reasons mainly 1) interfacing hardware through the ISA bus. 2) Stable platform. A boxed in solution that does not require the intervention of the IT-section of our customers. (Security,updates and so on). 3) The equipment is certified with this solution, and a new platform will need a very costly recertification.
ReplyDeleteA new platform using a real-time win32 compatible OS is under development using D2007. It will be phased in during the next 5 years.
In a way, I am surprised at the number of replies about 16 bit versions. I get 16 bit work on occasion (rare - but it happens), and in some ways, it's quite nice. And in some respects, not a lot has changed, except eye candy and bloat. It's hard to imagine an entire windows OS that runs like lighting with 4 megs of ram (and that was a lot back in those days). I do find myself still pulling code from those days, and up-porting to 32 and 64 bit land. Resource files can still work with a tweak, and I have a set of very advanced custom color and font dialogs ported from back in those days that's actually shipping in products compiled for modern versions of Windows. I guess that goes to show that good code then might still be good code today. Funny, some of it is high performance graphics related code at that!
ReplyDeleteI even have an old DOS VM with TP, sporting the original Norton Commander (version 1.0 from 1985?). Now if I could just find my copy of SideKick and SuperKey, I might really feel at home.
And here it is almost 2016, and I use less "IDE" today then I used back then (and it was text based IDE back then). And today? I still use text base for the most part - sans IDE. Really! OK, I don't do a lot of UI work, but I do some, and a lot of it is still hand crafted in a notepad (++).
And "the old ways" still exist today. Run something like TaskSel in Linux, and you will get a very familiar "UI" in a ANSI command window. Midnight commander still has that look and feel, and to be truthful, it's a darn fast way to navigate and get things done. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from all this.
I was a blogging today about some mac folks that were complaining that the latest OSX upgrade broke all sorts of stuff, and how they had to run cleaning operations on temp files, and carry out terminal hack operations to get their apps to work. All I could think was "what happened Apple?" It sounded like bad Windows update scenario from days gone by.
I remember when an update only came out every few years (and there was no Windows update upp). I think I like that better than what we have today. Today, I walk in every morning, and update a slew machines and devices with at least dozen updates. I can't help but to think I don't need to update to Windows 10 (I actually run it in a VM where it belongs), I might actually be better off (and perhaps safer) downgrading to something like Windows 98! hmm.... I wonder what the minimum requirement is to run VM these days containing a modern OS. Probably way more that I would like! I have ghz and GB's all day long to devote to something like that, and would probably never have to buy another piece of upgraded hardware again, or need another update for anything. I must be getting old, cause that actually does not sound like a bad deal at all.
hmmm.
Joe