Last months' announcement by the Borland CEO that they are getting out of the IDE business makes one of the loudest statements about Delphi in a long time. Depending on who you speak to it is the final nail in the coffin, a interesting footnote on an already dead product, or to the minority - a good thing for Delphi. Whatever you think it means, I doubt that Delphi will ever return to it's 90's glory days.
A more relevant question than 'What happened to Delphi?' is: 'Why is www.delphi.co.za hosting a blog where an individual is going on about non-Delphi stuff?'
So let me try and answer that question.
I used Delphi from v1 to v7 (the last 'good' Delphi) and built much of my professional career on Delphi. Mark Shuttleworth, who because of the gazillions of dollars (pounds or whatever) he has, can advocate the use of open source as much as he likes - he never has to work again. I could be an all out Delphi developer; but for commercial reasons it is just not possible - I just don't have the kind of cash the Mark Shuttleworth does. While Delphi may be used in some niche markets, in the area they I work in - data-centric business applications - if you are not developing in .NET or Java it is virtually impossible to find regular work at a reasonable income.
It becomes particularly difficult when working at the architectural level. For some reason people belive that Delphi is a non-Microsoft platform, when Delphi actually has always been at the bleeding edge of Microsoft technology. I remember developing apps that ran on SQL Server 4.21 on Windows NT 3.1 (on a 486DX266!). In 1995, on a Borland roadshow, I demonstrated Delphi creating ActiveX controls - the only other tool at the time was VC++ (I think VB was still in version 4). It was also around that time that the first data-aware TreeViews became available - something that development tools are still struggling with. I was on a team where we wrote complex multi-tier applications with DCOM at the height of that fashion. On the web I used Delphi to create super-fast ISAPI DLL's before ASP was even on the market. Delphi was the Microsoft development tool of choice for those who didn't have the patience for MFC and couldn't stand the data-crippled flicker-infested applications that came from VB. For some reason though, Delphi (and it's cousin C++ Builder) were soldiers in a non-existent battle of Windows compilers - when the real battle was for the server platform where .NET, Java and others were striking blows.
Most of the good Delphi developers that I have worked with have found a home in .NET - it is commercially viable and has some nuances of the VCL that have probably seeped through from Anders Helsberg - the original Delphi architect and now the creator of C#. I, like many of those developers still use Delphi often - although we seldom admit it to others. I still have a fully functional Delphi environment with all the Developer Express components and can snap together a data-aware application faster than any other tool.
Delphi still has a place in the market and many good tools out there use Delphi. The Skype windows client is developed in Delphi and so are TOAD and PL/SQL Developer - the essential tools in any Oracle developers toolbox. Delphi was a leader in development architecture - Windows functionality (as mentioned above); the best tool for data-aware applications; the only tool with decent grid controls thanks to Developer Express; one of the first to practically implement the concept of a disconnected data set (TClientDataSet); quick off the mark with DCOM and Web Services; implementation of the concept of a data source (1993) - something .NET is only now getting around to. The list goes on and every Delphi developer will be able to list their favourites.
Delphi succeeded despite Borland's pathetic marketing - the tool was so superior that the developer community simply used it; not because it was well marketed. Delphi even survived the Inprise debacle but was, already then, becoming sidelined. Borland then decided that the future of Delphi was .NET, which is really just Pascal for .NET - yet another obsure language that supports the platform. Whoever made that decision forgot that Delphi's strengh was always the compiler and the VCL - by going the .NET route you lose both; leaving behind an outdated IDE... which is now being dumped.
Delphi will still have a place in my personal toolbox and will always be remembered as a platform that I enjoyed developing on and had great success with. However, my migration to .NET was not the Delphi route and I see no future for Delphi on the Windows platform as the outdated compiler fails to support Windows Vista.
The announcement has no effect on me professionally or commercially... it only has an emotional effect as I am forced to read the writing that has been on the wall for a while.
Simon Munro