Delphi vs everything

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I am making my first baby steps into Cocoa/iPhone development for the Mac and I can now see how much ahead of its time was Delphi when it was developed. Having seen almost every other Java GUI development tool and framework I can almost reluctantly declare it: "After so many years and Delphi still has the RAD edge"

Makes me feel sad really, such a good IDE, language and compiler (still the fastest there is??) and yet the product has been sold and resold and still can't generate enough revenue...

If only we had Delphi's GUI and compiler, IntelliJ Idea's editor and refactoring abilities, Java's language and VM and Apple's beautiful UI in one simple product...

Is it too much I am asking for?

Comments

vpapanik said…
Delphi until we fall ! :D
10:53 PM, October 27, 2009
frankoid said…
In what way is Delphi better than OS X/Cocoa for GUI development? I'm curious because I haven't used Delphi and I think that Cocoa is pretty good for GUIs.

Quite surprised that Java is your ideal language and VM - the VM's good in a lot of ways but I hate the slow startup and the fact that you have to specify the maximum heap size - why can't it just expand automatically like every other language? The language can be quite clumsy and verbose too.
9:37 AM, October 29, 2009
Kostas Symeonidis said…
When Delphi was introduced, Borland was boasting the two-way tool, i.e. the changes in code by changing the UI and vice versa. Delphi does this in a non-obtrusive way and does it a lot better then the Java tools out there (see collapsed code sections that you are not allowed to edit) and Cocoa development where you need to declare your outlets in the code before using them in the UI.

Java as a language, I just compare in this context to Delphi and Objective C. It's quite obvious that all languages have influenced each other but in terms of pure language design Java seems the cleanest of them all, i.e. the one that *seems* to have less "foreign" artifacts. I can't really get to grips with OC syntax it feels very weird which makes me uncomfortable :-)

I agree with your VM comments, that is something that Java needs to sort out definitely.

My moaning is plainly about the fact that I know three things out there that each one of them has its own snags and shortcomings while the combination of their pros would have been an amazing thing! Maybe there is a gap in the market :-) Or maybe .net does it, I don't know :\
11:47 PM, November 02, 2009
Unknown said…
Hi,

I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your blog and this post. You make some very informative points. Keep up the great work!

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Hire Delphi Developers
7:29 PM, October 22, 2010
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