Changes in the wind part II
As many of you may have read in Nick Hodges post (http://www.delphifeeds.com/go/f/55223) he has a new job for Embarcadero. You may be asking yourself “why is Mike going to comment on this new post?” Well, first because Nick really does deserve the new position and because I get to now work more closely with Nick and the Delphi team going forward as the new Product Manager for RAD Studio.
As many of you know, and for those people I’ve met in the past, I’ve been working with Delphi since 1.0. I have trained, introduced companies to Delphi as an employee, consulted on Delphi as a consultant before joining the company, and have been around Delphi ever since joining Borland back in August 1998. Some of you may remember BorCon 2000 where I was showing the ability for the AppServer and CORBA servers to connect to a simple Delphi GUI application (cutting edge at the time) during the Tech Preview session. Heck, just from a historical note, David I and I were talking during his recent visit to Columbus Ohio about how I was in the audience to see David I preview Delphi 1.0.
So like Nick, who is very excited about his new opportunity… I too, am very excited about the new opportunity to not only get to work with Nick more closely but also reconnect and work with many of the people I’ve known for a very long time. My only hope is that I can meet or exceed the excellent job Nick did as the product manager for RAD Studio and our community at large.
As you can imagine, I have a lot of ideas about the products and what could be introduced, enhanced, improved, and expanded. But, I’m always willing to listen, talk-to, and take advice from any and all who will give it. I’m excited about the ability to present to the community at Delphi Live (http://www.delphilive.com/) this year in San Jose CA and I hope to meet, talk, and discuss any and all issues with you during the conference.
As always if you have a concern, an issue, or you want to say you guys are kicking butt, please don’t hesitate to email me at michael.rozlog@embarcadero.com.
More to come…
Congrats!
April 17th, 2009 at 2:31 pmCongrats! Need to get you on a podcast.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:09 pmCongrats. Looking forward to seeing some of your ideas!
April 17th, 2009 at 8:16 pmCongratulations Michael. See you at DelphiLive!
April 19th, 2009 at 5:47 amCongratulations to you and Nick both. I look forward to hearing your ideas.
Keep kicking butt.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:30 am[...] new Delphi Product Manager is…… <drum roll>…… Mike Rozlog! Mike is a very capable guy, loves Delphi, and is really good on the business side of things. [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 11:53 amIt would be nice to see NEW free Delphi version for students. This is crucial for the future of Delphi. I hope that new product manager have some ideas in this matter
April 20th, 2009 at 8:21 pmTry to push the community, try to give ou really low priced non crippled versions as microsoft does and java…
April 21st, 2009 at 1:24 amStudents, universitys and youngsters are the ones that are important for the success of Delphi.
Many companys don’t choose Delphi cause the lack of good programmers and also the old way of Borland… going the wrong way, denying technologies and customers and jumping on each bandwagon and dropping things.
Concentrate on bringing new devs in, keep your 32bit approach up to date, stabilize the ide, improve the help system (the old one was quick and nice… the new one was not used once by me…), move the language and the compiler forward instead of jumping on multible oses and stuff.
Improve the component installation, unit searching and make delphi portable so we can just copy it to a test machine or a fresh windows version or a laptop with all the changes and components without the need to synching both installations or reinstalling all, putting in all paths and stuff…
You can’t stop piracy, so concentrate on customers and not new devs, new devs spread the word, form companys or get hired and make companys choose Delphi…
Main reason to not start a Delphi project or move away from Delphi is: lack of developers, lack of actual components (as old ones become incompatible… even if you have the dcus… or need to be rebought just to get a it working with the new version), the lack of unicode, the lack of 64bit…
Jou may be able to wait a few years till technologies like 64bit gets adapted, but don’t wait too long.
Don’t spread your working force to too many unimportant areas and into journeys with linux, net and stuff, that will not bring in money and devs and will be stopped a year later.
I would do a cheap or free version, 64bit, compiler improvement and also revisit old areas like the code generation, the dfm control thing and all the stuff that is packed into the executable… as it gets bigger and packed with old tech and stuff that none of you ever looks at again.
Delphi has some good advantages over other languages and approaches… concentrate on them and spread the word. (did i say give out cheap or free non crippled versions to lure youngsters into delphi?)
Also try to release previews and plans early so companys get security and can plan also…
Don’t keep things secret and act jumpy… no company likes getting their plans screwed.
Be more open like microsoft is with their channel9, early publishing experiments and ways you move and stuff…
Also follow nicks way on community work.
Hire some evangelists, posting and doing videos and tutorials, telling the world of each feature and how to use Delphi and secret tricks and stuff.
Make dcu’s non version dependent.
Make delphi more c++ .obj .lib compatible so we can better use vistal c++ obj code or compile with c++ builder and not get toons of error messages when trying to include the .obj in Delphi.
Try to make Delphi more responsive… it blocks the whole code if it tries to search something or rebuilds a internal list.
Get code coverage/profiling in as no small company can afford $600-$1500 just for a decent profiler and as Delphi does not include as many optimizing options and code generation like vc every app needs to optimize bottlenecks today.
Try to reinvent and redo some basic parts of the code generation and the unused code reduction… try to keep down filesize while improving speed and reliability.
You say filesize doesn’t matter today? It DOES when you need to scale and have many downloads of your products (not all companys are big and handing out their stuff on dvd’s).
Compression? Yes but keeping the executable light, fast and beautyfull helps a lot.
React faster on bugs and issues, say what youre working on and fix the bugs… promote the fixes and don’t hide it inside of a password protected area that everyone needs to login simply to see whats new (not everyone is haning out your login pages the whole day… the world got open… we read blogs and pages everyone can access).
It is annoying to use third party hook bugfixes cause of bugs that don’t get fixed through multible versions or need 6-12 months … critical bugs that make the generated application behave strangely or the IDE to get crazy…
Borland was closing its eyes on the reallity… what we do and think today… it had a old way to think and look at things and tried to abadon the developers while moving to their other tools… you need to get to the right way and concentrate of today issues in a web2 world where isvs sell software on the web as downloads, where youngsters or jobless guys form companys, where size and speed matters, where xml and web things matter…
Copy things from php… they have so nice prebuilt functions to use… for xml, web, image things, md5, sha1, compression, encryption and all the stuff… It would be nice if delphi had all the utility functions we actually use every day… like in php… in php you don’t have to reinvent every small function or download big heavy librarys and toolkits… simply call a single function to split a string, do html entities, utf8 and so on…
Maybe Delphi has also some of these functions… but i don’t look at the strange clunky helpfile anymore and php has a nice online search and helpfile,
Also try to keep up with visual c# as they include easy ways to use new features and do things without a own embarcadero homebrew technology instead of the actual standard and also the code completion in c# is really nice on library code, functions, objects and all the things…
Try to improve on the things you already have and to get usefull things and functions in…
Having easy well optimized functions for everyday usage is more important than a new secret language feature none uses…
I could go on but i think… simply use Delphi, listen and do some brainstorming… and eat your own dogfood… actually use Delphi to build things and run into usability issues, missed things and bugs…
Bye for now. ^^
PS: I had not that much time to practice my english and cause of my angina i had no sleep last night. so sorry for my bad english.
Some other small things i forgot… try to not punish Delphi developers for making the compiler also working with c++.
Try to solve lock and stringcheck and all those performance hits that makes some critical delphi parts slower and slower.
Like the changes to the TList and stuff and the strings etc… all slowed down and need own implementations cause they simply became too slow just for you to easy implement it to the compiler…
Don’t do dirty things and tricks to lower your work… try to do optimal code as things sum up today and if Delphi does bad things you can’t change anything… not even optimize your code… as strings got slow, lists got slow, many things like xml became microsoft dependent, big slow and clunky…
Delphi devs need to try hardly to avoid using many Delphi technologys and libraries cause they add heavy bloat to the exe, depencies and big slow clunky things, try to make Delphi sexy in every way, so it wins on most parts… You can’t keep up with microsoft, so be sexy in the "old" things and don’t just rush in features that are bad implemented and slowing down Delphi while keeping you so busy that you forget about the other Delphi issues and things…
"We can’t change this minor thing cause all our devs and money is concentrating on rushing out new bad microsoft copy features. Speed and size don’t matter. Depency doesnt matter. Utility functions don’t matter. We can take that hit on string and list performance so we can easy rush in feature x and y and yet another 200-500kb filesize in a empty delphi file or a exe that gets 800-2000kb just by adding a few components is just ok as we all have high performance systems and your apps only need to parse 1 file at a time and we all have lots of cash to pay download traffic of our customers and trials. we close our eyes on everything and move along with our secret plans, some customers will always buy $1000. and the youngsters and the jobless guys never need to learn things and keep up to get a job or pay less till their isv is generating lots of cash"
On the portable Delphi IDE… if i run Delphi on my Desktop and on a virtual machine and on my Laptop/Netbook it is really hard to install it everywhere and install every component, to all configs, install all updates, put in the paths to the units, or simply redo all the things if you upgrade your pc/windows or need a reinstall or delphi gets messed up.
Why can’t i backup and copy my Delphi folder around and start Delphi from everywhere?
Piracy? Are you closing your eyes again? Piracy can’t be stopped and isn’t always bad, as new devs may pay Delphi later or move into jobs and get skill…
Today every family guy or mom downloads things so they aren’t criminals that newer ever buy things again… so thread them and new devs and youngsters well and make Delphi nice…
Also try to get Delphi into schools and universitys as this is a part of Java’s success…
Try to make people easyliy get Delphi, love it cause of its quality and generate money from that… instead of making bad things and make things harder for customers so you think you can stop piracy.
Don’t develop for the people that aren’t usefull… develop for the peoples that pay you… be open and drop the things you done for the "bad guys".
If you implement things to stop pirates, you simply make your customers life harder and this costs you money… not the pirates… each new delphi dev helps…
Get small money from many individuals, and bigger one from companys with site liecenses and no cripling…
How should i as a dev get expirience to get job xy if i only can afford a cripled turbo that cant install components or a pro that doesnt include all the enterprise features? how can i test them and become good?
Microsoft gives c# out for free and is also learning in other areas… the servers are nearly free to try for months… Like in opensource… the private guys without much money do private experiments and codes or small products, get expirience, get a job or form a company.
Big companys see many good devs and decide to use Delphi and pay site liecenses…
Ive learned php and mysql with the free opensource and then worked on a company as a dev…
My friend was jobless and nearly broke… he started a software company… But he would not have choosen Delphi if he needed to pay thousands of dollars in the start phase.
Another friend is moving away from Delphi cause of the lack of good devs in his area and in general, and the insecurity from your hidden plans and not knowing where you move. He also needed Unicode before D2009 came out and he needs 64bit.
Also your Unicode approach is a example of the fast rush menthality…
I get lots of problems and hundreds of compiler errors while using "old" libraries and components… (no easy way to use it, or even a easy way to turn it off for the project or the unit) then everywhere that punishment for using the new things… the slowdown of unicode and the stringcheck penalty, hidden locks, tlist changes… penalties everywhere… and why? cause of an easy "hack" of the Delphi makers, instead of doing it the proper way, it is bound to penalties if you use it, or even if you don’t use it, cause they changed the whole way the compiler does the normal Delphi code… including hidden tricks and locks etc…
Do it the proper way, make it nearly free to use a new feature and don’t tamper with the whole Delphi just to implement something new.
I don’t want to rewrite each and every Delphi thing from scratch or implement third party hacks to get my code working as it should…
Make me see what compiler directives do… i often run into big units and components with massive compiler ifs and it wont work or compile correctly… then i need to look at the web what versioncode my delphi was again and then hunt through the inc commenting out each compiler ifdef and stuff to see that somewhere, lines below something doesn’t get compiled cause of something above that changed in my delphi…
There are so many wishes and usability things youre getting while working all the years with your Delphi as a companion…
Also switching my work on sunny days out to the sun as companys get more modern and netbooks get cheap…
But wait… i miss update x and component y on my netbook or even have the old version of Delphi… oh i need to install a dvd drive and take houres to install delphi, updates, components, set component paths, copy my project and stuff… oh now the sun is gone so forget it and sit in the dark office instead…
Make delphi cool and sexy… let me take all easyliy with me everywhere… others will look at what i do and i show them delphi and point them to the community, the open embarcadero and the cheap or even free non crippled version where he can learn delphi, do some projects, get a job with it or form a company…
You will get your money… and even more this way… the world got open and it won’t stop so move with the world.
Let us all promote our cool Delphi… show it everyone, everywhere and get them on the Delphi wagon, make devs, let companys hire them and buy more Delphi versions…
Be cooler than the feature creep languages, driven by multi billion companys with simply more manpower than you…
I and all of us feel the pressure every day, of low jobcount, of problems, the pressure to move to c# or other solutions…
So take the pressure from all and grow…
Let us live DELPHI!
Also please change this small input window as it is really hard to make a text look good after you press submit…
April 21st, 2009 at 2:16 amCongratulations from the Rio Grande do Sul Delphi Users Group (Brazil)!
Regards,
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:59 amDaniel Wildt
http://www.dug-rs.org