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Author Topic: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...  (Read 34845 times)

dbannon

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #30 on: July 20, 2018, 07:10:39 am »
I think as I read it that any income counts.
I think the same. They mean if you don't have total income over $5000 in a year, it is very hard (or impossible) for you to afford the price so you can use it for free. But I could be wrong.

I read this -
"If you're an individual you may use Community Edition to create apps for your own use and apps that you can sell until your revenues reach $5,000 per year."

Be clearer if they said "revenues from using Delphi reach ..." but I do think thats what is meant. If you only write open source code and don't seek or expect any income from it, then you are free to use the CE. Thats good. They could have made such open source support a bit more prominent but I don't think they are tuned into open source.

But the CE version does not do Linux. Thats bad. Strange it does Android and IOS (where most apps are written by profit seekers) but not Linux where most general purpose code is free. But, as I said,  I don't think they are tuned into open source.

And even the EE is only cross compiling to Linux ?  I'd have to work from Windows. I don't think so ....

Davo


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guest60499

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #31 on: July 20, 2018, 07:44:03 am »
But the CE version does not do Linux. Thats bad. Strange it does Android and IOS (where most apps are written by profit seekers) but not Linux where most general purpose code is free. But, as I said,  I don't think they are tuned into open source.

And even the EE is only cross compiling to Linux ?  I'd have to work from Windows. I don't think so ....
The installer lets one select Windows x64 as a target but it seems like I can't actually build for Windows x64. There is no option in the project or build menus. Do the iOS and Android targets actually work?

Gammatester

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #32 on: July 20, 2018, 09:23:01 am »
The installer lets one select Windows x64 as a target but it seems like I can't actually build for Windows x64. There is no option in the project or build menus.
Right-click on Target platforms in the project manager, add platform and select 64-bit Windows.

giahung1997

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #33 on: July 20, 2018, 10:09:59 am »
I think the cross-platform ability of FPC/Lazarus will save it from this move. You should focus on the BSDs more, it would be the promise land. I'd love to see FPC/Lazarus run on DragonFly/Open/Net BSD officially. Currently it's only support FreeBSD  :-[

Lightning

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #34 on: July 20, 2018, 04:16:03 pm »
Sorry for the long post  :(

You only need a keyboard for editing documents, programming, image retouching.
You only need a big monitor for some things, entertainment is just fine on small screens and TVs.
Desktops are less relevant to most people.
OSes are less relevant, as DOS was back in the days.
Only apps count. Some would say only data(and money, still).
I think MS knows that windows lost the war, some say that it will be free in the future. They delay making windows free not to look like losers.
Win10(and 7) are not sold for a reason, they are rented(like phone/web apps), so they can collect your data and sell it to governments, advertising, etc.
In the long term, Linux(and alternatives) has a chance because it's honest and community(not money) based.
Delphi is being hit from all sides(death of the desktop, mobile jungle, web based enterprise, IoT/automation, AI, big data).
Combine this with bad management that can't pay the developers and are afraid to have something cheaper, not to lose revenue and/or "face".
Nobody buys a company without wanting to make a profit or at least minimize loses.
Lazarus, while small and apparently weak compared to the big Delphi, can survive and reinvent itself.
It's fast, easy to learn, easy to understand, powerful enough when necessary, cross-platform, ideal for IoT/automation and Desktop apps.
Lazarus and FPC are more in competition with Rust.
Go is another competitor to Node.js, TypeScript, all other web/enterprise platforms, and possibly Lazarus/FPC in the future.
We need to learn from Go's simplicity, Rust's "safe C" idea, Node's async/flexibility/npm(including native C/C++ modules feature)/fast prototyping.

And then MS created TypeScript and VS Code became open-source and cross-platform(Win/OSX/Linux).
Does this mean that open-source won ? Win/desktop failed ? It's all IoT/cloud/AI/big-data/web/progressive apps ? All of them ?

I always liked Delphi and Lazarus. Tried to keep Delphi alive in all the companies I worked for.
Delphi/Pascal always had a stamp of being outdated, etc., but products/actions speak more than words, services/support are more important, at least long-term.
They wanted to use C++ where performance was required, Java or C# to more easily find developers.
In the end they just needed developers so badly that even I had to agree that C# had to enter the scene.
Was C# better ? No, not really.
Did they find more developers ? Yes, many more.
Were the developers more skilled ? No, because it requires passion.
Are they paying smaller salaries ? C# developers earned more in the same company doing less.
Are C# developers less likely to leave if you pay them more ? No, they will find jobs easily and always earn more every time they switch or negotiate.
That company is still using Delphi(latest release), C# and Adobe AIR/HaXe(UI effects team) and some web stuff. Doing great financially even after losing a big contract(business not tech reasons), they earn even more now.

I'm doing Node.js nowadays, had to face reality and chose the least evil/most promising solution when the opportunity presented itself.
The company I work for heavily supported Delphi, which was great, but the economy is not great, so probably no more Delphi in the future.
Most Delphi developers I know want to do C#, just to avoid the mental job hunting pressure.
Delphi's problem is not only the IDE pricing, but also the chicken/egg problem, few jobs means few employees, fewer students learn it in school(if any).

In the end Delphi is heavily dependent on Windows and since that is less relevant, so is Delphi. Combine that with high prices, few jobs, few employees, web, progressive apps vs native,  IoT, big-data, AI, cloud and you have a bad recipe for the future.
Community Edition seems like a desperate move, just like TypeScript, VS Code(which I use and it's quite nice/fresh), it's the silence before the storm.
Delphi CE might be useful for learning how they did certain things, but long term they are alienating their existing paying users and risk losing the mobile market because it's like quicksand.

If I learned anything from working with Node.js is that you need to adapt fast or die. It's the most innovative, and the most volatile technology I have ever seen, but the beauty of JS is that it can keep up with this pace. This is in direct contrast with Delphi/Lazarus and Windows, where I was used to using the same library/techniques for many years without stress.

And to those who think WebAssembly has any chance to displace JS, think again, ASM.js existed for many years, there are JS cross-compilers, WebAssembly is nothing special or new or faster ...
"If something can be written in JS, it will be written in JS". Let's be honest, a lot of stuff can be and is written in JS.
You need something better than JS, with all of it's flexibility, strength, ubiquity and near-native(C) performance.
Not even Rust or Go can yet replace it and those are much better funded and managed, compared to Delphi.
Python tried to get into niche fields like AI/machine learning/computer vision, but long term even it might get displaced by more popular technology or things like R.

Some will say that it's apples to oranges, the problem is that people don't like apples anymore(not just because the fruit "betrayed" Steve), people simply want oranges and even lemons with a bit of honey.

One thing both Delphi and Lazarus need is something like NPM, with a smarter global management of versions, to avoid duplication. Better see Rhyan Dahl's most recent videos about his regrets and future of Node, NPM(and Yarn) itself might become obsolete.

Hope Lazarus will be doing good in the future, it has so much potential and now there's even the IoT marked that seems a really good match for it.
While I don't want Delphi to die, for some reason it keeps making bad choices and it's managers lack intuition(Bill said he wished he had Steve's intuition), it's always late to the party, always losing energy in different directions.
The future must be... Fast and OpenSource so...
Think Open and Lightning Fast!

marcov

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #35 on: July 20, 2018, 05:30:14 pm »
Personally I always wonder why a coursechange always must be imitation of some popular thingy. (*)

What do you really expect to happen? That people will mass drop the popular thingy the whole world is raving about to flock to your still experimental attempt at imitating it?   Not going to happen! 

Rather it would be wiser to pain a picture for FPC/Lazarus to work in frameworks in step with such solutions. IOW, complement, not replace.

(*) python,javascript,typescript, node.js whatever

Zath

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #36 on: July 20, 2018, 06:46:45 pm »
One of the main differences I see between this CE and the earlier Starter is the extended Firemonkey options available. Scrolling miles down I see restrictions still on Mongo.db.
Still, the release has to be a good sign for the pascal community.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2018, 03:07:09 am by Zath »

marcov

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #37 on: July 20, 2018, 07:04:59 pm »
One of the main differences I see between this CE and the earlier Starter is the extended Firemonkey options available. Scrolling miles down I see restrictions still on Mongo.db.
Still, the release has to be a good sign for the pascal community.

And afaik it has 64-bit.

Zath

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #38 on: July 20, 2018, 10:00:07 pm »
One of the main differences I see between this CE and the earlier Starter is the extended Firemonkey options available. Scrolling miles down I see restrictions still on Mongo.db.
Still, the release has to be a good sign for the pascal community.

And afaik it has 64-bit.

Some options for 64 bit are restricted but it's a move in the right direction.


~~

After playing with it this evening...

This Delphi CE is a far better option than the previous Starter edition. The installer gives many options for Win 32, 64, iOS, Android and more. All install and are available to use.
Definitely competition for Lazarus this time round, not something which I like saying in the Lazarus forum.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2018, 03:07:23 am by Zath »

Thaddy

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #39 on: July 20, 2018, 10:31:54 pm »
It is actually quite a good move.And the restrictions are palatable in my opinion.
Specialize a type, not a var.

Lightning

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #40 on: July 20, 2018, 11:42:50 pm »
Personally I always wonder why a coursechange always must be imitation of some popular thingy. (*)

What do you really expect to happen? That people will mass drop the popular thingy the whole world is raving about to flock to your still experimental attempt at imitating it?   Not going to happen! 

Rather it would be wiser to pain a picture for FPC/Lazarus to work in frameworks in step with such solutions. IOW, complement, not replace.

(*) python,javascript,typescript, node.js whatever

It depends on the degree of imitation, what Delphi did was suicidal from D8(planned during D7).
Some ideas matter more than others as time has shown.
Interpreted/bytecode languages are only good in theory, in practice both mobile and servers/cloud need native performance.
While Node.js is using Google's decent V8(possibly others in the future), it's still not native, it avoids this limitation due to strong async mentality and some nice language constructs.
Native languages like FPC don't feel any pressure to fuse async into the language itself.

Will the world drop the popular thingy ?
PHP was dropped(still strong but less relevant), Ruby was dropped(Node.js imitated it and improved upon), Python reinvented itself to prevent this.
C/C++ is still strong, but rarely used for creating apps or web stuff, except high performance game engines, embedded stuff and automation.
Java's slow evolution and complexity allowed C#/.NET to take over. Node.js seems to have convinced a bunch of Java developers that freedom and flexibility are more important than patterns, huge frameworks and all the useless stuff you are forced to use nowadays to avoid heavy OOP's artificial limitations(everything is an object vs functional/procedural/etc.). Most people know that globals are evil, but Node takes this to extremes.
Will FPC/Delphi ever become the popular thingy ?
It's possible, not by imitating large portions of other stuff, just taking some hints/ideas.
FPC did a great job to maintain the language clean and intuitive.
What people want in the high level era vs the C/native era is quite different.
People want memory safety (except for when they need pointers :) ).
C# was smart enough to make it safe enough and also allow unsafe, FPC could do something similar, use directives for dangerous stuff memory/pointers/threads.
Node was already super safe because of JS(V8), but it introduced native modules for critical stuff, one could even write Node modules in C# and FPC, Node is not so much about the language.
Marking safe/unsafe portions and adding native async and/or "safe threads" will make it easy for beginners and avoid problems in large teams, high availability services/apps.
Many people don't want to manually manage memory anymore so GC, ARC, Rust's ownership(which Delphi used for components) are all expected by many new programmers.
Part of Node's success is not in JS/V8 and not original, it's the NPM(and NPMJS repository), I think it was "inspired" by Ruby. C#/Delphi have package managers, but nothing like NPM.
Node already plans to allow NPM into the language, no more package.json, just run your app from source, no installation required.
FPC/Laz could extend the LPR to allow specifying a REPO/URL instead of a file on disk, no need for package description files.
High level langs(Xamarin, Node, Swift, etc.) want/need native performance. Low level langs(Rust) want safety by design. FPC can do all of this.
Another thing I missed in Delphi and had to work around, was the ability of objects to be extended at runtime and carry more information, when data constantly changes and some of the stuff is done by scripting. This is not an issue in dynamic languages and most(all) of them are also scripts. Would also be nice to use Delphi/FPC to extend apps after deployment without using PascalScript/etc.
FPC/Laz will shine in IoT, it's probably the first time in it's history when it has a chance to be the dominant platform in some area. Hope you like raspberries :)

FPC/Laz doesn't have to replace anything, it just has to know it's strengths and see the opportunity, improve where possible, add stuff that already proved successful(like GIT/SVN hosted packages/modules/units).
The future must be... Fast and OpenSource so...
Think Open and Lightning Fast!

guest60499

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #41 on: July 21, 2018, 05:11:35 am »
Lazarus, while small and apparently weak compared to the big Delphi, can survive and reinvent itself.
It's fast, easy to learn, easy to understand, powerful enough when necessary, cross-platform, ideal for IoT/automation and Desktop apps.
Lazarus and FPC are more in competition with Rust.
Go is another competitor to Node.js, TypeScript, all other web/enterprise platforms, and possibly Lazarus/FPC in the future.
We need to learn from Go's simplicity, Rust's "safe C" idea, Node's async/flexibility/npm(including native C/C++ modules feature)/fast prototyping.
I think this is a good observation. Not only is Object Pascal easy to understand, the implementation is also easy to understand. FPC is a good candidate for producing UEFI executables and bare metal code for this reason. I tried to use it with microcontrollers but have not had the time.

There are discussions on the mailing lists that I suspect will evolve into even better type systems and optimizations in the way of Rust (though it has no monopoly on those things).

What are the x64 restrictions?

katronix

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #42 on: July 21, 2018, 08:12:28 am »
I was curious, since Delphi Community Edition does everything but Linux. How compatible is Lazarus and CE?

bee

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #43 on: July 21, 2018, 08:33:27 am »
I was curious, since Delphi Community Edition does everything but Linux. How compatible is Lazarus and CE?

Delphi CE doesn't do everything. At least I found 3 major limitations:
1. You can't do remote database (local only).
2. You can't do server side applications.
3. You can't do Linux applications.

However, the first two can be filled by third party or custom solutions. The most interesting features it offers is mobile applications since FPC/Lazarus' solution isn't yet really good, especially on iOS.
-Bee-

A long time pascal lover.

Thaddy

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Re: delphi and C++ builder community edition is here...
« Reply #44 on: July 21, 2018, 08:42:44 am »
I was curious, since Delphi Community Edition does everything but Linux. How compatible is Lazarus and CE?
On a language level almost compatible. FPC lacks still a few features: Anonymous types, Attribute support. But FPC has many useful features that Delphi lacks and supports way more platforms and has a richer set of libraries.
On a library level there are differences. Here FPC lacks a good parallel library in the RTL. And both  FPC and Lazarus libs are still not fully Unicode16.
If you run into a compatibility issue there is almost always a work-around for FPC if you work in {$mode delphiunicode}, it may be a bit more difficult to use that mode in Lazarus, but utf8-utf16 conversions are lossless both ways.
We also have the ARC "issue" on some platforms.
On almost all the missing features there is work being done, varying in progress.

Also note Delphi has more platform issues between their supported platforms than FPC has...E.g: Windows, iOS, Android and OSX all have their peculiarities so you'll end up with many ifdefs anyway..
Specialize a type, not a var.

 

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