Embarcadero Delphi is sold!

[JuhaManninen]

Oh boy this doesn't look good at all. Allen Bauer left (got kicked?) the company and predicts a black future.

True. I first thought this Idera tech company is a better owner than an investment company was, but maybe not.

Hopefully Delphi doesn't die

It will not die soon but without innovation its market share will go downwards again.
Maybe FPC and Lazarus should start innovating more.

[argb32]

Why so many people here explain what should be done but nobody wants to actually implement those things?

I seriously thought about creating such tool.
But it will do its job only if many component/library developers will prepare their packages for it.
And I decided that this is too fresh concept for the community and nobody will do it.
Also using such a tool is also something new for most Pascal developers so here also will be problems.

[miab3]

   

• Commercial component vendor, don't want to share their proprietary source code
• Commercial vendor, maybe want to to share only their binary (compiled) component

   

Practically all producers of libraries for Delphi offer them with the source code.
I only buy such.
They are mostly approx. 2 times more expensive than the compiled version.

Michal

[FPK]

It will not die soon but without innovation its market share will go downwards again.

Delphi got a lot new things the last years? A lot of language extensions, LLVM-based compiler, custom drawn widget set, new targets, got rid of old habits (ARC-based MM) etc. While some of them were just needed, I would call also part of them innovative like ARC or FMX.

Maybe FPC and Lazarus should start innovating more.

It probably does not happem because of the same problem as companies have: resources.

[Thaddy]

Well. As long as you take care of your child? That will do! We care!

BTW Allen Bauer has left said company for Google and left some bitter comments about (the lack of) a replacement for his position on Google+.

Which I took to interpret as the future of Object Pascal to be de facto the FreePascal compiler team

[gonz0]

If it comes hard on hard we should just buy Delphi:

https://www.cybertribe.de/letsbuydelphi/
http://www.delphifeeds.com/go/f/129219?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+delphifeeds+%28DelphiFeeds.com%29

I'm in with 10k.

[Thaddy]

If it comes hard on hard we should just buy Delphi:

https://www.cybertribe.de/letsbuydelphi/
http://www.delphifeeds.com/go/f/129219?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+delphifeeds+%28DelphiFeeds.com%29

I'm in with 10k.

The problem with buying Delphi is it that many aspects of it (what we want) relies on software patents.
These provide a decent revenue stream for the owner (mostly from Microsoft, who bought the rights to use those patents lump sum, but also multiple others on a more continuous basis.) It would be rather difficult to setup a legal structure, sufficiently guarded, against the infringements of the patents you buy.  Which you would have to do because the contract between MS and Borland (and it successors by proxy) says so.

And, NO Allen didn't get kicked. He chose his own path wisely. Probably guided by his master, Chuck.
But the bitterness is something you rarely see in high profile comments or blogs.
Also note that apart from Google plus everything seems highly controlled... as in free speech for the dumb. As in public relations and lawyers kind of freedom of speech. Nasty affair from the looks of it. Again...

[JD]

Which I took to interpret as the future of Object Pascal to be de facto the FreePascal compiler team

Last man standing!

JD

[Thaddy]

Last man standing!

JD

Correction. Last men? standing?

The language needs a guardian and fpc is older than delphi ( not tp of course).
It is also one of  the most expressive strongly typed languages.
And:
I need my daily fix of Object Pascal code.

[JD]

I need my daily fix of Object Pascal code.

I concur

JD

[Akira1364]

Embarcadero has been an embarrassing, cult-like joke of a company for years now... does this sort of news really surprise anyone? Object Pascal doesn't need Delphi to survive... I honestly believe FPC and Lazarus are well on track to be entirely better than Delphi ever has been. In certain cases they already are! 64-Bit-capable IDE that you can fully fine-tune for your own processor/architecture? Check! As opposed to the sluggish 32-bit single-platform .NET 2.0 behemoth that the Delphi IDE is/has become.... and that's just one example!

[SymbolicFrank]

So, Delphi is finally dead. Finally! Rejoice! Because that might inspire the Free Pascal/Lazarus devs to come up with their own improvements, instead of copying Delphi. I hope it inspires them.

[FPK]

Because that might inspire the Free Pascal/Lazarus devs to come up with their own improvements, instead of copying Delphi.

So you are using always objfpc in your code hopefully?

[Akira1364]

Because that might inspire the Free Pascal/Lazarus devs to come up with their own improvements, instead of copying Delphi.

So you are using always objfpc in your code hopefully?

Most of the differences between {$MODE Delphi} and {$MODE ObjFPC} can be fixed via simple search-and-replace. I've honestly never really been sure what the purpose of having the two different modes even is, though..... Like, what is the point of making it "illegal" in mode ObjFPC to not use the @ sign when you're establishing what custom function a generic "function type" should point to? (As in something like TTreeNode.CustomSort.) What does this accomplish? Absolutely nothing, as far as I can tell. Why not just make both syntaxes legal universally? Who cares?

[richardavilalabonte]

It's only my opinion but i personally don't think Embarcadero will make their software open source soon considering the yearly income the starter kits bring in. They do have a serious gap however when it comes to providing adequate support which can seriously discourage paying customers. The average response time for a support requests by e-mail is between 5 to 8 days. Who can wait that long to get an answer? I personally opened three tickets with Embarcadero in 2016.
1. Packaged installer issues.
2. Failing re-installs.
3. Compiler problems.

The solutions were really off base. I ended up fixing the issues on my own.

On the other hand installing Lazarus is a breeze. Its free. Reinstalling it is also easy compared to reinstalling the Embarcadero starter kits which may require you to get a new licence and that despite the fact that you paid for the product. Lazarus takes a bit of time getting used to the environment but it's worth it. I also like the fact that you can include inline assembly code when you need to without installing external compilers.