Greetings:

I don't want to start a new thread (or flame war) on Delphi vs. X, but
I'm hoping someone can point me to some sources of information on the
technical advantages of Delphi over other tools.

I've been using Delphi since 1995, and I think it is a great development
tool.
Unfortunately, upper management is beginning to question why we are
using Delphi instead of something "more standard".
I assume they consider "more standard" tools to be Visual C++, Visual
Basic, and/or java.
They are asking me to provide a compelling business case that justifies
our choice.

As I said, I've been using Delphi for some time now, and I haven't
really kept pace with all the advances in other tools.

For example, I haven't used Visual C++ in probably 4 years.  I know that
in the past, it did not provide a nice graphical two-way form designer
like Delphi.  Has this capability been added in recent years?  Likewise,
in the past, Visual Basic did not fully support OOP (i.e., they had
encapsulation, but no inheritance).  Have these features been added
lately?

I know that Borland used to have a few competitive product comparisons
on their web site. However, I can't seem to find them.
Does anyone know of any up-to-date comparisons of Delphi to other
competing tools?

Thanks in advance,
Craig
cjackson[no spam for me]@gmr.com

One thing is the huge amount of time and money it will require to switch to
another development platform.
It requires training, rewriting existing code, and so on.
That ought to convince the managment to quit their stupid ideas.
Besides, what would be standard about other tools?
Other tools are just ... other tools.

Craig Jackson <cjackson@[NO_SPAM_FOR_ME]gmr.com> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:7qouml$...@rcsuna.gmr.com...

take this under consideration:

The "stability" of the company providing the tools.  What are the odds that
Microsoft will "go out of business" 2, 3, 5 or ten years from now?  What are
the odds that Borland (oops, now Inprise) will fold, or throw in the towl on
Delphi in the same time frame?  The time and money spent converting the code to
a more "long term" solution might be worth the price.  I too have used Delphi
since 1.0 and am under the same barrier as Craig is.  I am about to pursuade
them to invest in Delphi 5 because *I like it better than VB or VC++*.  Is that
a good enough reason?  I hope so....

Regards,
Mark

Now Borland again.

Mark Williamson <ma...@nospammers-tabnet.com> skrev i en
nyhedsmeddelelse:37D02893.AB636...@nospammers-tabnet.com...

: Mark Williamson <ma...@nospammers-tabnet.com> wrote:

Unlikely - a few months ago they got USD 100 million from Microsoft to
settle patent "problems".

--
Stefan Hoffmeister    (http://www.econos.de/)
No private email, please, unless expressly invited.

There's no short answers available, here's anyway some references
for any enthusiastic reader. Most of these 1.400 messages say something
about that important "Delphi vs. others" thing.

http://x31.deja.com/=dnc/qs.xp?ST=PS&QRY=&subjects=vb+vs.&groups=comp...

And there is more, if anyone wants to get.

Markku Nevalainen

Hi! Jackson,

I think you see some of the reason now. I aggree with the point that
you got to re-invest lots of time to familar with what they call the
other tools. This is a very good point. Tell your management that you
guys will need another 2-3 year to reach the same technical level of
Delphi now you had if switch to other tools (base on your management
know not much about programming and I.T. From your wording it seems be
the case)

That imply there will be no any new development can be done for the
coming 2 years at least because further than familar with the new
tools, you have to convert old programs to news source. Unless you are
going to use Borland C++ Builder most of your code must be re-write.
(according to Borland you can comply your Delphi source by C++ builder
but I never try it). Because it is better to build your application
using the same tool, it will be more efficient in management.

Further than that there are still some points.
1. VC++ is much difficult than Delphi and the Database development
function is much weak.

2. The Database development function for VB6 is not as good as Delphi2.

3. Both VC++ and VB use ODBC for database connection however Delphi
have native driver on many database system. The speed of Delphi is much
faster. And those drivers are free where as additional native driver
for MS products cost my a lot. By the way you got some great tools such
as MADIS and Corba with Delphi4 so you can build a distributed system
vitually w/o additional cost on development tools.

4. Development time for Delphi is much faster than other VC++ and VB.

5. If you want to get rid of BDE engine (sometimes it causes trouble).
you can try FlashFiler from ... (I just forgot, e-mail me later if you
want to try) it costs less. And this is the point, there are many thrid
partie components for Delphi and they are not expensive.

6. Operation speed of the applications that bulit by Delphi is very
much faster. Even MS agree that application bulit by VB is a "SNAIL"

7. Not all but most you can do with VC++ and VB Delphi can do it.
Including Windows system API call, message call, DLL and VBX.

So I did not see why not continue using Delphi especially if most of
your application is database related.

Just tell me if you need any more information and pls let me know the
result 'cause I love Delphi.

P.S. pls forgive my english is not very good.

Best Edwin Kwok
syk...@ipoline.com

In article <7qouml$...@rcsuna.gmr.com>,

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

I have no idea what type of applications you are developing but in the past
I have found that a quick demo of Delphi's ability to produce a program in
minutes as compared to doing the same thing in VB has been enough to
persuade people of its benefit.

I believe that Delphi now has enough momentum of its own to survive even if
Borland hit the rocks.

If all else fails agree to go to C++ and get C++ builder.

Mike Best

--
Mike Best Programming
Brisbane
Australia

... use Microsoft ADO with Delphi 5.0. :-)

--
Stefan Hoffmeister    (http://www.econos.de/)
No private email, please, unless expressly invited.

What type of demonstration have you found to be most effective? I mean,
if you only do a couple of minutes demo, then you can quite fast drop
some Edit, Memo, Button, Grid etc. components on a Form, also with VB,
and then run that 'app'.

VB should be more clumsy with DB app development, at least when the apps
are targeted to heavy professional usage. But I don't know enough VB
features from here.

So if anyone has nice tips, how to make interesting demo with Delphi
quickly, I'm very interested to hear. Is there especially something that
can't be done in VB in a couple of minutes?

Markku Nevalainen

I normally develop DB apps so I would usually do a Master Detail app with
tabbed pages on the form. I put a grid and navigator on each tabbed page of
the form, two tables and sources, and link the tables. This now demonstrates
a Mater detail system without writing any code.

Next I put on a button to turn the tables on and off (two lines of code),
another button to save a table as a new table (this demos batchmove and the
standard Save dialog and needs about 6 lines)

Then I drop on a menu and link these items to the menu.

This normally takes about 5 minutes and for anyone using VB this is an eye
opener.

Mike Best

--
Mike Best Programming
Brisbane
Australia

I've written a short article on why delphi is nice at

http://www.lorriman.demon.co.uk/delphi.htm

A summary of the contents would be that delphi results in short project
times, easily maintained code and happiness without {*word*110}.

It may not be perfect for what you are looking for but it should have plenty
to go on. Also it doesn't cover the RAD features of delphi (such as database
components, type library editors, activeX control generation, Corba
wrapping, etce etc. You'll find it's RAD features are well documented by
borland on their site.

Tell me if you like it.

news:7qouml$ml4@rcsuna.gmr.com...

On Fri, 3 Sep 1999 21:20:41 +0200, "Finn Tolderlund"

<snip>

Not really!

We have a large government departement as a customer and we put in a
tender for a Delphi/Oracle system at $100K.  They gave us the
contract.  Then they pushed for VB/SQLServer and asked for us to
re-tender.  Even though they have a never-ending stream of versioning
problems from VB Runtime and ActiveX controls on their 10,000 desktop
machines, they still accepted our revised quote at $150K.

Some of them just wont risk their jobs on a non-Micro$oft solution.

Cheers...

On Sat, 04 Sep 1999 00:17:36 +0200, no.s...@address.in.signature

Also unlikely since Micro$oft used Delphi to create the database
functionality in VB6! :)

Having a number of friends who work for Micro$oft really gives some
good insight into how {*word*99}py their products are.  Especially when they
resort to using the competing product to create their own.

Cheers...

I like this rumour:) But is there any piece of truth behind it also?

Is there any means to be able to see some Delphi, or Borland remnants
inside some VB .DLL or something?

Markku Nevalainen