Dave White writes:
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Not to diminish Danny's work in any way, but he was one person in a team.
Maybe he was the lead person, but he's not the only one who can write
compilers. And sometimes, fresh {*word*76} can inject new life and new ideas
into a project. Just look at how long it is been since there were any
optimizations for later processors, and the floating point code is antique.
True, but let's just think about what the compiler team has actually
done during the last few years. They've produced two entirely new
targets (among other things):
* .NET
* Linux
A _LOT_ of effort is needed to do both of these. Do you really think
that optimizations for later processors and floating point code would
take precedence over these major projects?
I'm not saying that fresh {*word*76} will bring these changes but I
personally believe that Borland went in the right direction
strategically for Delphi (and probably wouldn't have done it differently
had someone else been in Danny's place). Kylix wasn't marketed or
targetted right and wasn't given the long-term commitment it needed, but
that's a side issue. Kylix gave a lot of people more incentive to
switch to Delphi- even though it may not have been used that much
itself. Cross-platform gave Borland an edge over Microsoft (and still
does).
I guess what you're really talking about is focussing more on what the
users think they need than the future growth. That isn't always a good
idea for a development tool that you want to grow (as opposed to being
stuck in the past and just supporting legacy development).
Personally, I have never run into the need for such tight optimizations.
I guess I am not writing anti-virus products etc. However, I have found
that Delphi delivers quite well on performance anyway. It may not be
100% comparable to some C++ compilers but it is _WAY_ more productive
and compilation time has been more important to me.
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I'm as sorry (and shocked) as anyone to see Danny go, but this doesn't mean
the end of the Delphi compiler - and it may even lead to new things.
Point taken (even though I played devil's advocate above). I am looking
forward to Highlander and beyond. :-) Actually, I am looking forward to
DeXter the most- WHEN IS MY ORDER GOING TO SHIP! *GRIN*
Cheers,
Kevin.