I think it's definitely the 2nd problem rather than the first (where "not good enough" also means "not relevant enough").
I routinely upgraded my Delphi thru versions 1-7. Then Borland went chasing .NET which was of no interest to me and the prices escalated as a result (with the excuse that I was now getting a "Studio", despite the fact that I didn't *want* a "studio" I just wanted "Delphi"). Delphi 2007 finally addressed *that*, but then they went and chased the wrong rabbit again with Unicode, and the prices of the single personality Delphi editions didn't follow the Turbo's, jumping back up to "Studio" level pricing once the Turbo's had been quietly forgotten. Unicode is a complication and an unnecessary distraction for me. Ironically, figuring that I have to embrace it if I want to stay current, I'm also finding that the approach they've taken is itself intensely frustrating and confusing. It's great if you want to convert your old ANSI application to use the Unicode API's, but hopeless if you want to implement "proper" Unicode support in an application. I had a wry smile to myself when I heard that Microfocus bought Borland. My first full time job in this industry was working on a PC-based time and attendance system running Concurrent-DOS, with custom built clocking in/out terminals that used RFID transponders to identify employees (almost 20 years ago!). That system was written in MicroFocus Level II COBOL although my screen editor of choice was "ED.EXE" which iirc was actually one of the sample apps in Borland Pascal at the time. J From: delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-boun...@delphi.org.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird Sent: Monday, 21 September 2009 21:49 To: NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List Subject: Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero I reckon the problem of too few people upgrading is two-fold: 1 - Delphi is too good. ================ Done work for a firm still using D5 for 10 years. Still works just fine. Not designed to break or become insecure after a few years. 2 - Delphi was not good enough ======================= ie not cheap enough to be a no-brainer to buy (unlike Turbo pascal early 90's), not cutting edge and exciting enough to attract the fresh new faces learning programming. Mainly because Borland took eyes off the developer community. Maybe got leant on to do .NET stuff by MS too, and big end tools and lost their unique focus. Serves them right to disappear into the bowels of a Cobol company. I remember that MicroFocus was around big time 25 years ago. Looks like they kept focus at least (no pun intended). I however don't consider Delphi to be small time or dying. The previous language I programmed in doesn't even rate in the top 100 on the TIOBE index, so to get into Delphi with huge resources on the web is big time for me :) (The old language incidentally is 30 years old, still produces applications in daily use, solid compiled/interpreted stuff. Anyone remember the name DIBOL?) John
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