How does Dolphin compare to Access and Delphi?

I'm researching development platforms right now. I'm intrigued by
Dolphin Smalltalk since I used to be a Smalltalk programmer.  I was
wondering how it compares to environments like Delphi or Access,
though, for writing business applications.

I'd like to use something to develop applications with an RDBMS
backend (most likely MySQL), be able to print forms and reports.
Access and Delphi (and probably FileMaker to a certain extent) have
all the tools needed, but if I have a choice between Smalltalk and
BASIC or Object Pascal, I definitely prefer Smalltalk.

Also, what's the health of Dolphin Smalltalk right now?  How well
supported is it, how big is the development community, and how likely
is it to be around (while keeping pace technologically) for the next
five years?

Thanks!

Jen

"jennyw" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...
> I'm researching development platforms right now. I'm intrigued by
> Dolphin Smalltalk since I used to be a Smalltalk programmer.  I was
> wondering how it compares to environments like Delphi or Access,
> though, for writing business applications.

As others have mentioned Dolphin does not come with ready made DB UI widgets
like the other environments do.  Part of the reason for that may be
differing design philosophies.  I suspect that most applications in
Smalltalk would wrap the database entities in objects.  Rather than a record
in a customer table one would think of a customer object (that could live in
a customer table).  Other tools seem to be more data-centric where as
Smalltalk is object-centric.

I used MS Access for a few projects.  I liked it for a company internal
contacts database, it was quick to build and generally supports our needs.
However I would caution against using MS Access for any kind of deliverable
application.  I have had great trouble deploying it.  We now have two
"flavors" of our database, one for Access 97 and one for Access 2000.  We
can include the runtime, but found it caused problems for people with
different versions of Office already installed.  MS may have fixed some of
those issues via service packs by now, but I have just lost patience with
Access.  I have also had problems with ActiveX references, and some
computers causing GPF's depending upon which subtle flavor of Access 97 the
MDE as made on.  I have had to travel to client sites just to get the
software installed.  We are going to port our Access application to
Smalltalk ASAP.  At least I will have more control over the deployment.
Access is a great way to quickly develop data-centric applications, but it
is a mess to deploy.  Consider using VB instead of Access, at least that
should be easier to deploy consistently.

> I'd like to use something to develop applications with an RDBMS
> backend (most likely MySQL), be able to print forms and reports.
> Access and Delphi (and probably FileMaker to a certain extent) have
> all the tools needed, but if I have a choice between Smalltalk and
> BASIC or Object Pascal, I definitely prefer Smalltalk.

Reporting is probably the biggest short coming of Dolphin relative to
Access.  It was very easy to make fancy Access reports that looked really
good.  In Dolphin I am using RTF so far, and may explore some other options.

> Also, what's the health of Dolphin Smalltalk right now?  How well
> supported is it, how big is the development community, and how likely
> is it to be around (while keeping pace technologically) for the next
> five years?

As others have said take a look at this newsgroup.  I think this group is a
very strong point for Dolphin.  Support from group participants is great,
and Blair and Andy from OA also often respond directly.  We can make
suggestions for the improvement of Dolphin Smalltalk, and actually see them
implemented.  Just try getting MS to add a feature. ;)

The Dolphin community is probably a good deal smaller than for IBM VAST or
VisualWorks Smalltalk.  However it feels like there has been growth over the
past few years, so one never knows.  If Dolphin ever went under I could port
to another Smalltalk environment.  The UI would be a rewrite, but I think
most of the domain logic would port over pretty smoothly.

Chris

jennyw wrote:

Many people have answered the technical questions, and I agree with most
of what has been said in favor of using Dolphin. I use VAST, and I have
used other languages over the past many years, and I am gettign more
comfortable with Dolphin as I get used to it.

One thing to consider with Dolphin and data, is the relatively
inexpensive and very useful object database OmniBase.  I use that and I
have been very happy with it.  I haven't yet completed a comercial app
in Dolphin, but I've given our users a few utility apps to gauge their
reaction.  They have been impressed with the size, speed as welll as the
look and feel.

While this newsgroup may be samller than others, it is VERY useful. I
have had questions sit on ibm.software.vasmalltalk for a very long time
without a response.  Every question I have posted here has been answered
quickly and the answers have been high quality reponses.

I don't think you can go wrong with Dolphin at this point.  AS for 5
years down the road, who knows.  From what I can see of the evolution to
date, and the commitment, I'm not worried.

Dan
-