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

Jen,

> 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.

IMHO, Access is a great way to go for some jobs.  Its integration of table
design, direct entry/editing in tables, queries, forms and reports is very
convenient.  I'm not a fan of using it to package software for end users,
but given my general frustration with and distrust of Microsoft, that would
not surprise those who know me.  BTW, I've also seen a group _greatly_
regret deploying from Access - the results were pig slow and had to be
scrapped with lots of lost efficiency during the rewrite.


> I'd like to use something to develop applications with an RDBMS
> backend (most likely MySQL),

I think MySQL is probably a good choice.  I have to admit to having a
problem with a query that either takes a _very_ long time to run or enters
an endless loop.  In truth, it's not hurting me very much, or I'd be working
through it faster.  It is keeping an Access database on one system for much
longer than anticipated.  I have been using MySQL for a while now, with only
the one snag.


> 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.

You can search the archives of this group for some discussion of reporting.
I generally just roll my own using HTML.


> Also, what's the health of Dolphin Smalltalk right now?   How well
> supported is it,

The support is excellent.  One of the first things you should do is download
the newsgroup archives from Ian Bartholomew's web site, and then get either
his news archive reader or DSDN.  Many questions that you will have will
already be answered, and are quite easy to find, especially by searching on
one key word and then searching the results for others.


> how big is the development community,

I'll defer to OA on that one.


> and how likely
> is it to be around (while keeping pace technologically) for the next
> five years?

It would be interesting to look at five year old trade rags.  We were
probably all supposed to be writing OLE servers in C++, or was it Java?

I'm hoping that Dolphin will be around for a lot longer than five years, and
to be honest, I'm hoping that Dolphin won't quite keep up :)   Microsoft has
a long history of getting people wound up about going in new directions,
only to make a counter offer not long afterward.  I'm getting dizzy, and
simply want to make computers do useful things, both as an end in itself,
and so I can do lots of other work based on and enabled by the results.

Squeak apparently now has a .NET bridge that allows it to drive .NET
components; I'm in favor.  Given Dolphin's excellent support for COM,
Automation and otherwise,  I suspect that OA will do no less.  If I have a
fear, it's that OA could go too far, either wasting time on a technology
that (sorry...) I don't think is going to go anywhere for any length of
time, or just flat have the rug pulled out from under them as happened with
internet browser plugins (not just Dolphin's).

Just in case there's doubt, the concerns above are almost exclusively
directed at Microsoft.  Object Arts is a small company, which is good in
many ways, especially given that they have a GREAT product.

Happy Smalltalking!

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

jennyw wrote:

> 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.

Dolphin's definitely suitable for writing business apps.

> 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.

However, it lacks some of the business-oriented components that Delphi etc,
have.  E.g. there is no pre-packages data-aware table. You can *use* data-aware
tables from other sources, e.g. MS, but OA don't provide a Smalltalk-flavoured
wrapper for anything in the box.  (The idea is presumably that it's better to
concentrate their development effort on making general-purpose features like
COM integration work really well, rather than focussing on specific
applications of COM).  The same observation applies to report generation.  RDMS
support itself *is* included in the package (and is pretty neat too, IMO).

> 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?

The support is generally as good as I've ever seen for any product.  I don't
know how big the dev. community is, but you could get an idea of how big the
*visible* part is by scanning back-issues of this news group.  This group is
usually pretty helpful too -- again you can get your own measure of that by
scanning backwards.

BTW, this news group seems to have been rather quiet for the last couple of
months.  It's normally livelier.  I've noticed that this always happens when
Andy and Blair (of Objet Arts) post less -- I don't know why.  I'm hoping that
their current relative quietness is because they are working hard on the next
release, rather than -- say -- because they've decided to get-a-life instead
;-)

I haven't the faintest idea how "healthy" OA is, or is going to be in five
years, but then I don't know how "healthy" Borland (or are they still calling
themselves Inpise ? ;-) will be, nor (for different reasons) how viable code
written using MS tools *today* will be given whatever-the-hell Redmond will be
trying to cram down our thoats by then.  *Personally*, I feel safe enough -- I
think I'm more likely to drop Dolphin because I can no longer stand new
versions of Windows (XP pushes me pretty close) than because there isn't a
version of Dolphin for them.

HTH

    -- chris

Hi Jen,

I've been a Delphi developers since version 1. It's only in the past
couple of years I've started to have some gripes about it (Which was what
prompted me to look at Smalltalk again). When Delphi first came out it
had pretty much everything a developer could want. However, in recent
times the language itself has started to look a bit long in the tooth
i.e. No garbage collection; No support for Generics, Only partial
serialisation of objects, interfaces not treated as first class members
of the language (although this is starting to change). Having said that,
Delphi still has a lot to offer: Great database connectivity (think of a
database and Delphi will more than likely work with it); execellent user
interfaces (Something all Smalltalks are very poor at IMHO); excellent
third party support; great user community and open-source support;
ability to develope web-apps, web-services and n-tier applications;
support for COM, DCOM and Corba. In fact you can develope anything except
device drivers with it.

Another thing you may like to consider is that Delphi is also available
on linux (the product is known as Kylix) and sometime this quarter there
should be a version of Delphi available for .NET.

In light of all the above you should also carefully consider this: Delphi
is coming near to the end of its life - and that's offical (well almost).
Borland expect that all *new* Windows developement will be done with .NET
and C#. They expect this next version of Delphi (v8.0) and the next
(probably the last) to be used to port existing applications to .NET. If
you look at Borlands current stratergy you can witness this for yourself;
they are announcing interoperability with their complete lifecycle
solutions for all their developement tools *except* Delphi.

IMO, you should consider getting into .NET developement. C# is an
excellent language and has everything that Delphi has and a lot more. If
you really want to stick with Smalltalk then you should take a look at
SmallScript which is available now for vanilla windows and will be
available for .NET in the near future. The one advantage that SmallScript
should have is that it will get around Smalltalks poor user interfaces by
taking advantage of all the .NET UI components that are available.

Considerable effort is also being made by the open-source community to
port .NET to other operating systems like Linux (the MONO project).
 
Google should be able to locate SmallScript and the MONO project for you.

If you aren't interested in .NET developement then Dolphin is certainly
an excellent choice. Unfortuately I've never had the opportunity to use
it to its full advantage so I couldn't give you an accurate assements of
its strengths; however, I have really liked what I have used.

I've used C# for two project now and really liked it. Its still not
Smalltalk (Smalltalk as a language is just cool) but I'm starting to
prefer it [C#] over Delphi and I thought I'd never say that. I'm really
looking forward to giving SmallScript under .NET a tryout too.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

Cheers

Barry Carr
Ixian Software Components Ltd
Blairgowrie
Perthshire
Scotland

Thanks for replying!

I guess what I'm looking for is a commercial alternative to Squeak
(that would be more polished), and thought Dolphin might fit the bill.
 Squeak is great but is incomplete in some ways, and I'm not sure how
end-users would respond to the interface. Aside from that, printing is
one of the main concerns I have with Squeak and was hoping that
commercial Smalltalks might have better solutions. It sounds like
printing is a little of a challenge here, too, though ... although
there are some solutions that people have come up with.

"Bill Schwab" <[hidden email]> wrote in message news:<[hidden email]>...
> You can search the archives of this group for some discussion of reporting.
> I generally just roll my own using HTML.

I've searched through the archives and read a bunch of threads,
including one you started about printing through Internet Explorer.
Did you solve the header/footer problem you mentioned? I've seen other
people mention the problem of pagination with using IE, so it sounded
like a less than ideal situation.

I've also thought about using COM Automation to get Word to generate
reports, but this could be problematic for a number of reasons, not
the least of which are the different versions of Word that are out
there.

I saw also that someone mentioned using FOP from the Apache XML
Project. This sounds interesting ... I'd love to hear if anyone has
had any success with this.

In the meantime, the two most promising solutions sound like Crystal
or RTF.

About RTF -- someone mentioned that they've used this for printing and
previewing, so it sounds interesting. But I looked at Ian's goodie
(http://www.idb.me.uk/goodies3/richtext.html) and it seems like it was
written for Dolphin 3 and hasn't been updated in three years ... is
this an issue?  Also, it looks like licensing makes it so that it
cannot be sold as part of another package. As with other printing
methods, this doesn't lend itself well to users customizing reports.

I've read that people have had problems with Crystal, but Crystal has
the advantage of being pretty common, and also (if the user buys
Crystal Reports) gives the user the ability to potentially edit
reports.  I'm not too concerned with having Crystal support objects
(as others have mentioned), since I think I'd prefer to do reporting
from the database (again so that the user could potentially modify
reports for their custom needs -- unless someone has an alternative?).
 But I'd like to hear more about how people have been using Crystal if
anyone wants to volunteer.

> The support is excellent.  One of the first things you should do is download
> the newsgroup archives from Ian Bartholomew's web site, and then get either
> his news archive reader or DSDN.  Many questions that you will have will
> already be answered, and are quite easy to find, especially by searching on
> one key word and then searching the results for others.

I guess one reason I ask is because I'm subscribed to the squeak
mailing list.  Compared to the traffic on that, the Dolphin newsgroup
is kind of ... well, it seems like there aren't quite as many people
here.  On the other hand, a lot of Squeak messages are about
developing the platform ... I was hoping to use something a little
more ready for production.

> > how big is the development community,
>
> I'll defer to OA on that one.

If anyone would care to speak up about using Dolphin for commercial
software development, I'd love to hear! In particular, user reactions
to software developed with Dolphin.

> It would be interesting to look at five year old trade rags.  We were
> probably all supposed to be writing OLE servers in C++, or was it Java?

Yes, I know, hard to tell what's going to happen in five years ...
maybe a better question is: Where does Dolphin fit in the pantheon of
Smalltalks?  Is it used mostly for commercial software development or
is it used mostly by hobbyists?  If for commercial projects, how
successful has it been in that arena?

Thanks!

Jen

Jen,

> Thanks for replying!

I'm always glad to spread the word about Dolphin.


> I guess what I'm looking for is a commercial alternative to Squeak
> (that would be more polished),

While off topic here, I'd like to encourage you to tell the Squeak community
where they are falling short.


> and thought Dolphin might fit the bill.

It will, and then some.  There are few things about the Squeak IDE that I
actually like, but on whole, Dolphin is remarkably nicer to use.


>  Squeak is great but is incomplete in some ways, and I'm not sure how
> end-users would respond to the interface.

Have you looked at Zurgle?  It's overkill in many ways, but it demonstrates
that the interface can look any way you want.  There are also some other
projects that appear to have fallen short of commercial success, but also
exhibit very attractive interfaces.  However, my real fear with Squeak UIs
is the feel more than the look.


> Aside from that, printing is
> one of the main concerns I have with Squeak and was hoping that
> commercial Smalltalks might have better solutions. It sounds like
> printing is a little of a challenge here, too, though ... although
> there are some solutions that people have come up with.

Here's a crazy idea that could work (very well) for some situations:  Squeak
appears to have some understanding of post script, which makes a lot of
sense given its portability.  I've recently (re)started driving LaTeX from
Dolphin, and there would be nothing to stop you from getting Squeak or
Dolphin to generate LaTeX source that imports EPS graphics as needed, and
have the whole thing be largely transparent to the user.

In Dolphin, you can use a PrinterCanvas to print like any other Windows
player.  It's not super easy to do, but I have one Dolphin app that
<shamelessPlug>makes it look easy</shamelessPlug>.


> "Bill Schwab" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:<[hidden email]>...
> > You can search the archives of this group for some discussion of
reporting.
> > I generally just roll my own using HTML.
>
> I've searched through the archives and read a bunch of threads,
> including one you started about printing through Internet Explorer.
> Did you solve the header/footer problem you mentioned? I've seen other
> people mention the problem of pagination with using IE, so it sounded
> like a less than ideal situation.

I did solve the problem, but not with IE.  Instead, I use Automation to
drive Word.  There were some tricks with inserting page number fields into
the header/footer, so I finally worked around it by making a "blank"
document with the basics and then poke the required text into various
places.  The result is a little awkward because I stopped as soon as it
worked.  If that particular system takes off, I will take Word out of it
entirely by extending my existing printing code.


> I've also thought about using COM Automation to get Word to generate
> reports, but this could be problematic for a number of reasons, not
> the least of which are the different versions of Word that are out
> there.

We have generally stayed at the 97 versions, so it's not been a problem for
us.  Your point is well taken though, and is one of many reasons that I plan
to dump it in favor of an extended printing framework.


> > The support is excellent.  One of the first things you should do is
download
> > the newsgroup archives from Ian Bartholomew's web site, and then get
either
> > his news archive reader or DSDN.  Many questions that you will have will
> > already be answered, and are quite easy to find, especially by searching
on
> > one key word and then searching the results for others.
>
> I guess one reason I ask is because I'm subscribed to the squeak
> mailing list.  Compared to the traffic on that, the Dolphin newsgroup
> is kind of ... well, it seems like there aren't quite as many people
> here.

As Chris mentioned, the group is quiet right now.


> On the other hand, a lot of Squeak messages are about
> developing the platform ...

Or about why modality is a bad idea, etc.  They raise some good points, but
they also exhibit apparent contempt for even common sense conventions.  It
almost has to be holding Squeak back.


> If anyone would care to speak up about using Dolphin for commercial
> software development, I'd love to hear! In particular, user reactions
> to software developed with Dolphin.

My software isn't commercial as yet, but that might change, and it is
definitely used in a production mode under very demanding conditions.  The
users generally enjoy it.  Squeakers would be unhappy to hear that some
boring, traditional modal dialogs are part of the reason it is liked (have I
mentioned that I would like to see you tweak the Squeak group<g>).  The
dialogs are generally covered with native widgets.  However, another reason
it is so liked is that I dumped many native widgets for emulated ones,
making it **much** faster than it was with native widgets.  If that sounds
strange to you, look at the Moen Tree in Dolphin.  BTW, my emulated stuff
isn't quite that slick, but it doesn't need to be.


> > It would be interesting to look at five year old trade rags.  We were
> > probably all supposed to be writing OLE servers in C++, or was it Java?
>
> Yes, I know, hard to tell what's going to happen in five years ...
> maybe a better question is: Where does Dolphin fit in the pantheon of
> Smalltalks?

The following free advice is worth everything you pay for it: I think you've
got it right.  Use Dolphin, and keep an eye on Squeak just in case OA
implodes (which I think is unlikely) or Microsoft makes you or your
customers unable or unwilling to continue using Windows due to some
combination of security, reliability, and price/licensing concerns.

I'm not a fan of VisualWorks, though I'd learn to be if it were all that
stood between me and C* (C/C++/Java/C#/etc.).  However, I have trouble
reconciling "we need to make VW cost-neutral" with "Cincom is fully behind
Smalltalk".  If the latter were really true, given Cincom's size, they would
deploy VW to the point that they could not afford to let it die, and then
almost any sales revenue would be found money.  I would like to see them do
away with the NC version and cut the "what's it worth to you?" nonsense.  I
can picture that conversation with my department's accountant =:0

Smalltalk MT.  I just don't get it.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I looked
at it again a year ago or so, and was apparently expected to resize panes
just to get a typical debugger view.  There was some really basic stuff
missing.

I'll defer to others with substantive VA experience.

So far, I've found Squeak to be sufficiently useable that I suspect I could
make it do what I need if Dolphin or Windows were to vaporize.  I definitely
think it worthy of an attempt before going to a commercial alternative.


> Is it used mostly for commercial software development or
> is it used mostly by hobbyists?  If for commercial projects, how
> successful has it been in that arena?

I use (one might even say abuse) Dolphin every day, and find it to be
probably the best software I've ever seen.  My Dolphin executables run 7x24
for weeks, even months at a time without incident.  Dolphin is without
question the most reliable system I've ever used.

Being really blunt for a moment, OA is sufficiently small that one plane
crash could simultaneously take away valued friends and (quite likely)
Dolphin's future.  That risk combined with my deep concerns about Microsoft
has fueled my interest in Squeak.  Again, you should not read into that any
discontent with Dolphin; it's simply that I need to protect the technology
that Dolphin has allowed me to build.  I hope to go on using Dolphin, or
perhaps an Object Arts Smalltalk on some other OS.

BTW, Dolphin itself is unlikely to be ported due to it's heavy integration
with Windows.  Still I occaisionally like to point out how much easier it
would be to get Dolphin to create a new Smalltalk than it was to create
Dolphin from scratch.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

Jen,

> About RTF -- someone mentioned that they've used this for printing and
> previewing, so it sounds interesting. But I looked at Ian's goodie
> (http://www.idb.me.uk/goodies3/richtext.html) and it seems like it was
> written for Dolphin 3 and hasn't been updated in three years ... is
> this an issue?  Also, it looks like licensing makes it so that it
> cannot be sold as part of another package. As with other printing
> methods, this doesn't lend itself well to users customizing reports.

Printing and previewing of rtf documents _is_ included in the Dolphin 5
goodies but the (non existant) documentation doesn't make it that
obvious - sorry.  It all got a bit complicated as I wanted to use some
of the functionality included with the RichText and Printer dll's
included in the later Windows OS (XP mainly) but still try to retain
some compatibility with the earlier OSs.

The printing is also integrated with the Dolphin IDE, my main reason for
writing it in the first place, with the inclusion of the usual page
set-up/print set-up/print preview menu options on a lot of the IDE file
menus.

As well as the Printing and RichText aspects the Dolphin 5 goodies
package also includes the beginnings of a (sort of) report generator.
It's really just a wrapper around the RichText interface that makes it a
bit easier to create formatted rtf documents.

Licensing is not really an issue - you only have to ask and I'll say yes
:-).  I was just trying to avoid someone trying to include the goodies
as part of a commercial "utilities for Dolphin" type package - they are
released as freeware and that is how I wanted them to stay.

I been a bit distracted lately and haven't done anything major with the
goodies (or Dolphin itself) for the last 9 months so it's all getting a
bit hazy.  If you've got any specific questions then e-mail me (use
reply-to, mail to [hidden email] is ignored) and I'll try to answer
them.

--
Ian

"jennyw" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...
> If anyone would care to speak up about using Dolphin for commercial
> software development, I'd love to hear! In particular, user reactions
> to software developed with Dolphin.

Fact that the app is written in Dolphin is pretty much transparent for the
users, it looks like anything else, and there are no clues (aside for better
functionality as result of great development tool ;) that it is developed in
Dolphin.

The deployed apps are small, and if deployed as ToGo apps, you need only to
distribute exe which compares favourably to some other tools which require
complex installtions with dozens of files , dlls.

So, it is by all means doable to produce products with Dolphin, and as a
matter of fact it is fun to do so.

rush
--
http://www.templatetamer.com/