Posted by Chris Uppal-3 on Sep 29, 2003; 8:46am
URL: https://forum.world.st/How-does-Dolphin-compare-to-Access-and-Delphi-tp3368794p3368799.html

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