Posted by Barry Carr-4 on Sep 29, 2003; 12:04pm
URL: https://forum.world.st/How-does-Dolphin-compare-to-Access-and-Delphi-tp3368794p3368801.html

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