I’m sure many in the community have been coming to this conclusion with the all the non date related information that is being allowed to seep out, but at what point is there going to be an official statement on the next deliverables. A date to be told dates if you like….

Jolyon, here you say I “openly” said this, but on on the NZ DUG list you said that it was a perception. Which is it? I sure don’t remember saying this.

“Malcolm Groves stood up in Auckland and openly told us that in his view, apart from 1 or 2 things, and really in *his* opinion only 1, Delphi 2010 was basically a bug fix release with lots of little tweaks here and there. They charged full price for it of course and won’t be retrofitting those bug fixes to Delphi 2009 or 2007 (where they would be of most use).

“I stress – that’s not my characterisation of the release as not delivering much in the way of “new stuff”, it was his.

“David” wrote on Jolyon’s blog:

“While I usually agree with you Jolyon I don’t feel Malcolm Groves told us Delphi 10 was mainly just bug fixes. What he did say was that there were only one or two big killer features but there were hundreds of small improvements. Some of these small improvements were no doubt bug fixes, but many are enhancements and new features which from the sound of it really improve the IDE.”

Please, Jolyon, David and any one who was there, what is what? — Because like a lot of people, my decisions on ongoing use and purchase of Delphi very much depends on whether you have to factor in the next version as a paid for bug fix or not, on what you buy.

Paul

I did make it clear that it was more than *just* bug fixes, and I personally think that the improvements in the debugger are a major feature in their own right.

Like you I disagree with Embarcadero prioritising cross platform before 64 bit and I’m also unimpressed with being forced to switch to Unicode in order to use generics and all the other new features in Delphi 2009/2010 (which will mean we don’t move to Delphi 2009+ for some time).

However I completely APPROVE of Embacardero’s focus on quality and IDE experience for Delphi 2010. It is what I and many in the community have been asking for continually since Delphi 8. You can certainly take the position that they should have done Delphi 2010 for free since in some ways it is just bringing the IDE up to the standard we would have hoped it would already be at but IMO that isn’t a realistic commercial demand.

My 2c

Well there are many Non-Pascal based options.

We use RealBasic for three medium scale projects in our company and we have never faced any problems.

I personally like KBasic (BASIC dialect), MSDE with FreePascal (MSDE IDE is less resource hungry, seems to crash less than Lazu..), PureBasic (with Open Source Pure Forms) for cross platform development.

HTH

I was told when I sought a solution for my D.2005.Pro problems (i.e. SP3 does not even always apply itself!) that buying the next version was the bug fix, so then now what has changed with the new ownership?

I remain concerned about this pseudo “upgrade” policy. I still have not heard back even from Malcolm again even after he got my copy of some previous email to Code Gear that he asked for. He asked me just before that, “what I want”. It should have been obvious, and I sent him the email that had some of my previous corresponence in its trail of sent and received.

Well, what I would have liked: was a sensible approach to upgrading us all 2005, 2007 and so on to the 2010 so-called “bug fix”.

Is that too much to ask?

I am now personally really worried about the lack of back up and support when it really matters, and not just glossy, good look, stuff stuff.

If 2010 is just a basic bug fix – is asking full price for it perhaps I believe leaning towards “gouging”?

It appears to me to mean, when costing the purchase of a new release at the moment, I believe that you appear to have to factor in at least another upgrade, and perhaps even a percentage of a second upgrade price to get the real cost.

Now I really want to know about Lazarus, et al .. and other options.

Has any one done anything major in it?

Paul

Malcolm Groves stood up in Auckland and openly told us that in his view, apart from 1 or 2 things, and really in *his* opinion only 1, Delphi 2010 was basically a bug fix release with lots of little tweaks here and there. They charged full price for it of course and won’t be retrofitting those bug fixes to Delphi 2009 or 2007 (where they would be of most use).

I stress – that’s not my characterisation of the release as not delivering much in the way of “new stuff”, it was his.

Snow Leopard, by default, is 32-bit even (but with an option that you can turn on 64-bit), but like Windows users….alot of folks have not jumped to Snow yet and will probably be quite awhile before they do; I, for one…am not upgrading to Snow just yet as it’s not confirmed that the music programs and plugins I use to write music on my Mac will be 100% compatible, and if not – it would require me to upgrade to a newer version that supports Snow, which equals more money. I think the same can go for Windows programs that don’t take advantage of 64-bit yet + if they do, can give the developer more reason to ask more money for upgrades from its customers.

If I’m not mistaken either….32-bit programs operating in 64-bit Snow will have no problems whereas as 32-bit programs operating in 64-bit Windows, will require to run the app in XP emulating mode.

Secondly, alot of the programs written for OSX are not 64-bit even yet. Take for example, Apple….if I understand correctly, even their own major programs are not even 64-bit yet…..like Logic Express (latest version)…and it was also just recently released.

Another reason why I think they may have put 64-bit on hold…was to wait until Windows 7 gets into the wild and see how the public at large will react to it as this is expected to be the version that will catapult 64-bit into the mainstream. But since it’s only going to be released later this month….that gives time for Codegear to do the OSX thing in the interim….and then by say 3rd quarter of 2010….Windows 7 will have gone through a Service Pack and then the rest of the public will feel more secure to upgrading to Windows 7.

For me…64-bit has not been on my top priority list at all….and even the Vista I use on this laptop is 32-bit. At the time I got this particular laptop (Thinkpad)….I had no time to check ALL the programs I use and drivers I need for my hardware to see if everything was 64-bit compatible. Yes, there are advantages to 64-bit, I understand that – but the problem is for everyone else out there to also get on the train. Lots of folks out there like me are not interested in being on a train with a handful of people and waiting for more people to jump on. We’ll let the market sort itself out first on this new stuff before getting on the train.

As far as OSX, though – if Codegear can do OSX – I say, holy-shit….watch out. I think it would be the best thing they’ve ever done since IntelMac was introduced and gaining momentum. I’ve got a Mac now…and I’ve given up trying to learn X-Code/Objective-C and I’m at a point in my life where I simply don’t have time to learn a new programming language or mess with something like Mono. For all the developers that use Delphi that will be able to port their applications to Mac because of whatever reasons – family, friends, customers, etc – I believe, will open up a much wider opportunity for Delphi and Codegear at this point in time. If indeed they are doing OSX now….I think is a super wise move.