We have had almost a year of monkeying with fire now – enough time I think for people to have formed a view as to whether it is truly a viable multi-platform framework for the future, or just a convenient cross-platform solution with limited, genuine utility.

At the same time, we have had OS X and some iOS support for the same period, with the prospect of more platforms being made available to us Delphi developers in the future.

So, looking ahead, do we see FireMonkey as providing a solid foundation for a cross-platform future, or would we prefer to see tighter, closer “native” support for MULTIPLE-platforms (both currently supported and envisaged/promised) ?

I know what I think:

As much as I’d prefer to use ObjectPascal, I quickly decided that using Delphi + FireMonkey for OS X / iOS was like trying to ice-skate uphill. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the disconnect between me, my code and the environment I was writing for was going to be a source of nothing but constant pain and frustration, and so decided to learn Objective-C and Xcode instead.

I anticipate this will be only worse when it comes to Android, so that will mean also tackling Eclipse and Java – a far less enticing prospect for sure.

Which led me to wonder, am I the only one that finds FireMonkey so disappointing ?

So I decided to run a poll to (unscientifically) gauge the feelings of the community in this regard.

The (very) early numbers are quite interesting, suggesting that people see some utility in FireMonkey but also a keen interest in (as I read it, tipping ever so slightly “in favour of”) native platform support at least as an alternative.

That makes sense to me.

Even though I do not currently have a use for it, I can see the potential of FireMonkey as a conveniently cross-platform graphics/visualisation sub-system for use within “platform native” applications. I just wouldn’t want to build my entire app that way.

What do you want ?