Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> I've never worked with Delphi, but I know the ones who use it 
> claim a similar ease. Using one of these, you don't have to worry about 
> system APIs and how things work; you drag and drop a button to where you 
> want it, set its properties, and write a function that does what you want 
> to happen when it gets pressed. That's about as simple as it gets. In the 
> time it takes you to learn how to achieve the same result with C in 
> Windows, you have written your complete application in Delphi or any of the 
> others with a decent IDE :)

Yes - I did my first Windows app to interface with a PIC using Delphi. 
It took me about half an hour to find and decide on an open-source 
serial component.  Installed it, dropped it on a form, and a few minutes 
later I had it up and running.

Later I decided it would be good to add a full-blown binary file editor 
- you know, view the hex digits on the left and ASCII on the right - 
with File Open, Save, Save As, automatically reload most-recently-used 
file, edit in-place, and send the result down the serial line on a 
button press.  Another twenty minutes to pick an open-source control and 
ten or twenty minutes max to get it integrated, most of which was no 
more complicated than using a web form.

Delphi, VB, and C++Builder all have this in common.  Delphi and 
C++Builder have the advantage that what you get when you're done is a 
single statically-linked EXE (no big DLLs), it's a fully compiled 
language (i.e., if you have to do something fast, you can), and it's 
reasonably possible to get the same code running Linux.  Delphi has the 
further advantage that its code is more legible than C++ (IMHO) and it 
compiles much faster.

As a former command-line and C++ snob who has used (and still uses) many 
languages, I find it much faster to develop a GUI with Delphi than it is 
to develop a command-line tool, especially when the features start to 
accumulate.  And, the resulting program is easier to use and maintain.

I'm skeptical of silver bullets.  Delphi isn't one.  But it's darn good 
at quick, solid interfaces.
-- 
Timothy J. Weber                 http://www.lightlink.com/tjweber
tjweber@lightlink.com
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