I'm not a langauge freak ... I always work on the assumption that language is secondary - the problems comes first, and the language is chosen to suit the problem. I happen to prefer pascal over C generally, but that is a function of my personality rather than an inherent property of the languages. The two languages are similar enough that almost any construct built in one can be transliterated by machine to the other.

If I end up tying to the DBMS native API, then I'll stick with Delphi and, if necessary, translate header files to use IBPP. I would do this simply because Object Pascal is my favorite hammer and the Delphi IDE makes a good platform for exploratory work.

With that said, if I'm going to move to a C family language on this product it will be Java - because of the aditional portability and extensive high level thread safe libraries it grants me. C++ would require some rework to move to 64 bit unix platforms for example. Java/J2EE was always intended as the upgrade path for non-intel hardware. JDBC manitains a high level of transparency with the underlying DBMS again.

I have personally timed the performance of Java with a hotspot compiler within 10% of hand optimized assembly for the same algorithm. Performance issues with Java itself are a thing of the past - although you can still write poor code very easily. :o)

----- Original Message -----
From: Milan Babuskov
To: firebird-support@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 4:31 AM
Subject: Re: [firebird-support] Firebird/Internet performance questions


Donald Klopper wrote:
> All programmers are prone to lazyness and presumption.
> Any developer runs the risk of creating buggy code. Assumptions that lead to
> thinking that an integer value is sufficient to report on available disk
> space (hey 2 gig should be fine!). We've all burnt our fingers there!.
>
> Or using a 6 char structure to store a date.
>
> Or creating a static array with allocation for 1000 items (cause no-one will
> ever need more than 200 or so!)
>
> Or assuming that a list of items is zero based, whilst it's "-1" based (or
> one based)
>
> Oh I forget. C++ does not allow these bugs; The precompiler knows that you
> know what you're doing right?

Hm. I didn't see any of these in IBPP (at least not in 2.x versions)
I use IBPP a lot, and it works great. Or perhaps I missed your point?

You can still write crap software in Delphi. Language is not important,
but the skill of a programmer.

--
Milan Babuskov
http://fbexport.sourceforge.net




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