Side trip first ... down to business at the end of my babbling.

I see Object Pascal (aka Delphi) quickly becoming a niche language. I
was hired at my workplace as a Delphi programmer (one of about 50). Now
I am one of four Delphi programmers left. I don't see many openings for
Delphi people now, either.

Java is taking over in my shop, except from the COBOL world (and even
there it is making inroads). A large part of the reason that it is
taking over is because Java has superior tools to Delphi. By superior,
I don't mean that you can drag and drop them, but that the available
libraries tend to be more reliable and susceptible to scalable designs
than Delphi's RAD tools (which are mostly geared towards a single user
desktop paradigm).

For example, over a year ago I was working on a project that required
good scalability and high performance threading support. I started with
Delphi, because that was my preferred environment. But after stress
testing the readily available database connectivity drivers and
realizing that they were not up to handling the load I was throwing at
them (only IBObjects was able to actually complete the tests, the others
had various repeatable failures), I rewrote it in Java. Immediately, I
was able to throw out three quarters of what I had written in Delphi
because it was built into Java either at the language or at the library
level.

I ran comparative performance tests between the same code written in
Java and Delphi, specifically targeted at Java's weaknesses. Java with
a hotspot compiler performed within 10% of Delphi on a Windows box.

When I ran the same Java code under linux, it performed twice as fast as
it had under Windows. My test case was sensitive enough to identify the
cause of the performance drop - every { } pair represents creating and
destroying a stack frame.

So, by switching to Java, I write 1/4 the code, lose 10% performance in
return for more robust memory management, build applications that are
both vertically and horizontally scalable from the beginning, and will
run on multiple platforms with little or no rework. For me, it was a
no-brainer.

For the time being, my bet is on Java. I see shops that talk
about .net, and shops that build with Java. Also, Java shops are
somewhat more likely to use open source software, because they are
already dependent on so much of it whether or not they were aware that
they were getting into it.

I say let's throw our support behind Jim's Vulcan rewrite, then give
Roman a hand bringing jaybird up to speed with the new Vulcan interface
(once it is fully defined).

On Fri, 2005-05-20 at 22:57 -0400, Thomas Miller wrote:
> If you are using Delphi, then the dbExpress driver from Upscene works great.
>
> buppcpp wrote:
>
> >I'm talking about a driver that "most" developers can use.
> >
> >You can use OLEDB in .NET now and in the future and so can VB
> >developers,
> >Web developers, Delphi, etc..
> >
> >.NET is to specific, Firebird needs to start catering to the masses
> >first.
> >That's how Firebird's adoption rate will grow the fastest.
> >
> >
> >--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, Elmar Haneke <elmar@h...>
> >wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>I have been looking for a reliable, Windows friendly, future
> >>>
> >>>
> >proof
> >
> >
> >>> driver for Firebird for about 2 weeks now.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>Which future?
> >>
> >>In the advertisements of MS the future should be ".NET". There is
> >>
> >>
> >an
> >
> >
> >>FB-driver for "ADO.NET" available.
> >>
> >>Other People tell Java to be "the future". There is also an
> >>JDBC-dirver available.
> >>
> >>Both drivers are currently maintained.
> >>
> >>
> >>Elmar
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >
> >Visit http://firebird.sourceforge.net and click the Resources item
> >on the main (top) menu. Try Knowledgebase and FAQ links !
> >
> >Also search the knowledgebases at http://www.ibphoenix.com
> >
> >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>