Board index » delphi » Commercial applications built with Delphi 2005 (Winforms not VCL.NET)

2005-07-05 12:17:08 PM
delphi172
Hi,
Can anyone point me to any large corporates (not small consulting firms) who
are using Delphi 2005 commercially? Here in Sydney, the bulk of the .NET
development is with Visual Studio (c#). We're currently on Delphi 5 and will
be making the move to .NET by year end. it is just the flavour that is still
to be determined.
There are pros and cons for us to staying with Delphi, not the least is we
can leverage existing Delphi knowledge. But, we already have MSDN universal
so all our developers are currently licensed for VS...
Has anyone worked on a large scale port from Delphi win32 to Delphi.NET or
C#? eg: 300,000+ lines of code, 500 or so units. I'd be interested to
know how difficult the migration was.
thanks
justin
 

considerable business payoffs to justify such a large job. After all, if you
worked on a totally new version for 12 months that basically did exactly
what the old version did is hard to justify. Conversion to Delphi.WinForms
would be just as difficult. Conversion to VCL.NET would also be difficult,
depending largely on the third-party components you use. If you use none, it
would be a large job. If you use many it would be an impossibly large job.
IMO, conversion of 'fat client' apps to .NET from Win32 is something that
doesn't provide much benefit.
Craig, www.h3k.biz
 

Justin Martin <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes
<42ca09c3$XXXX@XXXXX.COM>
--
Posted with Reader3000-BETA 0.9.4.933
 

Management decree.
"Captain Jake" <jake[nospam]@jsnewsreader.com>writes

Either
- winforms
- VCL/NET
Either
- VS.NET
- Delphi 2005
Either
- Delphi's Object Pascal
- RemObjects Chrome Pascal for .net
I think the main choice is whether they want to port to VCL.NET or
rearchitect using WinForms based components.
If they go for VS.NET, then Chrome might be a good option (to keep using
Pascal).
There's really a lot to think about and a lot of choices to make.
a significant issue.
I think there are many pros and cons with each of the choices, and there is
much to be weighed up before making the decision. For example, it is an
Enterprise level project, perhaps looking into Borlands Calibre RM,
StarTeam, and ECO with D2005 might make a difference for the project
compared to using VS.NET.
Lauchlan Mackinnon
 

option. Fair to say we would go down the Winforms path, the issue now is
just which flavour. Delphi or C#? Some are pushing for Delphi as it is what
we use now. Others suggest that now is the time to move away from what is
perceived to be a tool that is having less relevance in the marketplace
today. Some recruitment agents that were canvassed here in Sydney didn't
even know the product existed. It just wasn't on their radar so if we want
to expand the team in the future, quality candidates may become as issue.
justin
 

I thought they had produced VCL.NET versions of their components (or was it
only the QGrid?). I haven't looked into this, as I don't use .net yet.
- Delphi
- C#
- or Chrome (www.chromesville.com/)
architecture in VS.NET. The basic idea is it is designed to provide Pascal
and maximise the integration with .net, as contrasted with VCL.NET which had
to make compromises (supposedly) in order to maintain back compatibility
with the VCL.
I haven't used it, but it is definitely worth a look.
As I mentioned above, I think the main strengths of Delphi over VS.NET are
in the Architect SKU (ECO, SDO, etc) and the IDE. But you need to evaluate
it in terms of what's important to you and your boss(es).
Perhaps you should try some different options and see what works.
Luckily you also have the Developer Express .net (Winform) components to
consider.
HTH,
Lauchlan Mackinnon
 

Kevin
--
Software for resource managers and researchers
www.ecostats.com
 

Oliver Townshend
 

Justin Martin writes:
I hope for your sake that you still have a chance to impress upon said
management that the enormity of the task of porting your substantial
Win32 application to .Net (for *zero* end user benefit) is something that
even Microsoft /themselves/ will not be doing - new functionality such
as the embedded CLR aspects of SQL Server are obviously based on .Net
but the vast bulk of their various codebases will be remaining native.
If /they/ don't see the logic in porting, why should anyone else?
However, if their mind is made up then you have options to sweeten the
pill. Sticking with Delphi.Net will mean that you at least have an upgrade
path via VCL.Net. This won't help too much with third party components but
you may be lucky and have VCL.Net versions available of them, too. In the
absolute best case scenario, you /might/ even just have to re-build and
re-QA. You will have to be pretty damn lucky, tho' :-)
Switching to Visual C# would involve a total re-write of your entire
codebase, no two ways about it. It would also mean finding a different
array of third party components to fill in the functionality gaps not
covered by the basic FCL. IME, the .Net component pricing model is /not/
a pleasant surprise compared with native Delphi and, as yet, there is not
quite the same degree of breadth. Furthermore, the imminent appearance of
Avalon is going make Windows Forms applications look very much second rate.
AFAIK, there won't be any automatic upgrade path provided to convert your
Windows Forms GUI to an Avalon GUI. OTOH, while Borland haven't been making
any promises over how VCL.Net will evolve under Avalon, I'd hazard a
guess that, given the relative smoothness of the historical transitions from
VCL16->VCL32->VCL.Net the transition to Avalon would be similar. It has
after all been essentially the same API for ten years now.
A lack of available Delphi programming talent is a genuine concern. However,
the whole basis of the .Net platform is the interoperability between the
various languages and the shared concepts across all of them. Therefore, the
conversion to Delphi.Net should allow you more scope to recruit generic .Net
developers. The latest versions of Delphi fully supports C# as well so they
can ease themselves in - and, frankly, if a C# or Object Pascal developer
can't pickup the other languages syntax then they are in the wrong profession
given the huge, er, "family" resemblences between the two ;-)
 

Justin Martin <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes
<42ca34d6$XXXX@XXXXX.COM>
choose. And candidates that are any good can easily adapt to the Delphi
syntax.
--
Everything in this post is mere opinion.
Posted with Reader3000-BETA 0.9.4.934
 

Hi Justin
I work for a large Sydney based firm that has a Delphi 7 project around the
300K to 400K lines and easily 400 units codebase. This project is also a
heavy user of Developer express components.
Delphi 2005 came onto the scene and attempts were made to import the code
into D2005, unfortunately because of D2005's extremely poor stability and
performance the process was abandoned.
If you are looking to do a project of this size in D2005 I'd think very
carefully and consider as many other options as possible.
From a Pascal point of view, Chrome has many innovative features that are
very appealing.
I have also worked on large Java projects and Eclipse is a very good tool
for managing and developing a large codebase in.
My experience with C# is limited, however its only a small step sideways
from Java and what I have done with it has been very productive in VS.
The changes for 2.0 and VS2005 sound very impressive and I'd think that
this would be an ideal choice for you if you can wait for the constantly
changing release dates from MS to settle down.
Hope this helps
Phil
"Justin Martin" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>writes

Justin Martin writes:
press. He owned the company. It went out of business not long after.
Management seems to attract people who fall for buzzwords.
 

The year doesn't last very long anymore. Net 2 and Visual Studio should
come out in november. If there is no rush then it would be wise to at least
evaluate VS2005 and/or porting straight to Net2. Even if you stick with
Net1, you know more variables than now.
Net2 and new MS tools are probably change large enough to reconsider the
timeframe, no?
"Justin Martin" <XXXX@XXXXX.COM>wrote in news:42ca17cb$1
@newsgroups.borland.com:

Lurkio writes:
user benefit. To be fair, there are some negatives too.
team members to do some of their best work ever. They were inspired and
worked very diligently.
Delphi quickly. If you know C++ or C#, Delphi should be a walk in the park.
Unfortunately, those same persons often don't want to leave the comfort
zone, which puts us back at square one.