BL>  Piffle! I have a savage highly-trained attack dog.

Oh, shit. Where do you keep it ? At your brothers place.

BL> I'm not sure how Delphi fits into my wider scheme of things.
BV> What fucking "scheme" are you talking about ? There is no
BV> scheme Bob, it's all a farce.
BL> The Farce is with me. I have a bad feeling about this, Luke.

Don't succumb to the Dark Side.

BV> No DOS isn't dead, but I wouldn't exactly call Pascal an orphan.
BL> Then why does Frank keep leaving it on my doorstep?

I don't know. Perhaps you should ask him. BTW, do you know what M$
used to use to write their C compiler ? Their Pascal compiler (sic)

BL> Delphi may be a do-all language and bring Pascal into the mainstream,
BL> or it may drop dead.
BV> ROFL...Wake up Bob.
BV> What does it matter if Delphi or Borland do drop dead ?
BL>  I don't give a fuck about Borland. I don't expect support for
BL> imports in a banana republic anyway. I just don't want to spend 6
BL> months learning Pascal and then have to go back to VB when the World
BL> and the Microsoft Machine rolls right on by,

So what. If that happens then you change WHEN it suits you or when in
becomes necessary. Do you have any idea why C has become so popular ?
It's simple really and I'm surprised that someone like yourself
hasn't realised it. It is because it is _perceived_ to be hard to
learn. The dickheads think that if it is hard to learn then it must
be good. The reality is that it doesn't matter what you write a
program in, so long as it does exactly what you want and it is easy
for you to do it. Why do you think dBase was such a hit a few years
ago. While the idiots were all rushing out buying their $29.99 Pascal
compiler, the smart ones were spending $399 on dBase and earning a
fortune from it. It's the same with VB today. The wanna-be's are
killing themselves to learn C or C++ while the smarties are out
earning money with VB and Access. They write crap with it but in
most cases the end user doesn't know and happily pays for it.

BL> or someone comes out with a real VisualC that is easy to use -
BL> which is what I expect, BTW.

Sure, no doubt about it. One day, someone will. If it is that good
and does everything Delphi does and then some, you change. In the
meantime, you have become a better programmer. What have you lost ?
Nothing. What have you gained ? A wealth of experience and knowledge
that you wouldn't have gained if you had been playing with VB.

BV> If the product is good you just keep using it. I make most of
BV> my income from a product which stopped shipping 5 years ago. I
BV> use it every day and whilst I await the next version, it really
BV> doesn't matter if the company goes broke. It won't affect me or
BV> my work.
BL> Eventually, the world rolls right on by an orphan, and you are left
BL> holding the baby.

Nope. The world is continually evolving and changing. Fads come and go,
you choose tools that you feel will help you NOW and use them to build
on your knowledge base. It's a little like electronics. Imagine if
you were teaching someone the trade now. Would you still teach them
the basics like electron flow, resistors, capacitors, transistors ?
Why ? Everything is in LSI's now and it is possible to build a circuit
without knowing exactly what it is doing. You just plug the black
boxes together.

BL> If Delphi is a step between C and Basic using Pascal and the
BL> ease of VB, and able to do Windows and DOS too, with a fast
BL> run-time assembler, then I am very interested. Otherwise, I
BL> start worrying about v1.0 and Borland going broke.
BV> See above. If it works, who cares ? Mind you, a reference
BV> manual would be nice.
BL>  As you say.. but it seems that they assume a knowledge of Pascal.
BL> I was actually shocked - here's your CD; go root your boot. THIS is
BL> what's going to save Borland?

As I have mentioned elsewhere, they don't assume a knowledge of Pascal.
I have had a bit of a flip through the manual and in fact it looks
like they end up teaching you Pascal without telling you what they
are doing. It looks quite well done actually. You buy Delphi and
they end up teaching you Pascal and you don't know it. Very smart.
I still think the reference manuals should be in the box, but I
think I can see a method in their madness. M$ and all the others are
flogging their programming languages. M$ try to flog Access as a
database product that uses Basic as the language, and claim that it
is really easy. It seems that Borland may be trying to position this
thing as if you don't need a language. When you buy it and start using,
you end up learning Pascal. Mind you, I haven't _really_ looked at
it yet, but from my first quick glance, it looks like this may be
what they had in mind. Wether they actually do this is another thing
altogether of course. In the meantime, they get the pull-through
from the largest base of developers they have. Their Turbo Pascal
market. If this is what they have planned, then they are very smart.

BL> I couldn't believe it! And I *still*  haven't seen it working.

No probs. You know two places where you can see it. One can show you
a bit about Pascal, the other won't be able to for a few weeks.

BL> I *still* don't have a clue if the compiler is a patch on VB.

ROFL...You'd better believe it Bob. The compiler is FUCKING FAST.
In fact it is so fast that I thought it skipped the compile phase
when running programs from within the development system. It was so
fast that I thought they may have used an interpreter during the
intermediate phase of development (remember I mentioned this as a
possibility the other night when you were asking why they can't just
run the program) I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that it had in
fact made the EXE. It is a fucking rocket. I'd even say that it is
faster in making the final EXE than VB is. The development environment
is laid out a lot better than VB as well. You don't have these fucking
windows everywhere which end up hiding behind other windows. All the
tools and controls are in a ribbon bar at the top of the screen. I'd
say that Borland (or whoever wrote it) spent a LONG time working
with VB. As you know, for a while now I have been saying that if
anyone wanted to build a Windows development tool then their entire
development team needs to spend a fair amount of time working with
VB and learning about its good points and its weaknesses. At first
glance it really looks as though Borland have done it Bob. Seriously.

BV> Vb is Mickey$ofts most popular language product. Turbo Pascal
BV> was the product which built Borland, so I don't see why Delphi
BV> can't save it.
BL>  Dearie me... VB is aimed at the dickhead market. *I* am dead-centre
BL> on the market Borland should be aiming at, so why do I feel so
BL> disappointed?

Because you are a real dickhead. You haven't even looked at it and
you have dismissed it out of hand.

BV> True, although NOBODY had any stocks when PC-95 was on. This
BV> may have been why it wasn't available. You must also consider
BV> that they have just been through somewhat of a management
BV> shakedown so I'm not that surprised that nobody thought to book
BV> some stand space at a mickey mouse show.
BL> Mickey mouse PC95? Didn't you notice the thousand people wandering
BL> around looking for something to buy... on the first day?

True. But there was NOTHING to spend it on. It was a fizzer.

BL>  Anyway... we can see what Frank says about the thing itself.

ROFL...Frank will have so many endorphins rushing through his system
that I don't think we will hear from him for a little while :)

Regards, Brenton
@EOT:

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