Have you taken a look at JBuilder 2007 trial? Have you watched the 20+ videos by the R&D team showing what you can do with JBuilder 2007 that you can’t do with any other Java development environment?

It would be great to know what other "features" you need for Java development. I would also love to see your list of "pretty much all the features a Java developer needs". Thanks in advance.

Thank you for all the comments - it really helps to hear from you.

No tangents here. We have complete focus on developers (of all kinds).

Our research, surveys, feedback, and other sources of "listening" to our customers needs and wants tells us to do more work on our existing products and to also reach out to new languages, new platforms, and new technologies.

More than 50% of our customers are using dynamic languages in addition to their native and managed languages of choice.

We are also working on updates and better quality for Delphi. We are moving forward with JBuilder on Eclipse.

I used to use JBuilder back when it was on PrimeTime, but cannot bring myself to use anything based on Eclipse at its price - MyEclipseIDE is cheap and has pretty much all the features a Java developer needs bar a few (and there are others from Sun and Oracle with a large Enterprisey feature matrix).

I’ve heard great things about Ruby On Rails, but with Delphi’s customer base jumping ship to Visual Studio on a regular basis, I feel CodeGear should really put all of its resources to delivering more robust and innovative Delphi releases in the future. I think depending on third-parties (however indirectly) to provide needed functionality to developers was a mistake from the beginning (VCL controls, Web Development Frameworks (like IntraWeb), Modeling (Together, until it was purchased), persistence and MDA (Bold then, now ECO). It made the Delphi investment much less attractive in the eyes of its competitors.

I feel CodeGear now has the technology to do what they have to do (after the many acquisitions) - they just need to release better products. You guys really are too far behind in the game ATM. VCL isn’t as attractive as it once was when compared to its competition - Delphi for .NET just isn’t working.

JMO.

- Nate.

The Delphi engineering team has been working to improve quality and the quality process. Some of the work was completed for 2006 and the hotfixes that were released last year. They are working more this year as well. The work will continue to bring better quality and stability to Delphi.

JBuilder 2007 based on Eclipse brought us higher quality for that product.

THe benefits of all of the work can be brought to new products as well.

You need to repair your (very damaged) relationship with your (fewer and fewer) existing customers first.

-Signed, a programmer whose boss spent $30K+ on delphi 2005 and now gets every request for borland upgrades / add-ons denied.

* binding an editor and the build system / project manager - i remember turbo.com unde cp/m like it was yesterday - that was the very first ide in the world!

* extending the rtl in the direction programmers needed it

* offering revolutionary constructs (e.g. uses and units by tp4.0)

* offering object oriented capabilities (e.g. starting with tp5.5 and later on, turbo vision with tp6.0)

* offering common source base for dos, dpmi and windows applications (bp7)

* offering the easy to use of visual basic (by then the easiest to use ide/framework/language) and the raw power of c++ (e.g. delphi products line and later on bcb products line)

* offering the only language and framework offering a really smooth migration path to .net (talking about delphi.net and vcl.net!)

But I also remember the excitement of following microsoft’s steps in blind, obviously in technologically inferior areas like: COM, DCOM & ActiveX. Who cared about these? They didn’t even have implementation inheritance! We (the Many) didn’t, but borland’s management did… Result? Loosing developers… Even today, just to clone .NET functionality (in crucial areas like databases/ado.net, asp.net and web services) is a mistake and the history of the future will say if i am right or not.

executive summary: i’d rather like to see borland offering products the old way (by providing true innovation, by hiring true engineers in r&d, instead of tolerating statements of work like "oh, yeah, i know that this is exactly what microsoft did, we’re following the path". i know is very difficult, since most ex-borlanders are currently leading microsoft’s development efforts, or oracle or sun, but still… i do believe in good faith that if you did so, you would have a chance to survive!

ps

from what i am gathering, most developers are still using delphi win32! also, they would like to see native delphi running on other platforms. also, over 99.999% of the developers choosed NOT to use any borland database connectivities (e.g. bde, dbexpress, ado, etc) - why do you think that is?

in my humble view, the answer is very simple! developers need robust, reliable and hi performance ways to make their lives better! the only asset you (at least used to) have is innovation, not from out of the blue but with deep grounds in reality in real life systems… obviously, espcially in database area, you could not possibly provide that innovation, for reasons so easy to understand by everyone (both inside and outside of borland/codegear) - a database architect should:

1. know the object pascal language inside out

2. know other languages involved c/c++ (java would NOT do)

3. know vcl inside out

4. know third party alternatives

5. have previous hands on experience, not with transaction processing theory books from the 70s-80s but with REAL LIFE large scale applications

6. have respect for the team, other engineers and borland in general (nor sharing anything with anyone in the team for 20 years+ cannot possibly be an asset)

7. at last but not at least, love the vibrant delphi/bcb community, be one of them act on their behalf… (do you have that today?!? didn’t think so…) THAT is WHAT you need and not rubby on rails, mumbo, etc…

whatever was said was said in good faith!

regards,

daniel

Your niche and only chance imho is the native Pascal (Delphi) space which you should expand to other platforms. Maybe with the help of FreePascal if you are not strong enough.

I fear that CG does not enough in the native space.

One of the drawbacks of Ruby is its inferior performance. It really would be great to get something "rails like" with Delphi.