Ready for Tiburon: DevExpress
25 Sep
Got the following email from DevExpress this morning:
You can now build Unicode applications using our VCL components in the recently released Delphi 2009.
This is a Beta release and we are actively asking for feedback from our Delphi customers so that we can address any issues and so we can provide better integration where necessary.
Great to see this popular tool vendor getting "Ready for Tiburon". I know that many of you rely on the great components from DevExpress, so this is good news indeed.
And of course, now is the time to buy.
Well, I absolutely love DevExpress components. But I thought I wasn’t required to buy some of their components now that Delphi does include Ribbon components, right? Sadly, they are quite unusable, at least in my system (the flickering is ugly as heck.)
Anyways, I gripe because I care.
September 25th, 2008 at 1:19 pmCheers!
Also Allround Automations released a beta of DOA. It looks any major library will take some time to become "production ready" - and frankly I prefer they acknowledge it takes some time to test everything fully given the unicode shift.
September 25th, 2008 at 1:45 pm@Leonardo: the ribbon controls are just one of the many great controls by DevExpress. My top favorite: dxLayoutControl. For me, that’s that one that should get implemented by Codegear, not the ribbon
September 25th, 2008 at 1:51 pmDevExpress has some indispensible controls. A little over powerful at times, but still, indispensible none the less.
now back to writing binary buffer management to replace all the places I treated string and tstringlist as convenient binary buffers with auto-management of memory. Which I probably should have done in the first place years ago instead of doing it the easy wrong way - still, it did take a good long time to bite me in the ass
September 25th, 2008 at 2:05 pmIs the new Codegear marketing approach the "snake oil sales" approach? I am not saying D2009 is snake oil, but you are selling it as if it was. "C’mon people, c’mon and see! Look at little John, he got our oil and see how well he his, he was healed from any illnes and grew ten inches! And there’s James also he got our oil and…, buy our oil, buy our oil!".
September 26th, 2008 at 12:51 amUnluckily DevExpress *is not* ready for Tiburon yet. It’s going to be. That’s a beta. Like DOA. Like JCL/JVCL. And that’s ok - I prefer they open say "we need some time yet to check and make everything work - for now take care", not act like you when you sold us Delphi 2005 and 2006…
Did you take into account that this is a release of Delphi that could sell much slower? As any "breaking" release you just can’t buy it, recompile and start using new features.
Then, instead of trying to sell it as "snake oil", you should have thought about a trial somewhat longer (14 days? c’mon!), maybe an extension for already registered users to let them really asses the effort to upgrade - little: I’ll ask management to upgrade now, large: I have to think about it - they won’t be happy we spend money for something we can’t use right now and for a while.
No way, how to sell products is really behind your horizon - remember you are expensive - I do not blame it, just understand it’s a obstacle to upgrade without a very good reason.
@Leonardo: I think you’ve a limited point of view concerning the DevExpress Components. Ribbon components is a very small part of the DevExpress VCL Components offer. I cannot imagine to develop without these great products and as Bart, I really love the ExpressLayout and for me, that’s that one that should get updated to V2 by DevExpress… Too much time now from the first and actual release.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:59 am@Luigi: I Agree. I dont think buying d2009 is a great idea rigth now. D2007, my old version (LOL) works fine, and is compatible in many forms with lazarus+fpc, my new plataform for servers app. I use lazarus+fpc for my linux/win64 servers and delphi/win32 for gui. I will take the needed time that time. I was a early buyer in the past (like with D8 crap) and pay the cost. OTOH the only thing puying me to buy a new delphi version can be 64 bits and multiplataform (linux). In the meantime that im really happy with my toolset.
Best regards.
September 26th, 2008 at 9:20 amI never said buying D2009 is not a great idea. I just said that it would require better marketing to push it - especially this releases that can introduce real issues into current code.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:15 amI’d need unicode, but to buy an upgrade asap, I have to justify the cost of it, and the cost of porting code, to management - and I can’t just send them a bunch of praises by someone else they don’t know working on wholly different projects.
That’s why I think the 14-days trial is a very bad idea, especially for actual customers. Ok, for prospect just giving a look, too limited for those already using Delphi needing to know when an update makes sense - and plan it.
If I could port a key module or two of my current projects, and show the time spent and advantages justify the upgrade cost, it would be a win-win situation - I get a better product and CodeGear sells an upgrade.
But it could take time, because it may not be a priority task, difficult to cram it into a couple of weeks. Give me an extended time, give me a compiler that makes only executables than run only within the IDE and/or expires, but let me understand if an upgrade is right for me, especially since buying "in the dark" has been a suicide since Delphi 8 - CodeGear still needs to reconquer much of its customers’ trust.
And just crying "the coolest guys in the world have upgraded, it’s time you upgrade too" won’t help much.