Sunday 14 June 2009

Delphi for Mac and Linux?

This is massive news, if it pans out. However, it does have its downside - in a stroke it could wipe out Lazarus/Freepascal, and the focus on a multi-platform Delphi could end up abandoning the lead role in Windows development even more to Microsoft.

"Micheal Swindell...showed a nice "Embarcadero loves Delphi" logo and discussed they key goal for Delphi in the next few years: "Native Delphi Everywhere", mentioning Mas OS X and Linux, and also mobile, RIA, the cloud...Project Delphi "X" is focused on cross-platform support for MacOS and Linux, both for building servers and clients on Linux and the Mac..."



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"in a stroke it could wipe out Lazarus/Freepascal"

Only if you assume that people always prefer commercial software. But if somebody uses FreePascal at the moment, it is likely that this person does this not only because there is no other choice, but perhaps also to support Open Source. Besides, for me Delphi had to be for free (as in beer) to make me think of using it.

Dave said...

Yes, indeed, I should really have qualified my original comment with regards to price points. But assuming the same price point (let's say free), and given the choice between using a compiler and environment as polished as Delphi and using a non-commerical alternative, if you're not guided by ideological reasons, are you really going to use the non-commerical alternative?