Unofficial "Official" Roadmap

Your reviewer was looking at Delphi Roadmap and community responses[1] and decided to write the real Delphi roadmap:

Official Roadmap can be found here:
http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/39934

Your reviewer thinks this Delphi Roadmap reflects the current situation:


Pack more and more useless features into Delphi and then later, depreciate or don't release fixes for them.
- Nearly every new feature that has came into Delphi, is half-baked, or half-done, from ill-fated ReportSmith, BDE, Bold for Delphi, NET10, NET11, IBX, DBExpress[4]

- Think about BDE, how FoxPro 2.6 support was never properly handled or how Oracle 9i support for BCD numbers is half-supported, or how IBX components do not have transactions. Or how Midas, a promising technology is no longer relevant. Docking is still rubbish[2], or very limited undo/redo[3].

The only "suggested" reason why DelphiX or Delphi64 is taking so long to come out, is they need to "update" all those depreciated codes. Think about it...


Unicode - half-implemented and additional 3rd party issues
Your reviewer found out none of the Delphi RTL (Run-Time Library) supports an important aspect of Unicode - Composites, Ligatures and Surrogate Points. Even worse, none of the 3rd party component vendors support Composites, Ligatures and Surrogate correctly.

For 3rd party vendors, they need to "buy" latest version of Delphi and then update the libraries. Some vendors have no good Delphi 2009 implementation (probably because they are out-of-business).


Release half-implementations and full-implemenations sold separately.
Your reviewer wonders what kind of component technology is inside Delphi, since everything useful is sold separately. For example, to get full license of IntraWeb, you need to buy it, to get fully working MySQL support, you need to buy 3rd party. Go figure. If it costs US$2500+ to buy Delphi and another few thousand license here, how much costs will eat-up profits?

When the community ask for fully-working implementation, Embarcadero's response is that they don't compete with 3rd party vendors. Maybe if Embarcadero did things right in first place, there would not be this annoying 3rd party vendor with "correct implementation" and Embarcadero's half-working solution...


Make each Delphi version as unpleasant to use as possible
Your reviewer thinks very few people buy Delphi, since all those crazy bugs were fixed only in Delphi 2010 update 3/4 and 4/5. (Forget about buying Delphi 2006, 2007, 2009 - these versions were only to bring in money)

Your reviewer looked at one particular interesting bug:
http://blogs.embarcadero.com/nickhodges/2009/12/14/39338 (comment #29,#30,#31)
and wondered if DelphiHater was the 2nd person (but kept quiet) to discover this bug many months ago. Why is it not fixed? - probably because nobody uses this feature ;)

With Delphi 2009/2010, you had to upgrade all your libraries, all your codes, and there are so many hidden costs to upgrade "everything" to use Delphi 2009/Delphi 2010. With so much costs, it's no wonder it's hard to "upgrade" to Delphi 2009/2010...


Delphi forever - Sorry, you lost your job, your house got forclosed, your car got repossessed
Your reviewer thinks using Delphi is like being proud and totally arrogant. There are few jobs, expensive costs, and sooner or later, don't be surprised you'll be like the Delphi Bistro person - it's time to move on.[5]


Delphi 64-bit - Keep promising but don't deliver
After DelphiX, there's Chromium, but that could be in year 2011, if timelines keep slipping, maybe, just think... there is no Delphi 64-bits, it does not exist. End of story, We've waited since nearly 4 years for this (since Delphi 2006). Everything else is empty promises. Think about it., another year will pass, another year will pass, and still no Delphi 64-bits...


Use TeamB to keep customers entertained...
What purpose is it for TeamB to keep replying to non-technical, and off-topic for except perhaps to keep customers entertained with snappy replies?


Make each Delphi version more and more expensive
What purpose is it to charge SA (Software Assurance), then increase prices, and then remove free-versions of Delphi, except to make customers pay and pay? The newer people cannot get licenses without paying lots of money, the older customers hate to pay and pay for what seems like "bug fixes"... Did I mention about the 20%-30% increase in SA price this year?


Make Delphi call home, make Delphi copy-protection more and more stronger...
Your reviewer sees with each version, each release, the copy-protection has gotten lot more stronger and stronger. Your reviewer wonders why Embarcadero focuses on copy-protection part and not legal enforcement part? ... Your reviewer would love for more of his friends to get sued or asked to pay-up 10 times the cost of Delphi itself (US$20,000)... :)


Conclusions
This is the Unofficial "Delphi" roadmap, think about it, it feels more like the truth than the official Roadmap :)


1] https://forums.embarcadero.com/thread.jspa?messageID=207459
2] Docking still Rubbish - https://forums.embarcadero.com/thread.jspa?messageID=207362
3] Limited Undo/redo - https://forums.embarcadero.com/thread.jspa?messageID=207388&tstart=0#207388
4] Dr. Bob "discovers" Datasnap 2010 security is nonexistent - http://www.sandon.it/?q=node/52
5] No Delphi Jobs - http://delphibistro.com/?p=49

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64-bit Office is coming to town, Delphi applications going to get killed soon

While Team B is busy picking fights on almost everyone who discuss about 64-bits, be it, 64-bit registry issues, 64-bit explorer issues, need for 64-bit, pros & cons of 64-bits, there's very very big issue coming soon.


Ignorance is bliss
Your reviewer will laugh at many Delphi vendors whose 32-bit version could not compete against their 64-bit foes:

1) Registry Cleaners. Hey bro, did you see any Delphi 64-bit registry cleaners? Many Delphi vendors lost out when they could not "fix" 64-bit registry issues.

2) Video/Sound editors. Did you see that cool 64-bit Video/Sound editor that had no 4gigs limitation, could work twice as fast on 64-bit PCs and outsells every stupid 32bit application on the market? This is reality now.

3) Explorer integration. This is self-explanatory. Even the dogs could lick Lazarus sores and using Free Pascal, you could write for 64-bit DLLs...


64-bit Office coming soon
Almost all Add-ins today are built for 32-bits, and with Delphi unable to build 64-bit COM DLLs, many Delphi developers who used Word-COM-integration, Excel-COM, PowerPoint-COM will find they urgently need to move to 64-bit soon...


Cross-Platform, Linux, Mac vs. 64-bits
Which is more important? Making DCG (Delphi Code Generator) back-end for Code Generator emit cross-platform code or 64-bit issue?

Your reviewer thinks 64-bit Delphi compiler will become so important now, if there is no 64-bit compiler, all those fancy business Add-ins with Office Integration will soon go out of business.


When will Delphi/64 be out? Maybe when you don't have any money left
They promised Delphi/64 - 5 years ago, every year - new rants, more complaints (and more TeamB insults). The real truth, nobody cares because everyone is on subscription, whether or not Embarcardero takes 2 or 3 years more, everyone has to pay SA/ or new license (since they no longer honour old discounts). By the time 64-bit Delphi came, all your code-base either move to C#/64bits (most likely), C++/64bits, Python/64, PHP/64bits or unlikely, RealBasic/64bits.


Your reviewer thinks he's like Charlie Frost in 2012 reporting live, about how everyone changed from 32-bits to 64-bits, and stayed behind to broadcast about it, and got killed in the blast.

Think about it, while everyone is moving towards 64-bits, are Delphi developers left behind?

DevExpress VCL Build 48 - A haunting in Nevada

Analyzing Security Flaws

Full Blown Cryptography
Your reviewer recommends not 256, 512, 768, but try using 2048-bit security. At RSA/2048 bit key, it will be fun, really fun to hack DevExpress. That would give Danny Su'ed an interesting challenge when he cracks CodeRush or extract DevExpress.NET sources


GeoIP and double-check before downloading AES private key
Your reviewer thinks using GeoIP would be a good idea. Some smelly Delphi vendor who licensed DevExpress.VCL will who sends it to China with same license code should get blocked.

Which leads to part 2. Right now, DevExpress sends a request without checking who is the server, so a HTTPS SOAP call could be spoofed with considerable effort (just edit the binary EXE - "HTTPS" to "HTTP" and then sent without SSL. It would be wise to do a check, like ping/ping to check credentials of the server first before downloading the actual AES key would have much harder time.

For part 3, if someone installs more than 5 or 10 times in 1 day, it's time to flag that account as need "review". For obvious reasons.


DXIF with AES, with multiple passwords
Could it be, a DXIF file with multiple passwords? That could be true soon. It could make things much harder. A wise-crack who licensed QuantumGrid can no longer unlock ExpressBars or maybe ExpressPrinters ;)


Custom Setups
The best thing that could ever happen to DevExpress/Build environment is to put the build environment on-demand. Then, start to break-up the package. For example, most customers who didn't license full version of DevExpress subscription probably will not need all files, except the cracker who wants to extract all files.


Calling Dr. Jones, Jones Calling Doctor Jones
Why not consider give DevExpress customers a nice phone call. Your reviewer DelphiHater will be thrilled to hear Amanda (from DevExpress) on phone discuss about Licensing or maybe as security check.


The next weakest link
The next weakest link is one password for whole DXIF archive. It needs to have multiple passwords. The only other vendor who have multiple passwords is Mathias/Madshi vendor whose Madshi.RAR file has multiple passwords in 1 RAR file, and only way to extract the contents is by having valid Key file.


The 3rd weakest link
Your reviewer thinks using AS-Protect, WinLicense to protect binaries will slow them down. Why not protect using Silicon Realms Armadillo, ASProtect, WinLicense? It would deter only the most hardened hacker to hack DevExpress.VCL.


The Dope of Embracing Illegal Software
The irony of being a hacker. Get recognized as a hero, respect and honour. Did anyone try hiring one, and find out, they are total idiots?

It takes 9 to 12 months to make an application. But most of these "hackers" are total idiots when it comes to hard work, making money, and earning decent living.

For example, let's take DevExpress.VCL, it costs US$1500 per developer, and annual subscription. If the hacker (being an idiot, btw) uses it for 5 years, someone will find out sooner or later most of the things are Warez and he'll get into trouble. If the application uses TMS/LMD/or ReportBuilder, it adds up to more and more costs. In the end, the hacker will still be a 1 person company/ or forever dependent on employment, but wait, since Delphi is dead, what jobs? (see next part)


The Delphi Hate-Love Affair
Your reviewer was looking at how much it costs to make ExpressBars, or QuantumGrid. It could cost US$200,000 in development costs. Somebody has to pay for it. If more people buy DevExpress products, that means lower costs, more innovation. but it's opposite, now to buy DevExpress costs more money and only for bug-fixing, very slow new product development.

If you log into DevExpress private newsgroups, you can see Julian Bucknall lament about poor sales, how NET version of their products saved the day. That also means, many newer features found in Silverlight, their C# version won't be in VCL version anytime soon...


Delphi Revival, what revival?
That also means, while Embarcardero, DevExpress and other companies are hoping for turn around of fortunes..

Your reviewer should say, there is no hope in Delphi, if you sell to developers, you sell to an extremely limited market, and if you do not make prices very high, you lose on mass-piracy. That means less and less people will want to buy "original" and everyone loses. If everyone loses, that means, Delphi is dead, everyone will migrate to C#/SilverLight/PHP to save costs.

(disclaimer:
DelphiHater loves WaveMaker, PHP and DoJo, the US$0 solution.)


Brave things to do...
(disclaimer: from a post your reviewer saw before it was deleted)

- The crackers/hackers cannot even KeyGenn DevExpress.VCL

- There are no proper working crack for Addin-Express

- Most of the things released are cracked garbage
(ahh, the Dope of Embrace ;))

- Most expensive software, like BrickSoft, Addin-Express, Gnostice PDF subscription
with sources will never get keygenned or full-source-code release.

funny


Did you know?
- Members of DevExpress team read this.

There are an estimated 20,000 Delphi users using DevExpress.VCL illegally. That would translate to +/- US$20,000,000 in lost sales. If every Delphi developer licensed original software, it would translate into more jobs, higher salaries for existing Delphi developers. What happened? with massive piracy, this cuts Delphi's future. The future is here, there are few (or no) jobs, no money, nothing.

DevExpress VCL Build 48 security analysis

Your reviewer was quite pleased with latest DeveloperExpress VCL build #48. It looks like they are handling security right with using real encryption.


The weakest link: Setup.dll/Unrar.dll
Formerly, below Build #48, all stuff was packed into 4 RAR files (Help, HtmlHelp, Demos and Sources) with same password. So when the installer calls Setup.dll (or Unrar.dll in other words), just capture the password in DLL call stack. Your reviewer remembers they used to keep changing it every build, but then, since the weakest link was setup.dll, you could always get it from there. Then, you could hack it different ways, like substituting your own setup.dll with YourOwnUnRar.Dll with same parameter calls and obtain the password, or maybe set Olly/WinDbg to break-point on DLL call.


Calling Home correctly
The next deterrent is using SSL/https instead of HTTP. That greatly deterred wannabe "vendors" from capturing packets in mid-air, such as, like man-in-the-middle attack. You could capture the SOAP packet in transit, then try dissecting it. With HTTPS, unless you can emulate https://register.devexpress.com with a valid SSL certificate, you're in for serious debugging.

Your reviewer, remembers Andrei (Feandy) discussing on some Russian forum, how he would setup virtual machine with http://register.express.com redirecting to his private webserver to hack it, then how he complained it changed to HTTPS (which made it obviously much harder).


Custom Archives
Your reviewer was thrilled to learn about DXIF archive file-format (anyone still remembers Julian wrote parts of TurboPower LockBox/Abbrevia?), but since the person who wrote TurboPower Lockbox knew the security flaws, DeveloperExpress used AES instead. Way to go!, at least, the person writing DXIF file format knew what they were doing.

DXIF --> Borrowed parts from TurboPower Abbrevia (PKXX --> DXIF),
changed cipher to custom cipher AES with key-checking.

Excellent choice :)


Watermarking
Your reviewer was happy to find watermarked source code, or least where you could not see it. Your reviewer found many strange comments, unusual constants and strings (I'll be fair: I won't disclose them) in the source code that was not there since last builds. Also, since some of these watermarks are in last build, how could your reviewer possibly know? :)

Oh, by the way, if Andrei/Feandy releases source code from Build #48, most of source codes are watermarked. Please Andrei/Feandy, release the sources, so Andrei/Feandy license could become invalid and the only DevExpress leak in whole world would be gone ;)


What's in Feandy's mind...
Your reviewer thinks there could be some improvements done for next build, like:

- Watermarking help files. Watermarking help files would be least noticeable, and that would greatly stop Andrei/Feandy from releasing demos/help files for everyone

- It would be much better if VM detection was present. There is already code to detect VirtualPC or VMWare, so why not throw that in? That would make it really fun

- Use different AES passwords for DXIF archives. Think about it... 4 times the fun

Last:
- By the way, can you use this copy-protection scheme for .NET edition, your reviewer would love it


Delphi-Love
With stronger, better protection, that means, people who used DevExpress illegally will have hard-time getting updates. Maybe it's time to look at LMD/TMS, but wait, TMS also have better protection now (guess who recommended it?)


Conclusion
With friends feandy like this, who needs enemies?


:)

Vendor Hacking. Your reviewer browses a Delphi vendor's internal site.

Those who use Delphi have no knowledge of security, or maybe, very lax sense of security.

That vendor has site http://(something) hosted on his private LAN in some USA city, and "forgot" to secure directory, and unfortunately, left his customer's database all open, along with version control (SVN - with files not encrypted), and other things.

Onwards with this review.
Remember some time ago I wrote about vendor fail? Your reviewer "reviews" this website. First of all, remember to password-protect your site, or turn of directory browsing, and maybe block bots, like Yahoo Search bot, or Google bot, so at least those things don't flow into Google and Yahoo's search index.

Your reviewer looked at the private forums. You see, the public forum has "hidden forums" where the developers post messages to themselves. Funny how those Indian developers would post desperate messages about deadlines not met, or about delays in receiving money. Then, how the owners (of that company) would rant, hurl insults at those Indian developers who were developing the software (built with Delphi) and how the Indian developers would fight back saying this and that was not possible, and end result was big messy code.

Your reviewer looked at the forum's Bio pages and saw links to the developer's hotmail addresses, and yahoo addresses. I know them, they also post publicly on the former Borland newsgroups, and in unfortunate way, traded insults with unhappy customers.

There were also requests to hurry up the projects, but somehow, either those Delphi developers made big mess, or screwed-up big time. Your reviewer downloaded some EXEs and some ZIP files form that site, (to compile, you had to use that vendor's VCL libraries) and found it funny.

That server had other directories, which housed other projects, like that website for some company in USA which was being developed. Or maybe it was just half dead sites, or maybe half-broken sites, since those sites were time-stamped 2 years ago and maybe customer didn't pay up, because it looked ugly (just DelphiHater's thoughts).

That server had some Firebird database, but atlas, without proper directory security and an FDB file to download, you could get their supposedly customer-list. If there was anything more stupid, it would be to place an open FDB directory. This was a security breach waiting to happen.

Black lists
Your reviewer was going through the customer list, around 8,000 companies around the world... and 792 black listed customer (make it 800 by the time this review is published). Black listed customers were customers who refunded, brought with stolen credit cards, or false credentials.

Most of concern, were customers from Russia, Middle East countries. Funny how Delphi Developers XXXX from those countries would have so many fraud entries on that customer list.

That customer list contained interesting customers, such as "Zorro" (e.g., Software by Zorro), hackers who brought their software and released it, such as 3SCrack (even funny to know that person's name), names from "nemesis.ru" (funny), dumpz.ru

That customer list included house addresses of famous known companies, such as RemObjects, Torry's, Components4Developers to name a few, and of course, those companies logos listed on their websites.

Not Safe for Work
Your reviewer browsing that site, was also surprised by the massive pictures directory on that site. Maybe it was for private viewing, or maybe the owners had private collection of X-rated pictures. Your reviewer was surprised by supposedly gay and she-male Delphi developers. Maybe the owner there had "taste" for maybe gay Delphi developers ;) ...

Even more funny were those pictures with filenames that matches names on the former Borland newsgroups. Of course, wanna share a picture? :) Maybe that vendor collected too many pictures of the female (and gay) population of the Delphi community, or maybe looking for Pen-Pals.

Petition to TIOBE to re-check Delphi community index

Dear Sirs,

This open letter is reply towards your publishing of TIOBE, in regard "Delphi" programming language.

As cited on your website, TIOBE is taken from number of skilled engineers, courses and third-party vendors, along with popular search engines are used to calculate the ratings.

Delphi is grouped under:
Grouping: Delphi, Kylix, Object Pascal, Free Pascal, Chrome (Exception: "Google"), Oxygene, Delphi.NET

Your reviewer would like to refine that group a little:
1) Freepascal is not part of Delphi, so it should be excluded. That also includes Free-pascal related things, such as Lazarus. Since Delphi and Lazarus are 2 different things, they need to be different.

For example, people who use FreePascal/Lazarus are totally different users than Delphi users.

2) Exclude duplicate archives. For example, there are several newsgroup dustbins, such as BorlandTalk.com, Tamaraka.com (or HREF's search engine archive), MarcoCantu's newsgroup archive (newswhat.com), CodeNewsfast.com, Cryer.co.uk (their newsgroup archive), mail-archive.com's duplicate archive of certain Delphi email discussion groups, and coding.derkeiler.com...

Thus, 1 post on the Embarcadero newsgroups would be duplicated 10 times. If there were 10,000 posts, it would be magnified 10 times, giving Delphi developers false sense of security.

3) Exclude "delphi.non-technical" and "off-topic", since those are not-serious discussions. Maybe the non-technical and off-topic exists solely to make people think Delphi is serious language...

4) Check when site was last updated. If site was not updated since 2005, then it should be excluded in TIOBE, since that site is no longer active. (There are plenty of sites of this kind in Delphi community).

5) Duplicate-check blogs. Now with twitter, blog aggregations, content on these sites should be counted once, and exclude duplicates.

6) Include comparisons of Delphi jobs listing vs. C#, vs Java and other languages into factor, and into your TIOBE community index.

7) Include comparisons of Book sales from respected sites which publish sales figures, and into your TIOBE community index.

8) TIOBE needs Kylix as separate language. This is self-explanatory. Since Kylix is dead (or nearly dead), we will then know how exactly it fares compares, to, say, ActionScript (or maybe Prolog?) and how many people use Kylix. It would be joking to say there are still users using Kylix when you can use Java/Mono/PHP/Ruby/Python in Linux/Mac environment.

In such situation, your reviewer thinks, Delphi should be NOT be in the top-20 languages., it should have less than 0.5% share, similar to MATLAB, Scratch and Cobol.

At least, with Cobol, you can get decent job. In Delphi, you work like a dog all year long and don't earn enough decent money.

A drum, a drum, a troll doth come...

(Borrowing from Macbeth)

All hail Tom*, highly respected person,
All hail John*, highly respected person,
All hail troll, thou shalt be king thereafter!

[* not their real names]

Synopsis
There are parallels in Macbeth, and modern-day trolls:

- Both of them are tragic figures, Macbeth being fictional character, while a troll is more modern-day.

- Macbeth won many battles, a troll goes around trying hard to convince his boss, his customers, the management, nearly everyone, that Delphi is the right decision.

- Macbeth is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess, so doth trolls who fight the management that Delphi is worth it, then get betrayed by everyone.

- Macbeth is made king, trolls usually run their own companies and are their own bosses.

Tragedy of Character
When a troll doth arriveth to ye town-hall newsgroups, he immediately faces insults from everyone, those who know him, distance away from him. Those who want to do business with (the troll), would not give him any. when the troll tries to ask for forgiveness, people would point him to older posts, and tell him to (get lost). (See: Simon Kissel's, Frank de Groot's postings)

Tragedy of Moral Order
What happens when things fail? What happens when failure is an option? There are three things that can happen:

a) Either Borland and TeamB makes amends, or apologize (which never happens, even today - the same old people are there)

b) The troll apologize and make amends, but since the troll has to pay money to those offended, and to those horrible people (the vendors), there is lot of bad blood.

c) The third option, is nobody is forgiven. Borland neither forgive, and the troll, seeing that nobody budges or makes amends, harden-up, and forget the whole Delphi-thing.

Whatever it is, I have not those trolls around the newsgroups, and by the way, since there are no Delphi jobs, maybe they easily switched to Java/PHP/C#/whatever which makes them money.


Trolling and Evil
One thing for sure in Borland's - is - nobody hears your complaints, any bug-fixes just means more money paid for annual maintenance (now called SA), newer versions which means more money. When will good version of Delphi come? - maybe when you get screwed and have no more money left :)


Survival
This is not about rebellion or hate, it's about basic survival. Suppose you're working on a Delphi project, and things start to screw-up, be it, the stupid Unicode issue (before Delphi 2009/2010 came out), or some memory leak error caused by faulty VCL code, or some DEP error (caused by faulty VCL code) or deadlines not being met. Fair enough, Delphi 2010 came out and you need to "upgrade". Will you be given a free upgrade, since Borland/CodeGear released buggy software? nope, just pay up the money. Same goes for Delphi third-party vendors, who changed their business model to subscriptions.

Suppose the boss takes US$50,000 loan, then US$100,000 loan later, and every day, gets scared he cannot pay off the loan, and every year, be it, something happens and he has to pay more and more money to get fixes, updates. What happens if software fails, or not enough customers? Many of those who insult the trolls don't see this.

Who will help the Boss, who get such big loan and then company fail, maybe the boss is well-respected Delphi developer?

What happens if not enough money to buy second or third license for Delphi? then it results to no jobs.


Conclusions
If there was comfort, it would be trolls were trying to say something to Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero and then everyone screwed the troll. They say, don't feed the trolls, but did anyone hear what the troll said? (and nobody could lift a finger to help that troll financially too).

Your Money or Your Job, Part 2

Your reviewer have several friends, who, recently got laid off, or got out of job.

Your reviewer tells story of one developer -

Some introduction towards T., T. was using Delphi since TurboPascal days, most probably TurboPascal 7.0, and then brought Delphi 6.0 Enterprise. Euros 2000+. He was one of those people who fought valiantly against the trolls, defender of the Delphi faith. Year 1999, things were good...

From 1999 - 2009, things went downhill. Delphi 5/6/7 were considered last "good" version of Delphi before Delphi 8 (or Delphi.NET ruined everything), T brought Delphi 8, sent few thousand Euros to Borland, for some pie-in-the-sky software which, Julian Bucknall said Delphi 8 was the "worst" version of Delphi on his blogs, and for simple programs (to be fair, I wonder if Rudy V. used Delphi 8 extensively?), then more money on Delphi 2005, then more money on Delphi 2006, then more money on Delphi 2007, then Delphi 2009, then went bust when Delphi 2010 came out.

T. always lamented about the shabby state of Delphi, how he wanted to use Delphi instead of Visual Studio, but seemingly, had to license out MSDN to use Visual Studio. IntraWeb was so unprofessional, T. gave it up, after struggling to make good website using Delphi.

Component vendors would hand out components by subscriptions, further sucking any extra money T. had. Renew another year for DevExpress, RemObjects, TMS or RealThinClient? no more money left...

T. was trying to find Delphi jobs, or rather, what Delphi jobs in Europe? In his place, T. the nearest Delphi job was in some far away part of (country) inside the European Union, or had to travel 20+ miles., or maybe the money was not enough. If he had to live in some other city to find a Delphi job, then rent would eat up costs, and with this recession going on, there was no finding a decent Delphi job.

Contract jobs sucked because the customer expected more and more work for less and less money. His jobs were "handed-over" to those cheap Indian Delphi developers who don't give a damn about Quality.

T. was sad he could no longer get Euros 4,000-a-month he used to get when he was full-time employed. T. was also sad he gout out of work after his company closed down.

T., used to work for a company which used Delphi, then that company closed down, let everyone go.

T. survived on his unemployment benefits, desperately looking for a Delphi job, but there were no Delphi jobs that paid Euro 48,000 he used to get. Also, trying to license Delphi meant buying Delphi Enterprise (for himself) and many libraries.

Last month, T. unemployment benefits ran out and he started to beg for jobs, or anything that goes by. Eventually he found a non-programming job, doing sales for some "bookstore club" in Europe.

It didn't make sense anymore to touch Delphi, since prices skyrocketed such that even mere mortals like T., could no longer afford to license Delphi (and all those libraries), each year meant annual renewals, so, since this year is recession, how to make money to cover next year, except to cancel credit cards?


As I lament for my friend, I could do nothing to help him, I felt so helpless, only to give him moral support every now and then. I don't know, I wish T., well on his new career., and hopefully, that others too, may learn from his tearful lesson.

DelphiHater is one of T's best friends, even giving money to support him, but with this economy, DelphiHater could not even give him much.

DelphiHater wrote this, not because right or wrong, but also, as many successes there are, there are also stories of failure.

Hotel California moment: Delphi Haven

Your reviewer was amused over DelphiHaven's Small thought post.

Why does the off-topic newsgroup still exist?

It's also called borland.spank.the.trolls.really.hard, borland.character.assassination
and borland.unforgiven

borland.spank.the.trolls.really.hard newsgroup
Let me explain this one. Suppose there's a troll on the newsgroup, who criticizes about Delphi, so what happens, TeamB redirects post to off-topic newsgroup for further newsgroup spanking. There, since there are no moderation rules, you can see all manner of insults, racial slurs, personal attacks, the true colors of Delphi developers.

borland.character.assassination newsgroup
Many years ago, when Frank de Groot complained about Delphi, his posts were redirected to borland.off-topic and there he complained being called Troll, insulted, and lost all his business..., to add insult to injury, now everyone can Google Frank the troll de Groot. Did TeamB ever cancelled those messages? nope, it stays on there, and archived on Google Newsgroups, and other newsgroup archives. If there was one way lose all business, this would be the perfect way to lose all Delphi business.

Same thing what happened to Simon Kissel (person who did Cross-Kylix) and got insulted by TeamB, and you can still read it. It's amazing any insults to former Borland staff and TeamB gets canceled, while insults to Simon Kissel do not get canceled.

borland.character.unforgiven newsgroup
Since Google Newsgroups (formerly Deja), HREF (formerly Tarmaraka) and others pick-up Borland's newsgroup feed, you get those notable troll reminders, such as reminding Frank de Groot, Simon Kissel (et al) they are not welcome anymore.

If there was change at Embarcadero (formerly DevCo, CodeGear) it would be to drop that newsgroup, get rid of those blow-hards, (Let's not even talk about Delphi.Jobs newsgroups...).

Even at Embarcardero's competitors - Quest Corp, Sybase, I never seen such nonsense at their community sites.

DelphiHater never post at Borland, DevCo, CodeGear, Embarcadero's newsgroup any more. DelphiHater uses Google search. Since most questions are already answered, there is little to look for...

Maybe some kind words for DelphiHaven, the newsgroups are like Hotel California, the Delphi developers seems friendly, nice, but deep down, they are just prisoners to the Dominatrix Delphi, and you can check out anytime you want... but you can never leave.

Maybe when DelphiHaven's developer realizes Delphi can't feed him or his family, or maybe get him that job promotion he so badly wanted (jobs? what jobs?), or respect his blog wanted, it could be haven, or it could be hell...

:)