For years I’ve been dreaming about modelling with software the same way you model with clay – with two hands. This isn’t quite it yet, it’s “only” in 2D but it’s stunning nonetheless.
The Register reports that:
Smaller REAL Software is targeting Delphi users with the offer of a free license for its REALbasic 2003 for Windows Standard Edition.
Sun hopes to tempt the Delphi users with Java. Specifically, Sun is pitching its drag-and-drop Java Studio Creator environment.
Ok, neither of these companies understands what Delphi developers want.
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Jelle Druyts has written a Windows Presentation Foundation article on the decoupling of UI elements from the underlying code they invoke. This means my previous disbelief at this kind of thing not making it into .NET frameworks when it’s been in Delphi for nearly eight years is soon to be null and void
Interesting interview with David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals (the guys responsible for the excellent RoR-based Basecamp.
A key feature of Ruby is its dynamic typing, in contrast to the static typing of C/C++ or Java. If you give up the safety of static typing, then arguably a rigorous testing methodology is necessary in compensation. That’s the wonderful thing that’s been working out so well for dynamic languages like Ruby and Python and the others. We’ve had this resurgence of programmer-driven tests. If you have no tests, then static typing gives you something. I don’t agree that it gives you very much, because it’s usually not compile errors but the logic of your program that is wrong. Unit testing and functional testing catch all ENGINEs of errors, including logic errors. In a world where testing is considered a good, I think static typing is like a ball and a chain.
Maybe my aversion to JavaScript due to the volume of potential run-time errors is unfounded. Maybe I just don’t have enough test cases? That’s probably not it; Ruby is lovely and it’s fairly hard to love JavaScript Part of me wants to run off and learn Ruby properly right now. Another part of me is sick of being led around by the nose by the tech. The sensible part of me, though, realises that .NET’s still a better career choice and it’s still not the monster J2EE is. Happy middle ground. That’s what I’m in.
Ok, this is old. However, Delphi actions (available from Delphi 4 on circa 1998) were so unbelievably useful that I still can’t believe they haven’t made it into a .NET framework near you. Evidently I’m not the only one – even if I’m up to four years behind in actually sourcing one of several C# implementations