Mega Code Archive

Earth to Borland Delphi is a great Web App. Development Environment

Title: Earth to Borland: Delphi is a great Web App. Development Environment. Question: Mark Brittingham made some good points - therefore i am posting this here, altough it's kind of a *different* D3K article !! ... you have the possibility to rate this article or leave some comments - if you agree or don't agree with it ! There is also a new forum to talk about the future: "Borland the Webrevolutionaries" Bernhard A. Answer: Dear Borland, Ok, I've just checked the market and Allaire - makers of ColdFusion - has a market cap almost 2.5 times as large as Inprise. I've worked extensively in ColdFusion and Delphi and, although this might surprise you, Delphi *can* be a far better environment (more on this below). In particular, Cold Fusion apps are slow, fat pigs compared to Delphi ISAPI apps - they don't scale as well and they suffer from intrinsic, obscure bugs. Ah, but Allaire is an "Internet" company. And the internet, with 780 gazillion users, is the future. Ok, I say Delphi *can* be a better environment. Most developers, however, just look at your "Webvolutionaries" marketing stuff, look at Delphi and wonder what the hell the connection is! Even JBuilder doesn't quite cut it anymore now that MS has succeeded in killing the idea of client-side Java. At this point, it is safe to say that Borland is not perceived as an important player in the most important technology market to come along since the PC - despite having one of the best tools for working with that technology. This is because there are three critical aspects Web Development that are not complete. First, your documentation must focus on the creation of dynamic Web Sites. This is *very different* from documenting WebBroker usage. Remember, Web Application Development is primarily a matter of PROGRAMMING THE BROWSER. But someone trying to approach Delphi doesn't understand how ISAPI and WebBroker helps him reach this goal unless you tell him! Here's the key: if you want to be "webvolutionaries," the framework you build must help users understand the big picture as well as the specific technologies. Second, did you know that supporting your own custom extensions (say a ".DWM" file - for Delphi Web Markup) is really pretty simple? I posted instructions on the forum a few minutes ago if you are curious. Ok, most of us think that this is a cool, techie kind of thing. To me it SCREAMS of business opportunity for Borland - but you don't seem to be getting it. What do you think when you see a page downloading with an ASP or CFM file extension? You think Microsoft or Allaire. If you want to be "webvolutionaries" the framework you build must enable users to get to the web with both ease and power. A web application development environment, centered on Delphi/C++ and an HTML environment (HoTMetaL Pro, perhaps) that explicitly supports DWM files is just the beginning. And they must work together smoothly (although they must work apart as well - life is never easy). Third, and related to the idea of DWM extensions, is the idea of explicit support for enhanced site functionality. While Borland is finally planning support for session management (see my MDWeb library, uploaded earlier, if you want to get started now), this is not nearly enough. Support for commonly needed tags (time, date, forms data storage, etc.) should be automatic. Better yet, add plug-ins for ecommerce calls, emailing, chat rooms, forums and personalization. Make the DWM format, and the extensions that you add, strongly compatible with XML. Think "content management"! See Bob Metcalfe's recent InfoWorld opinion piece on Vignette (March 31st) if you don't see what I'm getting at. Having built a lot of this stuff already for my own Web Development foundations I can tell you that the combination of these high-level tools and the speed and power of Native Delphi executables places my Delphi installation in a class above my Cold Fusion environment. Hopefully, I won't hear the traditional Borland argument that you guys build the tools and not the actual software. Development is moving rapidly to the point where the kind of plug-ins I present *are* the tools. If you stick to the idea that the Windows/Linux API is the highest level of your support, you'll end up with a total market of about ten companies: the ten web companies that build the higher level web app tools that everyone else uses. If you want to be "webvolutionaries" you've got to understand that the web is about content, interactivity, and connections. People are looking to you for tools to manage that content, to build the interactivity, and to forge those connections. But, unless you have an answer - and soon - they'll just stop asking. I'd love to see the day when no journal would *think* of creating a side-by-side comparison of ColdFusion, Silverstream, etc. without including Borland's Delphi (or a spin-off) for developing web apps. Let's hope you would too. Dr. Mark Brittingham Mark Brittingham Associates April, 14th 2000