The cult of Delphi
Delphi's faithful followers grow in number and
in spirit.
First of all, I would like to thank the Delphi
community for honoring me with the Spirit of
Delphi Award. Bob
Swart and I were this year's recipients, and
although I'm sure there are many others devoting more
time and effort to spreading the word about Delphi, I am
honored.
I took a gamble on a new programming language called
Delphi five years ago. At that time, I was betting on a
technology that might not survive. Here we are five
years later, and much of Borland's success these days
(maybe even its survival) is due to the product's
popularity.
Delphi has generated about 50 percent of Borland's
revenues in recent years, but certainly has not
accounted for 50 percent of its expenses. At this year's
Inprise & Borland Conference, interim CEO Dave
Fuller asserted that Delphi has kept Borland alive and
showed his commitment to the product by doubling the
size of its R&D team.
So it turns out that my gamble on Delphi has paid
off.
Worldwide Delphi
Delphi's popularity is especially strong outside of
the Microsoft-dominated United States. According to
Borland, European sales of the product have exceeded
U.S. sales in some markets, which is very uncommon in
the information technology industry. Living in Europe
and receiving e-mail from Delphi programmers worldwide,
I can testify to the product's solid international
following. Europe hosts a number of Delphi conferences
and events, has large and active Delphi user groups, and
is home to some of the most popular Delphi Web sites
(the Delphi Super
Page, to name one) and magazines.
Delphi's following also spreads beyond Europe. My
Delphi books have been translated into a number of
languages and I get feedback from readers throughout the
world. Looking at my e-mail, the largest numbers of
Delphi programmers seem to be from Brazil and China.
India, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and a few South
American countries run a close second. I've even
received correspondence from Delphi programmers in the
Sudan and Uzbekistan, two countries not particularly
well-known for software development.
The number of Delphi Web sites is also impressive.
Using search engines like Yahoo and AltaVista, I found
three times as many Web pages about Microsoft Visual
Basic as I found on Borland Delphi, which, oddly enough,
is pretty remarkable. When you consider that VB sells
far more copies than Delphi, the fact that there are
only three times as many sites related to VB shows that
Delphi programmers are much more active in promoting
their language than their Visual Basic counterparts.
There are well over a thousand Web sites offering not
only valuable information, but also help with Delphi. I
promise I'll devote a column in the future to Delphi
sites (let me know your favorite ones). Some sites might
encourage you to buy their components, but offer other
components for free. They also publish articles and
white papers describing users' experiences with Delphi
and host open-source efforts, which are becoming
increasingly popular. These Delphi Web sites are written
in many different languages and are hosted by people
worldwide who, although they might have different goals,
are united by one common desire: to spread the word
about how great Delphi is.
I understand that Java and Linux programmers are also
highly involved in promoting their tools, but they come
in second to Delphi programmers in terms of enthusiasm.
Users of Microsoft products are seldom this happy with
their tools; they're satisfied with how they work, but
don't often develop particular affection for the
products.
Delphi is not only a product. It is a community. It
is OUR community, growing and becoming more organized --
thanks in part to Borland's efforts, but mainly because
of the faithful Delphi followers. You need only look at
examples like the JEDI project or
the highly active Borland newsgroups to see the passion.
Writing this column is another way to promote Delphi.
The column is not only mine, it belongs to the entire
Delphi community, so let me know what you want to see in
it... and stay tuned.
Originally written for InPublishing LLC for publication by Inprise Corp. Copyright 1999 Inprise Corp.
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