Every 3-6 months or, more frequently it seems, someone has the urge to post some attention grabbing headline such as “Is Delphi Dying” or “Is Delphi a Dead language?” (yes, even unintentionally negative headlines hurt). It recently even despicably overflowed onto StackOverflow. Enough is enough, I thought, I am utterly bored with this discussion.
So, I decided to do something about it. Some of you might have seen some of the marvellous single purpose websites floating around the internet such as:
- Lets turn this f***ing website yellow
- Is the Apple Store Down?
- Do websites need to look the same in every browser?
- Is Lost a repeat?
- and Yet another useless website.
All are simple, single purpose websites, which generally do exactly what they say on the tin (or in the URL as is the case here) and as we know: The information they give must be true after all: “I read it on the internet, so it must be true”. So, late last night I got thinking..
May I proudly introduce to you, the Delphi community’s new and hopefully favourite single serving sites:
Next time you see someone on a forum, in the newsgroups or on stackoverflow asking the most dull and tedious of all the questions I could possibly hear: Is Delphi Dying? or Is Delphi Dead?, point them to one of these sites.
Is Delphi Dead? Is Delphi Dying?
I should point out that the people who like to bring up this particular topic are normally quite persistent. In order to dissuade them from rehashing the same tedious and dull discussions time and time again I have cunningly built in an API.
People who are concerned that that answer might change without them being informed can build an application based on the API which spits out your choice of XML or JSON. This way, the aforementioned doom mongerers can simply build an application (in Delphi, of course) that sits in their tray and periodically polls the service and reassures those greatly concerned of the answer.
The API is very simple, you merely need to append
/API
to the isdelphidead.com or isdelphidying.com domain of your choice and then request either format by querying for XML (default):
/API?xml
or JSON:
/API?json
It’s that simple. So go now and spread the word so that the rest of us can carry on in peace.
[Update 01/11/09]: Russian Delphi programmer Valerian Kadyshev has posted below to inform us that he has in fact made a tray monitoring application (in Delphi of course!) so that concerned people can download his pre-made one if they don’t even want to goto the trouble of making it themselves. You can find version 1 of his “Is Delphi Dying Monitor” over on his site. Marvellous Work Valerian!
I am a Delphi Developer, Web Developer and General Geek. I am a very enthusiastic advocate of hobbyist development and in particular tools which allow for hobbyist development. Please have a good look around and enjoy anything that you find useful on this site. 
Marvelous! Excellent! Fantastic!
Excellent!
Great idea! I LOVE IT.
When TP was replaced (and let’s forget that horrible TP for Windows) the name was changed to Delphi and that helped to give a new fresh air, new horizons (visual, true RAD, 32-bits, etc) but also a sympthom of new life in the product. May be, and i repeat, may be, the managerial optic of Embarcadero can plan something like this for the 64-bit jump. May be call Prism to all, dont know, but that change may give the entire community new material to start talks with other developers and make our Object Pascal favorite compiler/ide known easily.
It’s like gambling, when you are loosing, a risky marketing strategy can really help you.
EXCELLENT
Sweet.
John G, gabr, Dennis, Stephane and Bruce: Thanks, Now all those long heated, opinionated and intense debates can be finished before they start with a single link!
Javier: I’ll read all that as “good work”, in which case – Thanks also!
@jamie, I’ll give you points for optimism, but expect a lot more debates. When logic fails, there’s always dogma.
I am not sure I agree 100%. Let’s just say that interest in Delphi is definitely dying. For example, The local DUG website hasn’t been updated since 2007 – a DUG that used to get free space in a major downtown building every month for its meetings now can’t fill a phone booth (max capacity of 1)
Programming jobs posted in the region for Delphi – Zero.
Number of people being taught Delphi in local institutions – Zero.
It paints a bleak future once the current die hard programmers move on (and there is a post in the few Delphi blogs that exist on a semi annual basis about how they have to move on to other languages to keep working).
Does it have to be? No. Embarcadero needs to seriously step up its game starting right in the earliest stages of education. Time for a free/very low cost educational edition and training.
Other wise the answer isn’t “No”, it is “Slowly, by inches”.
Haha sure Jamie! you did a great move!
And what about adding a link under the big No., may be to the Delphi product’s page?
Excellent!
Excellent work. I’ll be linking to your new sites at every opportunity.
@Bruce: Sadly my head (and experience) tells me that you’re absolutely spot on with that assertion but I feel that we all deserve to dream of a world without stubborn people who feel the need to complain and belittle everything for at least one weekend!
@Xepol: I do hear what you’re saying but it would kind of negate the point of the exercise if I updated the tool to say “Slowly”, that’s not much of a positive message. If you’re concerned then I suggest you build an app to poll the API once every few weeks, just to check
@Javier: Thanks, that’s actually a very good suggestion indeed, I’ll look at adding one in without encroaching too much on the simplicity of the page.
@RRUZ: Thanks!
@Lachlan: Great news indeed! Hope it gives you a small amount of satisfaction and a smile to post!
Nice.
Might be a good idea to build an API in VB6 – just so they can get an idea of what the word “dead” actually means
Rob
I don’t know, but just by seeing the image, I would bet that most, if not all the negatives on google’s dropdown refer to the auto components company, and not to our beloved (but much less known to the public) programming language.
Anyway, congrats for the great idea, I even imagine using this site in some reunions I have with potential clients in reunions. Altough, here in Brazil, the perception of a Delphi decline seems to be much smaller than in other parts of the world.
Great Idea! We needs lots more of these web sites for that strange group of people who hang around something just to run it down. Now I occasionally grumble about this decision or that concerning Delphi but its because I DON’T want it to go away and I am trying to sway the powers that be. Big difference in my book.
Great Idea,
I’ll start directing some people to it.
Thank you.
Good move! I am tired of listen to the DID crowd for years now.
Now we just need to find out how to make Delphi raise in the ratings on Tiobe:
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/
Results 1 – 10 of about 1,400,000 for c# is dead. (0.18 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 110,000 for is c# dying. (0.05 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 1,550,000 for visual studio dead. (0.22 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 306,000 for is cobol dead. (0.31 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 47,300,000 for is php dead. (0.24 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 6,430,000 for is python dead. (0.27 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 367,000 for is fortran dead. (0.21 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 394,000 for is apl dead. (0.23 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 110,000 for is c# dying. (0.26 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 36,300,000 for is c dying. (0.34 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 4,190,000 for is c++ dead. (0.30 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 254,000 for is c++ dying. (0.31 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 64,200,000 for is windows dead. (0.25 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 41,200,000 for is microsoft dead. (0.22 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 1,160,000 for is microsoft dying. (0.25 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 14,300,000 for is google dying. (0.29 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 828,000 for is linux dying. (0.28 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 291,000 for is vms dead. (0.25 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 4,040,000 for is pascal death. (0.32 seconds)
From these searches we see, considering these numbers have something to do with activity, it is the best alternative to write fortan or APL Code on VMS then we can be sure that we have the best chance to die less…
But we see Visual Studio is half as dead and … only 110000 beleive it is dying so it is dead;-).
Results 1 – 10 of about 405,000 for is oberon death. (0.21 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 44,100 for is object pascal dead. (0.28 seconds)
Results 1 – 10 of about 389,000 for is modula III dead. (0.32 seconds)
and last but not least
Results 1 – 10 of about 1,900 for is brainfuck dying. (0.19 seconds)
I’m very sure this will never die…
BTW – bf is a programming lanuage …
Beside this you are right … I’m somehow disappointed about the movment of the public…delphi.non-tech to the blog posts … I would prefer intresting blog posts about solutions developed than talks about why not to develop them, because somehting is …
Mike
@Robert: Building my API in VB6?! Sorry, but I think I’d rather watch paint dry
@Marco: Yeah, you’re right, they almost certainly do refer the ailing company but the image was only meant to illustrate the point of the post and not represent it.
@Leonard: Absolutely, there is a line and some people just seem to want to cross it.
@Mahmoud: Thanks!
@Rif: Sadly, the fix for raising delphi in the TIOBE index isn’t nearly as quick a fix as this is for the DID crew!
@Mike: I’m flattered that you did so much research but the picture wasn’t really the point of the post at all. I’m not sure I know what you’re referring to with the movement of public.d.non-tech posts, what effect are you seeing?
The DID thing goes back to – oh, even BEFORE Anders H went to Microsoft, altho’ I believed it when that happened.
It’s damaging, but it cannot surely be taken seriously anymore.
LMAO, Awesome!!!!
This rules eggs!!!
@Ken,
The first time I remember people predicting the death of Delphi was when I was using Delphi 2 in 1996, and they haven’t been right yet.
Not really the best track record.
LOL! Great post
Very good
Hi folks!
I made a small resident utility, which is available here: Is Delphi Dying Monitor v1.0. Comments?
That site is probably not running on Delphi?
@Maarten and Robert: Thanks for your kind words.
@Valarian Kadshev: Amazing, Great work on the tray monitor. Now people don’t even have to write their own if they’re concerned about missing the Delphi Apocalypse. Thanks for writing that and helping to spread the word!
@beeman: I can’t possibly comment!
But that would have been much more appropriate, I agree!
Btw, I don’t want to be heavy handed with the comment moderation but I’m currently undecided on whether to approve the (2) comments which appear verge on the side of outright pessimism or sheer flame-bait.
This is not a good forum for debate over whether it is or isn’t actually dying, please repost your comments to the Newsgroups.
Mr Zend Allen, I applaud your thought provoking essay but am not sure this is the correct place for it, if you would like me to send your comment back to you so you can repost it in the newsgroups I would be happy to.
Good one
Is Smalltalk dying? Is COBOL dying?
Most languages that ever have had substantial use don’t completely “die”.
But there is a curve involved here, and Delphi is definitely on the downslope of that curve. That’s just reality.
The nonsense that we should be burying is people getting all worked up by random comments in the blogosphere proclaiming that their pet language is dying.
I love Delphi, it’s always been one of my favorite languages. The last version I used was 7 from Borland (is it still owned by Borland?). However, in all my future companies, everything I’ve done has been in C# or .NET (C#). Delphi is a really hard pill to prescribe to a company. Few people know what it is, and fewer managers want it to be used because there are fewer programmers for it (anyone ever heard of MUMPS?).
I haven’t used the language in probably 4 years now… with the exception of some contracting I did to maintain my existing products from a previous company.
This will never happen . It will stay and rise too