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I suppose, with regard to the question of Delphi, one might simply line up
and summarize or itemize all of the items and points PRO and CON.
One finds such PRO and CON lists for Postgresql vs MySQL vs Oracle, for
Linux vs Windows,... for so many things.
But, its all analogous to an ocean voyage. We all agree that voyages
are exciting adventures. There are so many places which are exotic and romantic,
where we would like to be (and anyplace always looks better to us then wherever
we are at the moment). And every voyage involves crossing the same ocean.
The nature of the ocean and its risks is a constant, a universal, a
given. SO, in order to make our fantastic voyage, we pick out a
popular, dependable ship to transport us to that exotic destination.
We look at the wonderful, solid ocean liner which we have chosen, the
choice of many (we are in good company), and we see on the side of our vessel
that it is called "The Titanic." Well, history has 20/20 hindsight,
and we all know only too well what happens to "The Titanic": it sinks.
So, we have an idea for a project, and application, some software. So, we
choose a company, an operating system, a language, some hardware and
technology. But, then, even if it is the most wonderful hardware and
software in the world, where will it be in ten years, in 20 years?
For so many years, AT&T, was tops, and part of the Standard and Poors
Index (or some stock index, I forget). But now, AT&T has fallen into
second place, and Verizon has taken its place. IBM and Xerox were at the
top, but in some ways fell behind. Bill Gates walked into Palo Alto for a
tour, and stole aways the concept of Windows, and Networks and the Mouse, and
all because the Xerox Company was a bunch of "copier-heads", and they could not
see the value or potential of what they had. I am citing these things from
memory, from a documentary I saw, and perhaps I have confused a few
things.
I am always forgetting the name of the inventor of Visicalc, the very first
spreadsheet program. I had to google just now to remember. Dan Bricklin. Lotus
Corp. finally bought him out for the sole purpose of shelving the competition.
And then Lotus fell into the background in the face of M$ Excel. Look at
Steve Jobs, for that matter, building Apple up from a garage operation, then
getting pushed out, and finally coming back to the help. And when Jobs and
Wozniak first approached Hewlett Packard with the idea of a computer kit for
home computers, Hewlett-Packard thought it would be a fad, and not worth the
effort. My grandfather graduated as a chemist from Yale in 1899. At
one point, early in his career, he had a choice between three different jobs.
One was with Remington repeating firearms, another was with the Pennsylvania
Railroad, and the third was with some new-fangled thing called Polaroid.
His old chemistry professor advised him to stay away from that Polaroid, since
it was only a passing fad. Had he gone in with Polariod on the ground
floor, then with stock options, he might have been fabulously wealthy.
Look at all these vicissitudes, ups and downs.
So, where will Delphi be in ten years? What will support be like? Who
knows? But, if one is faced with some project that needs doing, then one
must make some choice, some decision, and then go with it, live with
it. I suppose one comforting dependable thought is that SQL,
Structured Query Language, is really here to stay. Gone are the days of
proprietary database schemes and file structures. You may not know who
your vendor or provider will be for your SQL engine in ten years. Perhaps
Oracle. Perhaps the open source community. But you can feel fairly certain
that SQL as a technology is here to stay. Thank God something is
dependable. Titanics come and go, but the ocean is always the
ocean.
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