A Delphi case-study

From the annals of the news://forums.borland.com/borland.public.delphi.non-technical newsgroup another great post about the usage of Delphi 7 & 8 to move into .NET:

From: Sinan Karaca

I wanted to provide a "case study" based on my experiences using Delphi 7&8
in tandem.

1) Using Delphi.NET, I was able to start coding for the .NET platform
immediately. Without learning a single new thing about .NET. I used VCL.NET,
of course.
2) As the need arose, I started working with .NET classes and learning
them - the rest was handled by VCL and the other FX that Delphi provides.
This made the learning curve very, very smooth.
3) All my expertise and knowledge on the Win32 API, I leveraged with
P/Invoke. While it is a valid charge that my code won't run on Mono, I
really don't care. I am targeting .NET FX 1.1 on Windows. It will be years
before Mono and/or other .NET implementations come close to the
behavior/stability offered by M$ on the Windows .NET FX. Although M$
presents .NET as a new platform, I tend to see it as a new framework -
nothing more.

4) Maybe this is the best part - I was able to back-port the same
application to Win32 in a week or so. AND I have single source compiles for
Win32/.NET now. True, there are quite a few IFDEFs here and there, but that
is all it cost.

We all know the famous example - open the Delphi 1 fishfacts app, and it
compiles under D8. Now you have a single source app, compiling on Win16,
Win32, and .NET. This definitely says something!

I consider my knowledge of VCL an investment, one that will last well into
the future - Borland gives us reason to believe that even when M$ drops the
Win32 API, we will still be leveraging our VCL knowledge - and natively, at
that. While I have occasionally fallen in to the "oh what if Delphi gets
discontinued" panic, which seemed to be a real threat back in the Del Yocam
days - I think time has proven the choices I made.

What can I say - keep it up guys! We love ya.

Sinan