Is someone of my beloved readers lost an heart bit by seeing this splash image?
For me, it all began in 1999, I was about to finish high-school, and got a job at a company working in Delphi. All I knew is C (and a bit of VC++), and didn't really had a formal education except high-school.
So you realize, not only one need to get use to OOP but also the visual richness of Delphi.
Even due I had a hard starting point, I fell in love with Delphi almost immediately, the power, the easiness of harnessing it, it was thrilling.
Lucky for me after a few months I got drafted to the army, to a place developing Rad application in... you could have guessed... Delphi.
Anyway beside the fact that I'm really nostalgic, I can't easily throw anything, and I keep everything that reminds me of good times.
That me.
So why this sudden impulse to write about Delphi, you may ask? Hold on.
One of my favorite features in Delphi was the VCL (Visual Class Library), I've learned so much from Borland developers, it was the first time I've seen patterns in action, the first time I've seen how to implement QuickSort, and it was all under your fingers, lots of code just to serve and as a side product educate and guide you.
Delphi was very popular and IMHO kicked ass of VB at this time, but Delphi's future was uncertain and I've to admit a better predator was soon to prowl the field.
Soon enough I've switched to .Net. Well who can blame me, I was at home, almost everything was familiar and that is not by accident.
Why everything, .Net as it all except VCL, You just couldn't debug into the framework and see what is going on. The brilliant Reflector was a must but still it wasn't the full package.
Until today.
Ariel