Delphi For PHP Released

Gramie2 writes "Codegear (now a subsidiary of Borland) has just released version 1.0 of Delphi for PHP, a RAD development environment (running on Windows) that produces standard PHP code. It features a large set of built-in components, including ones that use AJAX for database access; and Codegear is encouraging users to develop their own components. The framework, VCL for PHP, is open source, and documentation follows the PHP model. Initial database connectivity is for MySQL and Interbase (Codegear's commercial database that spawned the open-source Firebird), but more are promised."

Oh, great

[Corporate Troll]

Writing insecure web applications in less time. Thanks Borland! ;-)

Another desperate attempt.

[Yuioup]

Another desperate attempt by Borland/Codegear to appease their dwindling developer community.

Delphi is dead. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Y

Re:Nice (so-called) dot-net alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Web apps need to be written in proper code, with MVC, and templates, not as code embedded in individual pages.

What, you mean like every developer worth their wage in PHP has been doing for the last x years?

Do try and keep up...

Re:Nice (so-called) dot-net alternative

[sherriw]

"Web apps need to be written in proper code, with MVC, and templates, not as code embedded in individual pages."

No kidding? Have you ever seen a quality application written in PHP- it can do all these things and more. I've written many quality PHP applications that use a modified MVC architecture and has all the PHP code separate from the output templates. On top of that it uses OO where it makes sense to do so, it's fast and secure.

It helps to know what you're talking about before you spout off. Just because lots of people build rickety shacks out of stone, doesn't mean you can't build a solid castle out of it too.

It's this kind of generalization that pisses me off. It's not the language, it's your crappy skills.

Re:Nice (so-called) dot-net alternative

[boaddrink]

If this year was 2000 then I would agree with you. PHP has quite a few MVC frameworks that have been around for some time and are fairly extensively used in enterprise environments. If you know any developers embedding their PHP in the HTML in large apps please ask them to stop.

Here is a small example of a few MVCs out there.
CakePHP - http://www.cakephp.org/ [cakephp.org]
Symfony - http://www.symfony-project.com/ [symfony-project.com]
Zend Framework - http://framework.zend.com/ [zend.com]

Re:AJAX for database access???

[Gramie2]

I guess I could have been clearer. Controls on the page can be linked to datasets on the server. The mechanism is AJAX from the browser to the server; then the server deals with the database; and a return to the browser. But all you have to do is define a dataset, and set properties on the control (list box, table, etc.) to point to the dataset.

Re:Nice (so-called) dot-net alternative

[CastrTroy]

What I like about PHP is that it's flexible enough to do either kind of programming. Being an ASP.Net programmer, I sometimes wish it were just easier to mix the code and presentation when making a quick page. On large projects, it's good not to mix the two, but sometimes throwing together a simple page is easier if you can mix code and presentation.

Re:Nice (so-called) dot-net alternative

[daeg]

Anyone can make a language or framework insecure. PHP just makes it easier than most.

Are you subscribed to the Secunia security mailing list? A good 1/3 - 1/2 of them are flaws in PHP applications with widespread installation bases. That says something about the language, whether it is the language itself or the prominent users of the language, but I suspect it is a combination of both.

Did they miss the point?

[muxecoid]

If webdevs do something Windows they use ASP (ASP.NET). ASP.NET is already RAD-like, the niche is taken.
If they offer tools for PHP and MySQL target servers run Linux, target developers run Linux, and they are missing again.

Re:You kidding me. .NET alternative ?

[umghhh]

but the problems with speed are down to the coding faults people make because they have not a clue how java really works (not a clue about .net - never worked with it). OC you may say that because java folk is an uneducated lot then it is irrelevant whether java code can be fast or not - dead weight of java coder will kill the speed anyway. //

Re:Nice (so-called) dot-net alternative

[Dragonslicer]

Are you subscribed to the Secunia security mailing list? A good 1/3 - 1/2 of them are flaws in PHP applications with widespread installation bases. That says something about the language

That it's easy enough to learn that complete idiots can write crappy code in it? A bad programmer will write bad code in any language that you put in front of them. PHP just happens to be one of the few languages that's simple enough that the aforementioned idiots can write code that works (for varying definitions of "works"). Programming languages can only do so much to promote security before the non-idiots complain that the language won't let them do something that they need to do.

Re:Delphi Dead?

[Ronin Developer]

Is Delphi Dead?

First, you have to define what you mean by Delphi. I code using Delphi 5 & 7 (i.e. Delphi's flavor IDE and Object Pascal) every day. With the number of controls available and the knowledge of being able to create my own visual and non-visual controls, this tool allows the company I work for to remain well ahead of our competitors by at least a year ( they copy our features ).

However, Delphi is no longer just the language - it is now a family of IDEs for many different programming languages that have adopted the same advanced IDE and concepts of the original Delphi product.

Is Delphi dead? Well, try to find competent Delphi developers and you'd be suprised. It's probably easier to find older Delphi developers who know the environment very well than to find younger developers versed in it. If you need a Delphi developer, be prepared to pay them well as they are a rare commidity indeed. And, like any developer for any tool/language, their quality and skills vary.

Has Borland/CodeGear blown it? Perhaps. The definitely pissed me off when they raised the price of their tools well out reach of the small developer. They did that when Phillip Kahn built that palace in Scottsdale. Then, they moved to this application lifestyle BS and, essentially, abandoned their core customers. WTF were they thinking? Then, they blew it with Kylix - they didn't fully develop it and keep the costs down to make it easy to adopt. Then, they dropped it like a hot potato. I haven't upgraded my products since then - I certainly wouldn't be able to afford them (the Enterprise and Architect versions) on my own.

Is $249 or $299 too much to pay for Delphi for PHP? Maybe. They will have to show the community that it's worth spending the big bugs over some other IDEs (free and commercial). Will I play with Delphi for PHP? Probably - if they make a trial version that isn't limited (like the Turbo Explorer products are) and actually be able to create my own components and such. And, it sure as hell better be able to talk to Firebird, MySQL and Oracle and not just Interbase - Yes, I like Firebird.

So, is Delphi dead? Let's say that I am retraining myself for C++, C# and probably Java development in the event that I need to change jobs. But, I will continue to use Delphi as it enables me to put food on the table and pay the bills. And, I like it.

RD

Re:Nice (so-called) dot-net alternative

[shutdown -p now]

No kidding? Have you ever seen a quality application written in PHP- it can do all these things and more. I've written many quality PHP applications that use a modified MVC architecture and has all the PHP code separate from the output templates. On top of that it uses OO where it makes sense to do so, it's fast and secure.

The point is that there is nothing specific to PHP that facilitates this approach, and a lot (such as its template syntax) which distracts from it. If you're going the OO/MVC route, why not use Java? Or, if you really like dynamic typing, Python (and at least get Unicode working properly), or Ruby with all its cool language features?

mod me 'luddite'

[steveoc]

Please mod me down as an old fashioned technology-phobic luddite .....

But I read TFA, and viewed the demo vid, and I cringed.

Maybe Im getting old, but Im perfectly content writing my PHP code in vim, and trusting that my template/rendering classes that I rely on will automatically look after the 'drawing of the screens' part of the application, in an efficient manner.

Im happy just writing code that twiddles attributes, performs calculations, and calls SQL. The only 'visualisation' that happens during coding time happens in my head. If you need to pull in the description of an SQL table at coding time - just :!! out to a shellscript that generates a template given a table name. Its not rocket science.

The mental state of mind that you need to be immersed in whilst coding is very different to the state you need to be in when testing, or viewing the result from an aesthetic POV. Coding belongs in a text editor, and anything else is a distraction.

Even Ajax - Im perfectly content coding that longhand. Its only a few pitiful javascript functions after all, and I dont see the need to wrap them in a framework. Lets not go around pretending that because we are using AJAX, that we are super-coders on the cutting edge of technology .. its just a few javascript functions and a bit of PHP on the receiving end. You should be able to code that in your lunch break.

OK, so my vim/PHP environment might put me back in the dark prehistoric stone ages, but at least I can sleep well at night knowing that none of my webby code is dependent on the fate of a 3rd party commercial product. After all - thats the main reason I use FOSS in the first place. The whole world wide economy can collapse in a radioactive heap tomorrow, and it wont affect my development at all.

And surely to goodness, isnt vanilla PHP with the standard libraries already way high level enough ? What sort of sheer sloth and laziness leads one to think that they need to front-end PHP with something even higher level ? Are we evolving into a race of Jabba-the-hut's, or what ?

Anyone that commits the blasphemy of 'developing an application' using mostly mouse-clicks honestly needs to be placed into a jar of isopropyl alcohol, and donated to medical science - it is just plain wrong, and always has been.

I tend to take the machine's side of the argument anyway - the less code the machine has to munch through in order to come up with any given result, the happier I am. The end result is just pixels on a screen when you think about it, and a lot of frameworks just add more and more layers of code munching for the machine to produce those same pixels and same behaviour. Silly - just keep it light, simple, scalable and avoid dependencies on proprietary products.

Whats so hard about that ?

Re:Your app on Delphi

[ajs318]

Well, this is what happens when you use an authoring package of any kind. It's a pretty much unavoidable consequence of using a tool to do a job for which it was not designed. That's the difference between a calligrapher and an idiot with a stencil.

It's obvious when a web page was made using Dreamweaver, because you'll get things like <font> tags around spaces and sometimes nested <font> tags rather than declaring the colour, size and typeface in one {or, preferably, doing it properly with CSS}. The problem is that these authoring packages don't reduce things to their simplest terms the way a good programmer will do as a matter of course. It's rather like using a slide rule to do a series of multiplications followed by a series of divisions, as opposed to alternating multiplications with divisions {which is almost twice as fast; a multiply-and-divide operation is just as quick as a single operation, unless it goes of the end and requires repositioning of the slide}.

All in all, a WYSIWYG front end to a non-WYSIWIG process always ends up being a bit like having a device with piano-like keys that clips onto the neck of a guitar and frets and strums the strings according to the keys you're pressing, so that -- in theory -- a pianist can get a tune out of a guitar. In practice it looks riduculous and sounds mediocre at best.

Re:Nice (so-called) dot-net alternative

[sootman]

Yeah, and everyone should eat their vegetables, brush their teeth, drive the speed limit, etc etc etc. My code would probably make a seasoned developer weep but my apps are simple, they work, I'm able to maintain them easily, and hundreds of people use them daily with no ill effects. The whole point of PHP--and I've heard Rasmus Lerdorf say this personally--is to make it easy for people to crank out apps that are useful. Period. I don't stay awake worrying that some CS grad (or worse, some self-taught RoR fanboy) won't like that I've mixed data and presentation. I try to keep things somewhat neat, but if I need to jump into the middle of a table and say
<td<?php if ('somethingBad'==$currentValue) { print ' bgcolor="red"'; } ?>>
I will.

Re:Borland has died after Borland Delphi 7

[Bozdune]

...blistering crotch fires of agony...

Thank you, that's one to file away in the "useful phrases" department. I like it.