Comment by rep_movsd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rep_movsd | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think anything except Visual C# comes close in terms of being able to build GUIs As for cross platform mobile apps, is there even any RAD tool other than this?

The reason for Delphis lack of popularity now is because the era of the desktop application died around 2012 or so.

Everything is a webpage now, including many mobile apps. The cost we have paid by using HTML and JS as the way to build apps is not well recognized - everyone only does it because there is no real alternative. The Stockholm syndrome is fully matured.

React/Angular etc are the equivalent of what the VCL was to the crude Win32 API and MFC base. React is as close to RAD as you can get without a visual designer.

If I was going to develop mobile apps that were much more than a CRUD like UI, I'd probably opt for Delphi

The desktop application is nearly dead on the consumer side (but not quite: Photoshop, Office, etc. are still extremely popular).

But in medicine, finance, manufacturing, industrial design, aerospace, hospitality, and so on, almost everything is native desktop apps. Mostly Windows, maybe a little Linux, very little macOS. Look at what your doctor is using the next time you visit. It's going to be a traditional desktop app on Windows.

Many of these apps are undoubtedly made with Delphi or C++Builder.

Epic over Citrix…

I think it’s a stretch to call Citrix a traditional desktop app in this context.

They are, but people are now king of expecting to be able to access their software from anywhere, including their phone or tablet. Hard to do, if you have millions of lines of MFC code. Which opens up opportunities for newcomers.

Desktop applications are quite alive in specialised domains like life sciences laboratory domains, multimedia, gaming, among others.

Office 365 and Google docs will never be more than Works was capable of, and 3D APIs are so good experience, stuck in 10 years old hardware design, that everyone just tried once more to push streaming instead.

Yup. Tell these cheapskates who downvote me when I tell them they are aware of the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

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