My First Blog: Larry and the Monster

Hi and welcome to Larry’s Delphi blog! I love Delphi and have wanted to publish a Delphi blog for some time now. Well, here it is! If you love Delphi or if you are interested in finding out more about Delphi and its loyal community, I think that you will enjoy my musings. Why do I love Delphi? I love it because I have a small brain. Someone once said…

"The people who are best at programming are the people who realize how small their brains are. They are humble. The people who are the worst at programming are the people who refuse to accept the fact that their brains aren’t equal to the task. Their egos keep them from being great programmers. The more you learn to compensate for your small brain, the better a programmer you’ll be.”

Delphi certainly helps me to compensate for my small brain. I have a number of options available to me to get a particular job done. I want to be efficient and minimize complexity. For my needs and projects, Delphi has successfully filled the billfor many years.

To read an interesting discussion of small brains and how programmers use web resources, click this link: Who is not connected these days?

About Me and the Monster

As an independent consultant and developer, I need tools that help me get the job done as quickly and as cost effectively as possible. Before my independent days, I worked for a major corporation who often chose solutions based on factors other than being the best and most efficient for the job. This always irritated me. Again, I have a small brain and I adhere to the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid).

I have written software for a number of small businesses who have limited budgets and needs that require reasonably quick solutions. Delphi has been a trusted companion over the years and has never let me down.

The only writing about Delphi that I have done other than some papers and presentations for the Houston Association of Delphi Professionals (http://www.hadp.org/) is a review of the 2004 Borland Conference in San Jose. This is old news, but if you are a BirlandDelphi history buff, you can read it here. This conference was held in late 2004 and I remember asking, “Can we have another version of Delphi for Win32?” . Well, CodeGear finally answered my prayer in 2007 with Delphi 2007 for Win32. I am hopeful that CodeGear will be true to its new motto, and becomes a company “…where developers matter”.

I think that my brain is too small for .NET. Or maybe, .NET is too big for my brain. Like a monster in your dreams that you cannot escape from, ,NET really scares me. I think that many have adopted it because of corporate pressure, the dominant position of MS and in some cases because of Borland’s decisions to get into the enterprise at the neglect of its developer community. I do not think that .NET fits my KISS philosophy. This is why I think that CodeGear has lots of potential with Delphi for PHP and its Ruby endeavors. Only time will tell if the monster will finally catch me.

Here is a good example of why I love Delphi and why I fear the monster. Click this link to read A Delphi 2007 Success Story.

Future Blog Content

I intend to blog about Delphi Win32 development, Interbase, ReportBuilder and Delphi for PHP (which I am learning). I will also blog about other related technologies and trends. Like many developers I routinely browse the web for news, opinion, tips, techniques and new technologies. I am particularly interested in storage innovations. Hopefully, we are nearing the end of the rotating platter hard drive era. I will pass on information that “grabs” me. Perhaps I should call this blog, “Delphi and Stuff”.

Stay tuned…

PS: Every Delphi developer should be linked to DelphiFeeds.com