Jerry,

>I tend to agree with you Eric. Being an old Pascal programmer who cut his teeth on Turbo Pascal 3.02a with the Database Toolkit, I was happy to see Borland put a GUI front end onto Pascal. But, after having used it, I can tell you that prior version of Delphi were NOT VB clones. Delphi had a tendency to generate too much code in the background and when you added to or modified the code Delphi would frequently mess up what you did, or ignore it. You could develop forms and drag&drop widgets onto those forms. In that respect it was like VB. But, VB was a LOT easier to code with and the whole thing, from Global.bas on down was easir to understand and use. Once you get away from menu driven linear coding Pascal's strict data typing and block structure was a pain in the rear. Variant7 solved a lot of problems. IMO. ;-)

Eh? Strict data typing seems like a pain, but in the long run it helps prevent hard-to-detect runtime bugs, etc. Besides, if you are using KDevelop you are using C++, no? That requires data typing as well, doesn't it? I know C++ compilers are more forgiving than Pascal, but variables still need to be declared...?

Just for the record, I don't know of any serious VB shop that doesn't have Option Explicit turned on. When given the choice, explicitly declaring variables is always a good thing.

Ever since version 1.0 of Delphi, I have found it easier to use than VB. Sure, it takes a bit longer to get used to using Delphi units and such, but once you catch on to how things are working, Delphi is a piece of cake. And having the fastest compiler in existence doesn't hurt either. *smile*

>Anyway, against KDevelop using C++, using ddd as the integrated debugger, CVS, plus the documentation builtin, and more, Delphi doesn't have a chance.

Now THAT I seriously doubt. Delphi (Kylix) will _easily_ hold its own if it is all it is cracked up to be (and from what I have seen of it, it is). For one, porting Windows applications to Linux is much easier with Kylix, and there are a LOT of Delphi apps out there in Windows. Also, it is a virtual guarantee that anyone who uses Delphi right now will begin to use Kylix (Why wouldn't they? Apps will run on both Linux and Windows). Would you say more people are using KDevelop right now than are using Delphi? I wouldn't think so. And Kylix certainly won't shrink the overal Delphi market share -- it can only increase it.

JoeK