Perry blogs about choices developers make. In this case, the choice between Delphi2005 and VS.NET 2003/2005. Is it me, or is he asking the wrong questions to have the arguments come out in favor of Delphi2005?
My take on this at the moment is that I spend a lot of time looking how the .NET framework works, whereas using Delphi2005 would give me VCL.NET, that I know since it’s similar to good old VCL. But choosing a non-VCL.NET project in Delphi2005 would give me the same problem: I’m not too familiair yet with the .NET Framework.
Other than that, I’ve found VS.NET a very mature and stable IDE, so it’s getting me things done.
Why not choose VCL.NET, you might ask? Well, I think a big feature of .NET is the freedom the developer has to choose its tools. Using VCL.NET would restrict me and others to Borland. When I use standard Windows.Forms, it does not matter whether I use VS.NET, Delphi2005, perl.NET or whatever: the code can be compiled, or with minimal effort translated. Depending on proprietary libraries/assemblies ties your hands, as most of us will have experienced to some degree in the past. Giving you a new version (VCL.NET) of a well-known trick (VCL) seems like a good idea for a developer, since you can “port” your code with no or minimal effort. But basically it’s just another way of saying: I’m bound to one tool, and one tool only.