Should I just dive in to GUI programs?

[David Schwartz 433]

Before there was a GUI app like Delphi or VB, there was TurboVision (IIRC) and it was a C++ framework that let you write code that generated a GUI. 

 

And around that time there was the Windows SDK that required you to use two different languages to write a GUI-based app for Windows, and neither of them had a GUI. It sucked.

 

It could be argued that both of these approaches embraced console apps that ran GUIs.

 

In fact, before Windows, there were C libraries that let you build GUI apps entirely in code. I used a popular library called Vitamin C.

 

Delphi is sort of a misnomer. It's really two things: an extended version of the Pascal language called Object Pascal; and a GUI-based development environment built with a very innovative (at the time) event-driven library that implemented a bunch of visual controls, called the Visual Control Library, or VCL.

 

Delphi was supposed to be TurboPascal 8 IIRC, but it was released under its code name of "Delphi". Internally, it still uses product numbering relative to the original release of TurboPascal. And you can still compile old versions of TP code with it.

 

So technically speaking, if you don't USE any of the VCL library units, it's just using stdin, stdout, and stderr for I/O, making the resulting app operate as a simple command-line tool.

 

That would be like buying a nice new car and removing the entire shell so it's just the floorboards, A-frame, drive train, engine, and maybe a stool to sit on while using a vise-grip on the steering wheel shaft to turn. It's certainly possible. Do you know of any driving schools that teach that approach to driving?

 

Driving schools could start out teaching everybody how to drive a stick-shift as well, but ... when was the last time you saw a new car with a stick-shift in a dealership? People who learn to drive them usually start off with a pickup or sports car from the 60's or 70's.