Are we just "Cash Cows"?

[Bill Meyer 337]

21 minutes ago, Anders Melander said:

True, there's no wizard that can, clickety-click, write your template code for you, but it's really not that hard to do yourself once you've decided how to apply the pattern.

And that is probably at the heart of the complaints.

 

22 minutes ago, Anders Melander said:

It makes no sense to insist that one tool should be good for all problems or that Delphi should support all patterns. There are patterns that work well in Delphi but which doesn't fit for example JavaScript. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with JS. It just means you need to use a different pattern.

To refer again to Brooks: There is still no silver bullet.

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

12 hours ago, Günther Schoch said:

Are we just "Cash Cows"?

Well, if you look at Idera management team, it's very obvious Delphi is just part of investment portfolio. So, yes, money first, everything else second.

 

What they achieved in 5 years since acquiring Embarcadero, related to Delphi/RAD Studio - I assume it applies to many other tools:

- increase price as much as possible (it's staying below $7K, which is a sort of wide range Enterprise limit) -> maximize revenue from Enterprise customers - Done

- full subscription business model -> lock Enterprise customers - Done

- multi-platform -> lock enterprise customers - Done

- implement market place - they tried, but realized they are 15 years too late -> GetIt is best they could do in current Delphi market

- improve marketing, sales channels - I think we can all agree that they are doing a lot in this area, in some ways more successful than others

- ... and many more that focus on Enterprise customers first

 

I'm sure these checks are part of the strategy that lead to next step: sell Embarcadero (or just RAD Studio). And I think this is going to happen in next 3 years.

 

Now, the good thing is that one of the focus points that are left, is quality. So, good things are coming 🙂

 

[Bill Meyer 337]

13 minutes ago, Mike Torrettinni said:

- improve marketing, sales channels - I think we can all agree that they are doing a lot in this area, in some ways more successful than others

Marketing? Doing a lot? Examples?

[Anders Melander 1783]

1 hour ago, Bill Meyer said:

Marketing? Doing a lot? Examples?

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

2 hours ago, Bill Meyer said:

Marketing? Doing a lot? Examples?

Compared to 10 years ago, they definitely increased their online presence, just look at the website. The email campaigns have become annoying especially before new releases, but seems they are better coordinate across offices.

Cool App competition, online academy, t-shirt design contest, ... I don't remember were they doing all this prior 2015?

[Bill Meyer 337]

11 hours ago, Mike Torrettinni said:

Compared to 10 years ago, they definitely increased their online presence, just look at the website. The email campaigns have become annoying especially before new releases, but seems they are better coordinate across offices.

Cool App competition, online academy, t-shirt design contest, ... I don't remember were they doing all this prior 2015?

And how are people not already using Delphi being led to the site? Yes,  it is good that the site has been improved, but it is likely preaching to the choir. The other items you mention have, I think, been mostly promoted on the site. So again....

[Bill Meyer 337]

As to the titular question of the thread, I consider "cash cow" to be prejudicial to the discussion. Embarcadero is a company, not a charity, and Delphi is a commercial product, not an open source free tool.

I rather suspect that all of us here labor for a pay check -- does that make us evil?

At any event, the term cash cow is normally applied to a product, not to customers.

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

21 hours ago, Kas Ob. said:

developer don't or can't be called developer if they lack the ability to deliver tested and working code, you simply don't deliver and don't collect !

 

 

 

When you sit on millions of lines of code, in projects with several developers, implementing thousands of functions, and integrating with numerous systems, you need automated unit testing, automated integration testing and dedicated testers with proper test plans.

 

We are not talking about one-man toy projects here.

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

4 minutes ago, Bill Meyer said:

And how are people not already using Delphi being led to the site? Yes,  it is good that the site has been improved, but it is likely preaching to the choir. The other items you mention have, I think, been mostly promoted on the site. So again....

Well, we see these things differently. I see the progress, the changes - I like all the buzz being created around Delphi. We could argue the effectiveness, but compared to prior Idera times... I welcome the changes.

And Embarcadero is software company, there are some limitations on how marketing to attract new customers is effective with software products vs the cost of it.

[Bill Meyer 337]

4 minutes ago, Mike Torrettinni said:

Well, we see these things differently. I see the progress, the changes - I like all the buzz being created around Delphi. We could argue the effectiveness, but compared to prior Idera times... I welcome the changes.

And Embarcadero is software company, there are some limitations on how marketing to attract new customers is effective with software products vs the cost of it.

Efforts are encouraging; positive results are better.

[Bill Meyer 337]

6 minutes ago, Lars Fosdal said:

When you sit on millions of lines of code, in projects with several developers, implementing thousands of functions, and integrating with numerous systems, you need automated unit testing, automated integration testing and dedicated testers with proper test plans.

 

We are not talking about one-man toy projects. here.

Sometimes, you can only creep toward unit testing. There is a tremendous amount of legacy code out there.

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

Just now, Bill Meyer said:

Sometimes, you can only creep toward unit testing. There is a tremendous amount of legacy code out there.

I agree, it is not something you easily add as an afterthought. 

That said, when modifying or refactoring legacy code - unit testing and integration testing is more than a little helpful.

Testing is the only way to ensure that you have achieved only the changes you intended and haven't inadvertently introduced something unfortunate. 

When writing new code, writing unit tests helps you write testable code. It is extra work, but it really pays off.

[Bill Meyer 337]

2 minutes ago, Lars Fosdal said:

That said, when modifying or refactoring legacy code - unit testing and integration testing is more than a little helpful.

Testing is the only way to ensure that you have achieved only the changes you intended and haven't inadvertently introduced something unfortunate.

All true, but legacy code tends to contain massive routines and an unpleasant degree of coupling. Testability requires unit isolation, and -- ahem -- comprehensible routines.

Gentle and iterative refactoring is the only viable approach I see to dealing with some of the code monsters which live in legacy apps. And rewriting is rarely an option, since it would often be necessary to refactor to achieve enough comprehensibility that you could write a design spec.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Lars Fosdal said:

When you sit on millions of lines of code, in projects with several developers, implementing thousands of functions, and integrating with numerous systems, you need automated unit testing, automated integration testing and dedicated testers with proper test plans.

 

We are not talking about one-man toy projects here.

For sure we not talking about toys, but real world project, hypothetically written and developed by best of the best (grade A+ experts) to be used by developers (good and bad) to develop applications, no arguing there, one or many teams that came and went over developing that project, those are is facts, those teams should have done their job by implementing tests, as they had been paid to do, (assuming here) 

 

Now let differentiate testing into two parts,

A) tests that developers do while developing to ensure correctness of functionality from their experience and pint of view, and here the developers will miss tons of things because many things changes ( OS, a developer missed some API margin case...)

B) tests done by testers, dedicated testers, if testers work is *only* to run the tests done by developers then those aren't testers they are more like cabin boys, and belongs to the developers office, testers should test for functionality in real world cases and they should have high level of experience with the product and can think the unthinkable, those literally similar what beta testers is doing all over the world.

 

Now to reality, if you already have millions of lines application with X features ( feature is like package of function code) then you already should have at least X tests, so adding a feature like managed records should not go beyond Y tests from the developers and the same testers for functionality should do the same with extra Y, because X already been tested for over 20 years already, hadn't been tested for 20 years ? and it would merely checked out by simply running the tests added by the developers after the testers ( or cabin boys) reported over 20 years.

 

When building huge new project from the ground then yes you need dedicated testers, when adding feature to huge application, it either you already have working environment with already enough dedicated testers or not, 10 consequence years of releasing a product, failing in basic functionality or breaking what was working, can that be enough as proof for ( incompetent ) developers behaving like toys makers, and failed management in assessing what should be checked as ready to deliver and what should be have extra pass of QA .

 

[Guest]

Who do remember when Seattle released with inconsistent binary ?, i mean each compile generate different EXE, every one responsible for that should had been let go with everyone ran a test and it did fail, or there wasn't a test.

 

Lets put it right in short, call us cows and take our milk and stakes, but we need grass, edible green grass full of nutrition to stay alive and prosper hence you will live too.

 

you can't expect milk or stake from hungry thin cow, the only thing you will get by pushing it hard is the dark and yellow stuff, same what are you trying to feed the cow.

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

As I said, they need to spend more resources on testing. 

[Guest]

Sorry Lars, away from the subject but couldn't resist , sorry 

 

This is from About Us on Embarcadero site describing the company and it team.

Quote

Embarcadero tools are built for elite developers who build and maintain the world’s most critical applications. Our customers choose Embarcadero because we are the champion of developers, and we help them build more secure and scalable enterprise applications faster than any other tools on the market. In fact, ninety of the Fortune 100 and an active community of more than three million users worldwide have relied on Embarcadero's award-winning products for over 30 years.

If you’re trying to build a business-critical application in a demanding vertical, Embarcadero is for you. If you’re looking to write steadfast code quickly that will pass stringent code reviews faster than any other, Embarcadero is for you. We’re here to support elite developers who understand the scalability and stability of C++ and Delphi and depend on the decades of innovation those languages bring to development.

phewww ......, much better now , i am out

[Bill Meyer 337]

41 minutes ago, Kas Ob. said:

...hypothetically written and developed by best of the best (grade A+ experts)...

All teams have turnover. New team members are typically ignorant of product intricacies. They may be expert developers -- or unseasoned but well educated recent graduates -- but in either case, they may easily overlook details which create issues. This is simple reality, and applies not only to Delphi, but to any specialized and complex product.

[Rollo62 536]

4 minutes ago, Kas Ob. said:

This is from About Us on Embarcadero site describing the company and it team.

Oh man, this is still the very same text from 1995.

Embarcadero has to update that, please file a QP report.

[Anders Melander 1783]

57 minutes ago, Bill Meyer said:

All true, but legacy code tends to contain massive routines and an unpleasant degree of coupling.

And the only one that knows what it does left ages ago... So it's not even possible to test if the new implementation works the same as the old because nobody knows exactly what or why the old did.

Yup. That's what I deal with. Every. Single. Day.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Rollo62 said:

Embarcadero has to update that, please file a QP report.

Hehehe, when i will open an QP it will be to ask removing the patents mentioned in the about box, all are out expired for years now and one in particular belongs to something almost identical to ODBC itself.

[Bill Meyer 337]

13 minutes ago, Anders Melander said:

And the only one that knows what it does left ages ago... So it's not even possible to test if the new implementation works the same as the old because nobody knows exactly what or why the old did.

Yup. That's what I deal with. Every. Single. Day.

We are in the same trenches.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Bill Meyer said:

All teams have turnover. New team members are typically ignorant of product intricacies. They may be expert developers -- or unseasoned but well educated recent graduates -- but in either case, they may easily overlook details which create issues. This is simple reality, and applies not only to Delphi, but to any specialized and complex product.

Right on point, but we can't blame developers for that or be asking the developers to invent something new, it is the management, so it either incompetent leadership, or not their responsibility ?

 

I mean you can gather best world football player in one team, can say it will be the winner of it all, no you can't on contrary it might lose each and every match, might is the word, and the decision should be from the management to let some go and bring others, unless the management is living in parallel world, you can't blame the developers for anything when they have bosses, same bosses that control the R&D and point it, the same who decide the team is ready for real world math or deliver a tested product.

[David Heffernan 2345]

3 hours ago, Mike Torrettinni said:

I like all the buzz being created around Delphi.

There is no buzz. Where are all the new developers?

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

3 minutes ago, David Heffernan said:

There is no buzz. Where are all the new developers?

My first post here is describing Embarcadero's focus on Enterprise customers - keeping current, engaging them to keep Delphi alive, add new developers, multi-platform solutions... of course the whole engagement trickles down to smaller ISV, single developers, but not really focused on new developers.

I assume majority of engaged developers on this site are part of smaller Delphi teams or individuals, so the expectations and observations are of course different.

 

I wish I was wrong and we have a generation of new Delphi developers, but perhaps Community edition, Academy and other activities could slowly add a few of them, but their main focus doesn't seem to be new developers.