Bookmarks dead?

[Tom F 83]

[Silver Black 23]

Not only in Alexandria... I just installed the CE 10.4.2 Sidney and there are no more Bookmarks / Navigator IDE plug-ins... WTH is happening?!

[Lajos Juhász 293]

33 minutes ago, Silver Black said:

Not only in Alexandria... I just installed the CE 10.4.2 Sidney and there are no more Bookmarks / Navigator IDE plug-ins... WTH is happening?!

Feature Matrix:

IDE productivity tool: Bookmarks*, which extends the IDE’s previous marking of locations in the code editor. * Available for download in the GetIt Package Manager (not for Community Edition)

 

[Uwe Raabe 2058]

5 hours ago, Silver Black said:

WTH is happening?!

It is probably in quarantine due to a COVID infection...

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

Timely info from EMBT: <crickets>

[FredS 138]

7 hours ago, Lars Fosdal said:

<crickets>

Maybe looking for a third MVP to help out 🙂

[Silver Black 23]

On 12/17/2021 at 5:12 AM, Lajos Juhász said:

Feature Matrix:

IDE productivity tool: Bookmarks*, which extends the IDE’s previous marking of locations in the code editor. * Available for download in the GetIt Package Manager (not for Community Edition)

 

That's a real shame. In CE 10.3 it was there, in the GetIt Package Manager. And it's still there.
So now it's not for CE anymore. 

[dummzeuch 1505]

A mess like this is the reason why I am usually not thrilled when Embarcadero buys some tool or some components/library and takes over maintenance.

[Tom F 83]

5 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

A mess like this is the reason why I am usually not thrilled when Embarcadero buys some tool or some components/library and takes over maintenance.

Good point.
 

Messes like this often have have the stink of a company that has decided to take larger profits rather than sufficiently funding their engineering staff. 
 

Whether that’s the case with Emb, I don’t  know.  

[Tommi Prami 130]

Open Sourcing those plugins would be pretty good choice, depending on things. Might contain lot of closed source code etc which would make it impossible.  I think David has other things also, I think some of us might be willing to help 🙂

 

Also having good quality plugins with ritch GUI would be suberb to have as OpenSource, as a stepping stone for others also.

 

Just my 0.02€ 
 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Tommi Prami
Formatting

[dummzeuch 1505]

2 minutes ago, Tommi Prami said:

Open Sourcing those plugins would be pretty good choice, depending on things. Might contain lot of closed source code etc which would make it impossible.  I think David has other things also, I think some of us might be willing to help 🙂

 

Also having good quality plugins with ritch GUI would be suberb to have as OpenSource, as a stepping stone for others also.

While I agree in principle, an open source project without somebody actually maintaining it, is pretty much useless. And I can tell you from experience that it takes a lot of time and effort.

 

On the other hand, a closed source plugin without somebody maintaining it, is totally useless once a new Delphi version is released.

[Tommi Prami 130]

True,

Maintainer and/or lead developer would be still needed but as it is now, we can't help.

 

-Tee-

[Joseph MItzen 251]

On 11/18/2021 at 5:07 PM, corneliusdavid said:

the hard-working team behind the complex and powerful development tools we use.

You criticize others for maintaining insight they don't really have, and then you do the same thing in the same sentence. What we do know about their parent company is that several times in the past after acquiring companies they fired most of the programmers and outsourced the development work to China and other countries with cheaper labor. They also tend to gain new products via acquisition rather than internal development.  Embarcadero is privately owned and doesn't have to answer to shareholders.

 

Quote

I'm also fairly certain they didn't have a choice and are also not allowed to voice those internal issues.

Again, you're being as clairvoyant as those you criticized, but if management doesn't even allow developers to say "this doesn't work" then things are even worse than feared. Things wouldn't even be fixable if people who see problems can't point them out.

 

Quote

Personally, I feel sorry for them and the pressure they must be under, especially when they read these posts and can't do a single thing about it.

They can quit and keep their integrity. I've walked before rather than have my name associated with a doomed project when management ignored my concerns. If you don't quit, "I was just following orders" isn't an excuse if you knew better and went ahead and did it anyway.

[corneliusdavid 214]

15 minutes ago, Joseph MItzen said:

They can quit and keep their integrity

You make it sound so simple but that's seldom reality. I've had jobs where I've worked on fascinating projects and with great people but there will be one manager that promises things to too many customers and then has to make excuses for why stuff isn't done. When we get on the phone with customers, we're not allowed to talk about internal priorities or other reasons why something isn't done. It's quite frustrating but just walking out isn't always the best choice if there are no other jobs in the area or if other parts of the employment are good enough to keep you there. I was eventually able to leave that company but it took me a while to line up something else.

[Joseph MItzen 251]

33 minutes ago, corneliusdavid said:

. It's quite frustrating but just walking out isn't always the best choice if there are no other jobs in the area or if other parts of the employment are good enough to keep you there. I was eventually able to leave that company but it took me a while to line up something else.

What, you don't want to be like me and walk out the door with nothing lined up a few weeks before the Great Recession hits? 🙂 Sorry that post came off a bit too negative... I was just about to go edit it and saw you'd already replied. You're right of course.

 

On the other hand, several years ago one of the employees at EMBT's Romanian facility (back when they had one) showed up in the comments section of a Delphi blog entry about the Romanian unit. After establishing he really worked there, he explained that the wages EMBT were offering were low, even for Romania. He said that Chinese companies also off-shored there and they offered better pay. Because of this, the only people EMBT could get to work for them there were people who had just graduated college (and who studied C++ and Java but not Delphi). He said that these new programmers only took the job to get one year of experience on their resumes, which was enough to get a job with one of the Chinese firms. Hence the folks working on Delphi in Romania didn't care about poor code quality or bugs because they didn't expect to be around long enough to have to fix it. 😞

 

Another time two of EMBT's Delphi developers showed up in the old forums. Someone began explaining to them the details of some bug that was a complete showstopper for their company and that had no signs of being fixed anytime soon. One developer replied, "See, this is why we don't like to come here." A TeamB member took people to task for bombarding them with their issues but uncharacteristically also told the Delphi developers that their dismissive attitude towards users with problems wasn't appropriate either. The two developers never showed up again.

 

So that's some of what informed my initial response; those working on Delphi haven't always been hard-working and singularly dedicated. On the other other hand 🙂 a source on the U.S. Delphi team at the time told tales of employees having substandard monitors and inadequate server power which led to exceedingly long build times when they wanted to test changes, so they do have a lot to put up with as well.

 

Anyway, I apologize again for my tone; some of that came off targeted at you personally, which was inappropriate.

[corneliusdavid 214]

10 hours ago, Joseph MItzen said:

What, you don't want to be like me and walk out the door with nothing lined up a few weeks before the Great Recession hits?

LOL! Yeah, I like to eat and keep a roof over my head, so I swallow my pride once in a while.

 

10 hours ago, Joseph MItzen said:

So that's some of what informed my initial response

This is good insight. I like to give the benefit of the doubt, perhaps too much so. After writing a book that covered all the aspects of the IDE and supporting tools and various platforms, I have a greater appreciation for how much there really is to keep up; that's reinforced when I hear webinars about all the things being worked on and bugs addressed. (But then again, why are there so many bugs?) So hearing these stories do place this thread in better perspective.

 

But I read so many complaints in these forums and well, I guess I feel there's just too much whining sometimes. All too often, employee programmers are caught in the middle between business people only concerned about the bottom line and the plight of the end user that has to use sub-par products. That's why I'm working for myself now--I got sick of not being allowed to upgrade products or redesign a library for better use, even if it has to push out other projects for a few weeks.

 

And if a tool isn't working right for me, I switch tools. I guess that's kind of along the same principle of quitting if a job doesn't work out--but again, it's not feasible when you have thousands or millions of lines of code to deal with.

Edited December 30, 2021 by corneliusdavid

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

On 11/12/2021 at 7:57 AM, Tom F said:

Do you think we should we just give up on ever getting an updated Bookmarks plugin (formerly from Parnassus) that works in Alexandria?

It seems very likely this is the case.

You would think David would remember all past projects acquired by bigger companies with promises of 'gold' and in reality they got used for marketing, then pushed aside and lost in space, in very short time.

[David Millington 79]

Bookmarks and Navigator are now here:

and

https://blogs.embarcadero.com/bookmarks-and-navigator-are-available-for-rad-studio-11/

 

The blog post has full info but a couple of notes:

• We have set up systems so this build delay should not happen again
• They are available for both 11.0 and 11.1
• The Debugger plugin is also coming within a few days

Many thanks for your patience here, and I hope you find installing these helps your productivity and use of the IDE.

[Mike Torrettinni 198]

Very good news! I'm glad our little 'positive' nudge helped achieve this goal!