I don't want to be as severe as saying "they botched a release that otherwise could have been gamechanger," but it's very hard to deny x64 Android support is something I've been looking for in a long time from Embarcadero. I jumped straight into the Feature Matrix and got disappointed.
Back in my childhood and teenage years I played with Delphi until Delphi 7 Enterprise, after that the IDE got too heavy for my old computer (the XE release days). Today I have more than enough capable laptop and I don't feel like playing with Delphi anymore because I just moved on, but C++ is a language I appreciate and I'd like to take seriously for mobile development[0].
I'll start to think they whether they are seriously behind in technology to advance the C++ libraries and compiler to these platforms (which makes them, incompetent in terms of market strategy? underfunded?) or that they are deliberately hindering C++Builder, which has always been 2nd-class in front of Delphi (which shoots themselves in the foot?). It's so unfortunate they couldn't/didn't release x64 Android support on this C++Builder release.
I'm not saying Delphi should die, as I said previously: Delphi is the language that got me into programming, before it made me go away thanks to its heavy IDE back then... I loved Delphi, but I don't want to go back to it just to develop mobile apps. I guess I'll keep on my road to Flutter and reading this launch post was just a 5-minute distraction.
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[0]: I'm well aware I can use Java or Kotlin and then jump into Android NDK, yeah... I just miss using a RAD-type IDE.
To be fair, C++ was never their primary focus. Everything from Borland was Pascal-oriented, even C++ Builder's GUI and components were Delphi-based. Quality of Builder vs. Delphi was worse, compiler performance too. Visual Studio 6 started beating Builder in every aspect except ease of GUI design.
I don't want to be as severe as saying "they botched a release that otherwise could have been gamechanger," but it's very hard to deny x64 Android support is something I've been looking for in a long time from Embarcadero. I jumped straight into the Feature Matrix and got disappointed.
Back in my childhood and teenage years I played with Delphi until Delphi 7 Enterprise, after that the IDE got too heavy for my old computer (the XE release days). Today I have more than enough capable laptop and I don't feel like playing with Delphi anymore because I just moved on, but C++ is a language I appreciate and I'd like to take seriously for mobile development[0].
I'll start to think they whether they are seriously behind in technology to advance the C++ libraries and compiler to these platforms (which makes them, incompetent in terms of market strategy? underfunded?) or that they are deliberately hindering C++Builder, which has always been 2nd-class in front of Delphi (which shoots themselves in the foot?). It's so unfortunate they couldn't/didn't release x64 Android support on this C++Builder release.
I'm not saying Delphi should die, as I said previously: Delphi is the language that got me into programming, before it made me go away thanks to its heavy IDE back then... I loved Delphi, but I don't want to go back to it just to develop mobile apps. I guess I'll keep on my road to Flutter and reading this launch post was just a 5-minute distraction.
--
[0]: I'm well aware I can use Java or Kotlin and then jump into Android NDK, yeah... I just miss using a RAD-type IDE.