Delphi is still the absolute fastest way to create win32 gui applications, and anybody who disagrees has never used it.

Lazarus is a pretty sweet solution on Linux (or Codetyphoon, if you want more out of the box components).

I think C#'s WinForms is just as productive as Delphi's VCL. Unfortunately Microsoft abandoned it. Though I only used older versions of Delphi, so I don't know if recent improvements made it pull ahead.

However both have limitations in more complex areas, such as rich text (html), data binding and targeting mobile and desktop with a mostly shared code-base.

WinForms isn't Win32, and it's still supported.

Like MFC, it is a thin layer over Win32.

What's the relationship between Delphi and Lazarus?

Delphi is commercial: https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/product-editions

Lazarus is free with no artificial limitations, for FreePascal: https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

It's a Delphi-compatible IDE: https://www.lazarus-ide.org/

Pascal

I disagree, because C++ Builder also exists. :)

Although .NET also follows along, pity that it took so many years for Microsoft to actually care about native compilation beyond NGEN.

Did .NET manage to get rid of unsolicited tracing garbage collection?

Depends on how you write program, there are enough language features for low level coding and value types.

Additionally lets not pretend Delphi doesn't have issues with memory and resources tracking.

Even the whole reference counting support only applies to COM types, or when targeting Apple platforms.

Which have had various changes to their behaviour across Delphi version.

Other than that it is as it has always been since Turbo Pascal days.

Two very different solutions. Autohotkey is a scripting language for specific tasks, while Delphi is unbounded in this sense. And Visual Studio has no RAD concept.

Visual Studio has WinForms, which is pretty RAD.

And I think preferable to the XML split of code and GUI that is web like and how Microsoft’s other frameworks work.

It is absolutely preferable in that sense. The web-esq interface approach is far harder than it needs to be for small applications with basic interfaces.

Glad to see Delphi still alive and being developed. I never used it much but I did use C++ Builder Explorer or something that they released for free probably 10+ years ago. Also does anyone remember Kylix, Borland's short lived Delphi for Linux?

Unimportant tangent, but I think FireMonkey is a terrible name for a UI framework. I don't know why, but I hate it.

From $960 + $399/year.

I think it's quite an accomplishment to survive in the modern world of free software development tools.

The C# world also has quite a few paid libraries, especially for UI stuff.

Quite a few years ago I worked at a company using Delphi, and judging by their homepage they are still using it. A company making industrial machinery, with a tiny internal software department for the software for provisioning and maintaining the machines, as well as the control room software. Usability and development velocity is more important than looking hip, and easy access to hardware interfaces is paramount. And compared to developer salaries those license costs really aren't that bad

There are companies using Delphi-based products for long years (for a good reason, this is still great technology) so they prefer to pay.

There is still a lot of legacy software out there. I worked on something for a little bit (probably around 10 years ago).

New Delphi software is welcome!

On Microsoft, Apple, and game consoles, it is still pretty common to pay for development tools.

Also pretty common in enterprise tooling, which is the market of tools like Delphi.

The alternative is everyone getting surprised that their favourite free software development tools (only free thanks to VC money), eventually goes away.

Mostly Microsoft (inertia, you're already paying) and game consoles (expensive SDK/dev-kit licensing with NDA crap).

I see it less on Apple platforms except for published applications and niche tools.

There are many other computers out there.

You already paid for XCode via their beloved hardware margins.

What about that $99 yearly developer fee?

(Technically it is optional if you don't need to ship signed apps or submit to the app store and you don't care about the rest of Apple's developer program.)

That is on top, I guess.

Yeah, I'm surprised they haven't just made a hobbyist tier. Especially when FreePascal allows you to make UIs with Lazarus for free.

They have free community edition. Main restriction seems to be: "If you're an individual, you may use Delphi CE to create apps for your own use and apps that you can sell until your revenue reaches US$5,000 per year."

So should be perfectly enough for hobbyist.

It's cheaper to pay that than rewrite in a better language.

Better language = Ada?

Community Edition is free

Delphi's great. You can rapidly create apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.

I tried Lazarus recently, but I found the IDE to be slow.

I have not tried the IDE, but I like FreePascal. The compiler is fast and it has great multiplatform and cross-compilation support. In particular for older platforms.

It feels more stable and mature than most other languages. I do not know if there are enough developers keeping it alive, but hopefully it will mostly get bug fixes and ports to new platforms. Better if they do not mess with the language or standard libraries. Those that want a programming language that keeps breaking backwards compatibility every few months have plenty to choose from already.

Slow compared to what? It is snappier than Vscode, VS or Jetbrains UIs.