Delphi vs Python

[Peter Hansen]

Bo Vandenberg wrote:
> 
> I'm planning learning strategy and I thought I would ask people who use both
> Python and Delphi their opinion.

I used Delphi (back in the 3 and 4 days, I think) extensively for several 
years, and had a lot of respect for the environment and language.  Very
productive for me, relatively few bugs (compared to C++ and C, roughly
similar to my levels with Java).

Python is, for me, a hands down superior language.  The projects on which
we used Delphi could easily have been implemented in Python, and I'm
now convinced it would have taken significantly less time to write and
debug, and the results would have been on par in terms of performance,
and the resulting product would have been *much* more readable and as
a result maintainable.

I wouldn't suggest anyone _not_ look at Delphi, but I'd certainly 
recommend starting with Python, since I believe in many cases one
would not bother moving away from it afterwards, except for very
special cases.

> I've determined that I at least cannot speedily learn both at once. So my
> current strategy is to get up to speed in Python first and then maybe do the
> slowest bits of code in Delphi.

You may be surprised with the performance of Python.  I still have not 
found the need to recode anything in C, and we have optimized only one
routine to date (just improved the algorithm... no need to leave Python)
in over fifteen developer-years of Python development.

Most programmers spend *far* too much time thinking about performance,
and in my opinion it should not even be a consideration at this early
stage, unless you have specific and rather strenous performance 
requirements (and generally even then the various Python extension libraries 
are quite up to the task, since the key parts are often coded in C anyway).

> Has anyone seen any Delphi 6 personal edtn. stuff show up to serve python?

No, sorry, that came after I stopped using it.

-Peter