Delphi for free? YES!! Delphi Community Edition is out!

[KodeZwerg]

Download is avail there.

Delphi Community Edition is the next step for Embarcadero for hobby programmers or small companies like Startups.
Delphi Community Edition is similar to Delphi Tokyo 10.2.3 Professional. Read Limitations on website.
You even get Mobile Add-On for free (Android/iPhone development).

Have fun trying it out, before you develop something, read Embarcadero License Text!

[wraith808]

So they figured out they should start this back up again, eh?

[KodeZwerg]

Up to some days ago the only free thing from Delphi was "Starter Edition" what is very crippled and beginners cant really learn since no sources are shipped with that edition.
Delphi CE is similar to Tokyo Professionial, here and there some license limitiations but product is full. (ie: you can develop for Win32/Win64/OSX/Linux/Android/iPhone)

[AbteriX]

Just FYI 

https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/free-download

Terms and Conditions:
•
•
•Licenses are valid for a one-year term
•
•This offer does not include any update subscription
•
•

[x16wda]

License term lasts for one year (although once you have created a product you can still distribute it). Also your max income is limited to $5000, I would have to reread the license to see the parameters on that. As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to play with it but I would need a specific task I want to accomplish, and allocated time to work on it, before I even download it.

[wraith808]

Up to some days ago the only free thing from Delphi was "Starter Edition" what is very crippled and beginners cant really learn since no sources are shipped with that edition.
Delphi CE is similar to Tokyo Professionial, here and there some license limitiations but product is full. (ie: you can develop for Win32/Win64/OSX/Linux/Android/iPhone)

Yes, I know.  That was the reason that I stopped even using Delphi at all. The Turbo versions were the community editiins, and were discontinued when Embarcadero bought it from Borland/Inprise.

License term lasts for one year (although once you have created a product you can still distribute it). Also your max income is limited to $5000, I would have to reread the license to see the parameters on that. As far as I'm concerned, I'd like to play with it but I would need a specific task I want to accomplish, and allocated time to work on it, before I even download it.

That's almost verbatim the license terms for the Turbo versions.

[KodeZwerg]

AFAIK all free editions however Name is/was (Turbo, Personal, Educational, Starter, Community etc) are 1 Year Licenses with easy ability to subscribe another free Year. That belongs in most cases just Software Update not the Product (CE in this case). I will ask that @Embarcadero and tell you answer.


edit
Bad News, developing is bound to license, so that version is really just valid for one year, the IDE shows soon enough a pop-up reminder to either update another free year or upgrade (buy) License.

[wraith808]

AFAIK all free editions however Name is/was (Turbo, Personal, Educational, Starter, Community etc) are 1 Year Licenses with easy ability to subscribe another free Year. That belongs in most cases just Software Update not the Product (CE in this case). I will ask that @Embarcadero and tell you answer.


edit
Bad News, developing is bound to license, so that version is really just valid for one year, the IDE shows soon enough a pop-up reminder to either update another free year or upgrade (buy) License.

Why is that bad news?  You either get a new license for a new year, or upgrade from what I'm reading your statement.  Is that not the case?  If so, it's the same as it was before.  Which was the reason that at least I stopped using Delphi.  It was fine when I was buying licenses because I was using money from contracts.  But not going to do it if it's not making me money.

[KodeZwerg]

Bad because i'd thought and wrote that its for Updates not for developing. I just corrected myself. "Bad KodeZwerg, News" i should have written.

[f0dder]

Why is that bad news?  You either get a new license for a new year, or upgrade from what I'm reading your statement.

Because it makes the offering unusable?

It might be "the same as it was before", but that status quo is "at the mercy of Embarcadero". I wonder if they, deep down, really just want Delphi to die... there's a lot of legacy stuff written in it, but with terms like this, I can't see much reason to choose the platform. Sure, Object Pascal isn't a bad language, but there's so many other (and better, IMHO) platforms around.

[KodeZwerg]

I wonder if they, deep down, really just want Delphi to die...

This opinion i share since i begun working with Delphi. Anyway still using it

but there's so many other (and better, IMHO) platforms around.

Sure (thanks that you excluded "and better" for yourself), in this Thread i just wanted to announce that it exists, if you are willing to tryout for free or having personal reasons to not, both is total okay for me, really.

[wraith808]

Why is that bad news?  You either get a new license for a new year, or upgrade from what I'm reading your statement.

Because it makes the offering unusable?

It might be "the same as it was before", but that status quo is "at the mercy of Embarcadero". I wonder if they, deep down, really just want Delphi to die... there's a lot of legacy stuff written in it, but with terms like this, I can't see much reason to choose the platform. Sure, Object Pascal isn't a bad language, but there's so many other (and better, IMHO) platforms around.

From my experience, it can be really powerful, especially using inline assembler to optimize code- a feature that I've not seen so easily used in many IDEs.  I have nostalgia for it- from my first real development opportunity being in Delphi 1 (I did some c, c++, and vb before it... but this was where I was able to spread my wings) to really getting going in contracting and meeting many of the minds behind it (and working alongside Xavier Pacheco), and it really reached highs.  Borland's missteps killed it, and Embarcadero doubled down on bad decisions.  A lot of the legacy of Delphi is in Visual Studio, so it had a chance.  They just didn't grab it.  I don't think that anything Embarcadero could do would put it on top again, but it just gives me good vibes that it's still around. 

[f0dder]

From my experience, it can be really powerful, especially using inline assembler to optimize code- a feature that I've not seen so easily used in many IDEs.  I have nostalgia for it- from my first real development opportunity being in Delphi 1

I learned programming with Turbo Pascal 6 back in the day, and spent a lot of time with Borland Pascal 7 as well, before moving on. Back then, the Borland IDEs were second to none, the integrated context-sensitive help system was unmatched. And because compilers generally sucked back then, and the machines were slow, the inline assembly feature was pretty good. I moved onto C/C++, but the first couple versions of Delphi were interesting because they made Windows development easy.

But after that? The whole Borland -> Inprise -> Embarcadero mess was reason enough to abandon the language, IMHO. Other, more powerful, languages appeared, several of them without costly licenses. If you want easy GUI, it's hard to beat .NET.

And inline assembly is IMHO useless these days - if there's a substantial speed gain to be had these days, it's usually from writing a large chunk in assembly, enough that you're better off writing it in an external .asm module in a proper assembler. That, or use a language + compiler that has good assembly intrinsics.

[wraith808]

I remember I had a contract where they were using Delphi.  It was back when MS was first getting into .NET, and it was a major contract for a major contracting firm that wanted to use it on more contracts because of how well we'd done before with it (KPMG/BearingPoint).  I think it was going through the Borland -> Inprise at that point, and they paid no attention to that contract.  MS was always calling, and they decided to move some of the stuff to .NET.  Microsoft sent a team down there to train us (VB.NET even though we advised C#.NET) and work with us to get the contract done.  Borland was too occupied with Microsoft to see that the client base and developer base was where they should have been concentrating... not Microsoft.  After that I made a living going around converting systems from Delphi -> .NET.  A lot of very large companies were wed to Delphi- UPS, AEGON, quite a few banking and insurance interests.  Too few programmers left that were interested in Delphi left the field wide open for me, and I also garnered a lot of experience in the meantime.  Borland could have also prospered in the OSS arena- their few strides were met with relative acceptance as an alternative to MS.  But they left that one hanging too.

Self-inflicted death by a thousand paper cuts was what brought them down.