No, the F&F beta started a few weeks ago (two or three) and is still happening. The general beta has started, in theory, but they've given access to so few people it's almost as if it hasn't.
Semantics, I suppose. The friends and family test did begin earlier this year in an alpha state. They just didn't identify it as either an alpha or beta phase at the time.
I know a lot of people who have made it into the closed beta.
He probably never used Delphi and thinks it's slow.
I've worked with Delphi for many years, and its not far from the speed you can achieve with C++. Delphi is one hell of an underrated language for native programming.
Also, Delphi's standard library, the VCL, is great, and you can learn so much reading the source code, which comes with the IDE. Or does it? Delphi 7 was the last version I used.
Actually, I have used Delphi, wrote tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of lines of it early on in my programming days, many years ago.
Yes, Delphi, the language, which uses a static, strongly typed language, reference counting for memory management, and native ahead-of-time compilation can achieve good performance. That's a shocker. The problem is this isn't what it's intended for, and the standard kit is hardly optimized for it.
Reference counting? Except for some basic types, like the string, you have to manually manage memory.
And the other point you are trying to make, I still don't get it. You imply that the guy is doing it wrong for using Delphi where speed is important, and you come here and say that Delphi is, indeed, a fast language.
What if speed is not what the language is intended for? If the language is intended for other purpose, and speed comes as a bonus, I don't know how that could be a bad thing.
Yeah unfortunately the actual Delphi compiler is stuck in stasis, and has received no love in terms of targeting newer cpu instructions like SSE etc, which is why C++ can achieve better performance these days, back in the day Delphi was as fast as C++ for general performance, and Delphi absolutely killed it in terms of productivity.
We started out as a TP shop, so there is code dating back to the 1980s that is still used today (=\)
The rumor is Borland/CodeGear/Embarcadero lost the source code to the delphi compiler, which is the reason there had been no additions to the compiler, but who knows if that is legitimate, or should be an entry on snopes
interfaces are reference counted (mostly for doing com stuff, however I've seen some examples of people trying to use interfaces as a cheap/dirty "i don't have to think about it" memory management tool, badly)
everything else is managed by yours truly
please enlighten us as to what you think Delphi is intended for, and what the standard kit is actually optimised for
Reference counted memory management always involves some level of manual memory management. That's why garbage collection exists, because it's not really possible to get full coverage with ref-counting. Thanks for the education lesson though.
No, I really don't. I was merely pointing out the difference between smoking risks and normal risks. As a smoker maybe I have an equal chance of getting lung cancer as Alzheimer's, but personally I'm more worried about the latter.
It was the top story on HN at the time I made the comment, as a result of my comment enough people flagged it to push it down.
As per the quality thread the other day I think there is a view that voting isn't working, and we should figure out how to improve quality. This is my contribution :)
Sure, maybe it's not bad in Brazil, but there are many places where it's not super good.
In Syria and Jordan, it goes off for about 3 hours every two weeks, or something like that (not scheduled, just randomly). I think the same is true for Egypt. I've heard the same about India. In fact, I've heard from a trusted person that computer/software offices in India have their own backup power generators. I can only assume the same applies to hotels and factories.
This only works if you know the future. After you've heard the rumors, and the news have been reported, you're already too late. Buy solid companies over time and keep them, that's what works.
You don't need to know the future. You just need to hear the rumor before everyone else does.
Why do you think Apple had a big run up before they announced earnings and then dropped the past two days? Just a coincidence? Maybe, but more likely Wall Street knew the news before it was news and the folksy wisdom of "buy the rumor - sell the news" seems pretty spot on.
I do agree with your sage advice that for the individual investor, buying and holding good companies is a sound strategy (Peter Lynch and Warren Buffet would agree too). But no matter what your investing strategy, the individual investor is typically at an information disadvantage vs. investment professionals. They spend all day doing it. How can you possibly be more in "the know" than they are?
Over the long term, perhaps it evens out as you suggest, but the comment above me was wondering what explains why Apple stock would lose value on the day they posted their largest quarterly results ever. Wall Street buying the rumor and selling the news makes some sense to me. I've seen this happen over and over again (not just with Apple yesterday).
Taxes are ridiculous around here.