C++ not used for applications any more?

Quite, Delphi is very powerful

  • also VB, not the stuff called VB.NET, can be used for a lot more than people think
  • once you can get at Windows APIs there is not much holding you back

I suppose it all depends on the type of App, things designed for the home market are unlikely to use the .NET framework.

Not my fault that API’s tend to be linked to a particular language even though others can access it. shrugs

Well the convention is StdCall and the packing is … I forget what … which is not really linked to C, I suppose the Windows designers did not want to risk Caller Cleanup which could hide problems for years.

Agreed Delphi is powerful - and for those like me who preferred the interface but wanted C++, CBuilder is a great tool too. We do 90% of our development in it.

For obscure reasons I loathe the C syntax, probably because I learnt ASM before reading K&R’s White Book

Realistically a ‘language’ is an instruction set, with a load of library code bolted on.

Borland (or as they are now, CodeGear) did a good job of hiding the grunt work, without making it hard to get at. I consider your path rational, although I would have used pure Delphi.

I learned C as my first language and C++ not long after. I tried to learn Delphi and I found it frustrating in as much as it was close enough to what I knew to be able to read it, but required that I look up nearly everything to program in it. And of course, the shop I was in had (what I considered to be) some horrible programming practices, making the code that much more difficult for me. What I love about it though is it is blazingly fast to compile - much faster than C++.