The Delphi Advocacy Group

I posted this request / challenge to The Delphi Advocacy Group. You can follow the discussion and contribute your comments there if you like.

This group is the Delphi Advocacy Group. I am curious if anyone out there is interested in doing some serious advocating of Delphi. I have a few ideas and would love to bounce them off some other interested people.

What I have planned will be of mutual benefit of all those involved (as well as our favorite tool) but only if those involved are serious about doing this. I know we have 174 members right now. I also know that many of us are not using Delphi as our primary tool any more - not as our choice, and with much protest I am sure. I am now doing C# development in Visual Studio (shudder!)

What I expect is that we will start a smaller group of those few who are serious, and then we can pull from this larger group as we need additional support.

I was thinking maybe we might have a TDAG bof (Birds Of a Feather) at BorCon 2004 if there is enough interest. I know Robert and Nick are on this list and will be there. Anyone else?

I see Aughtly owns tdag.org through August of next year. Hopefully we can put that to good use as well.

Now is a great time to act with the pending release of Delphi 9, which Borland is promising will knock our socks off. Here's hoping!

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I'll tip my hand. Delphi's main trouble is image. It is perceived as a "boutique language" by many people, if they have even heard of it (either that or they think it died when Microsoft took Anders). So what we do is increase the public perception and awareness of Delphi. If we look at how people develop their perceptions and awareness about a tool or technology we see that much of it comes from the news media (development magazines, conferences, web sites, etc.)

How often do you see a article about Delphi from a non-Delphi news source? Fairly rarely. What I am suggesting (among other things) is that we start an article writing campaign. Sure, we could write articles for Borland Developers Network, Delphi Informant or The Delphi Magazine. What I am suggesting is that we target other, more general magazines.

Delphi 8 recently won two awards from non-Delphi magazines:

2004 .NET People's Choice Winner best IDE / Editor for MSD2D.com http://www.msd2d.com/PeoplesChoice_result2004.aspx (link broken / expired)

Best Development Tool from Best of TechEd Europe 2004 Award Winner. http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/43218/43218.html

Oddly I doubt there are many article about Delphi in these magazines. Typically a Delphi developer keeps to themselves unless they are proselyting, and then they end up in religious wars.

There are three types of Delphi articles we can write for non-Delphi magazines:

1) An article that highlights a unique feature of Delphi in a non-biased way (from a technical standpoint, not a "review" or "fan" article)

2) An article that covers a general programming topic, but uses Delphi code in the examples. This would be effective since it would grab peoples attention by talking about some general concept without scarring them off by having "Delphi" in the title.

3) An article that reviews Delphi, or a related tool or technology.

Magazines love people to submit articles. In fact they usually pay people to do it. I have previously spoken to an editor for Dr. Dobbs and he said that if someone would just submit an article about Delphi he would publish it.

Dr. Dobbs is just one of many general development magazines. There are a number of magazines that cover Web Services or .NET development specifically. Delphi does all of that, but there are no articles about it in these magazines. Lets fix that.

Now I know that we are not all writers, but writing requires more then just writers, we need grammatical and technical reviewers. So if some one wants to write and then everyone else can review the articles and provide constructive feedback then that would be a huge help. Other times we might collaborate on articles.

So what is the benefit to those who participate? Borland offers a number of programs through developer relations to benefit people who support their tools. Typically you receive free copies of any development tools you support. Now I am not advocating that Borland send free copies to everyone on this list, but for those who make a considerable contribution to the effort I would suspect they would gladly help us out.

A few years back I co-contributed a chapter on Kylix to a book on .NET web services. I was surprised at Borland's eagerness to help us out. I know through their Tools and Components Partner program they also provide development tools. Borland is very generous to those who help them.

Also anyone who writes articles will be getting paid from the magazines that publish their work. For anyone who works as a consultant or trainer this will increase their exposure and make them more valuable. For the rest of us in the employ of some company we are aware of the fact that lay off's happen and companies go out of business, and having writing credit on your resume really helps you stand out from the rest of the crowd.

There are a lot of talented people on this list. I know if we can get a commitment from a few you to work together on this we can have a huge impact. If we can save but one soul from the perils of using an inferior development tool then it will all be worth it (sorry, switched into proselyting mode again). If we can get a free copy of Delphi, make a few bucks and improve our resumes along the way then all the better.

I already have a couple articles in the hopper that need some feedback and editing, so we can hit the ground running if there is any interest.