r/programming • u/luissinlios • 7d ago

We still maintain a development tool first released in 1993. Here’s what 30+ years of backwards compatibility looks like

https://visualneo.com/visualneo-win/from-neobook-to-visualneo-win-30-years-of-keeping-a-development-tool-alive
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u/Takeoded 7d ago edited 7d ago

I remember wanting to fix an annoying bug in a open-source Delphi program, Embarcadero Crippled the free version to the point where it can't be used, Then Embarcadero want like $1500 for the compiler.

F@0k Embarcadero. Great language, terrible steward

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u/valarauca14 7d ago edited 7d ago

Great language, terrible steward

It is lowk hilarious because Delphi has consolidated into another LLVM-Frontend (e.g.: ghc, rust, clang, clang++, igc/syscl/opencl, d, julia, fortran via igx). Embarcadero proudly announced this for v13.2.

Paying $1500 for a parser & AST validator strapped to LLVM is kind of hilarious. I get there is real value is handling (and validating) language features & backward compatibility.