[bruce511]

Yeah we are, but alas this will be an answer, not a solution for you.

I'm also using a language from the 90s, but one even more niche than Delhi. We have desktop systems, and Web systems, and while they share a lot of source code, the UI procedures are different.

The Ide is still maintained an updated, but of course falls well behind visual studio now.

So for you to switch to this makes even less sense than staying on Delphi. We're under similar pressures to "rewrite in something more modern" but fortunately (for us) the business doesn't have the pockets that sort of project would consume.

Technically there's little reason to change, Functionally the language let's us program anything we want, so apart from the perceived "long term security" of rebuilding from scratch in c# there's not much upside.

For what it's worth we've built the system mostly with 1 developer, although on occasion as many as 3. The primary developer has changed once, and that was a smooth process so it can be done again if necessary.

I write all this to encourage you. If what you have is the best option, then stick with it, swapping bits out slowly as you need to. Make a transition organic, not one giant project. Code is just code. Customers don't care about the language, they don't care about the code, they only care about the solution to their pain.

[Gemlotodk]

You are not necessary wrong but this is also super depressing to me.

I have my job because I love technology.

There is joy and fun in using modern systems.

Good tooling like ide, security tools, linting, Testing Frameworks etc requires modern supported languages.

Languages evolve.

[bruce511]

Language is just language. It's syntax and libraries and data and algorithms.

I've been doing this a while, and I've been around the IDE bush, and the editor Bush and so on lots of times.

There are many disadvantages to using things that will never be popular, that are niche, but lack of joy is not one of them.

For me it's not in some shiny new language, or toolset, or whatever. The joy is in what you create, not the tooling. It's in creating solutions that make people's lives better. It's in putting good on the family table. It's in employing others and watch them do the same.

The things you talk about are language agnostic. What doesn't exist, we create.

[Gemlotodk]

I have played around with at least 10 different languages.

I completely disagree.

I also don't enjoy creating systems which calculate car payment or a registration flow.