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by vparikh
1172 days ago
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That db product was Paradox I believe. Yes Microsoft had a lot to do with it. Microsoft in its embrace and extend strategy would keep adding / mucking around with the C/C++ compilers by introducing proprietary extensions that always kept Borland one step behind. Delphi was the gem in Borland's development tool stack. Made Microsoft's Visual Basic look like a toy. It was so far ahead of just about every desktop development platform of the time. How did Microsoft handle that threat? They stole the lead developer of the Delphi compiler Anders Hejlsberg - who joined Microsoft and is the chief architect of .Net framework. In fact - if a lot of .Net concepts are direct implementations of Delphi and the VCL (properties, etc.) Yep, Microsoft stole the one certified genius coder right from Borland. And the rest is history. |
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He left Borland and joined Microsoft in 1996. The year before, Philippe Kahn resigned as chairman, CEO and president, after 12 years at the company. I don't know if that was a symptom or cause of Borland's demise, but losing such key players must have been the nail in its coffin.
Anders Hejlsberg is one of my heroes, a giant in the programming world, being the creative genius behind Turbo Pascal (which I grew up with as a child), Delphi, .NET Framework, C#, and TypeScript (which I write regularly as a professional with greying beard).