Hi David,
And is there any truth to the CapeSoft rumour?
I’m not sure what the rumour is, but since you’re talking about SV here I feel I can safely say No, whatever you’ve heard is almost certainly just a rumour and not true.
Can anyone shed any more light on the departure of Diego from SV?
Worrying about SV is both pointless and unfruitful.
Firstly it’s pointless because, not to be blunt, it really doesn’t matter what SV do. Our business exists because of what we do, not what they do. Sure I want new stuff as much as the next guy but there has been very little “new stuff” for a decade now.
Yes, I love C11 with the wider template windows, and I love the ability to choose fonts in the IDE (since C9) and I appreciate lots and lots of minor tweaks and updates - I’m reminded almost daily of how crap C8 is by comparison (I still do examples in C8) - And yes, from what I understand Diego was responsible for a lot of that.
But our business does not depend on the IDE - it depends on the software we create. So the progress, or lack-thereof of the IDE is not business critical. Judging by the number of people who seem happy on C8, or even more surprisingly on C6, I’m guessing I’m not alone in this assessment.
In terms of what Clarion adds to my programs over the last 10 years, the answer is “not much”. A lot of what shipped in C9, C10 and C11 we already had via either our own code, or 3rd party code. Diego spent a lot of time on H5 which (for obvious reasons) is unrelated to what I do so in that sense meh.
Personally there are two features on my “hit list” - proper Unicode support (which I’ve been lobbying for since 2004) and the ability to make 64 bit programs (which I’ve been lobbying for since 2009). Everything else is window-dressing - I can either do it already, or build the code to do it myself. I am confident Unicode will ship, and ultimately be useful. I expect a significant bedding-down period, but I expect that and won’t be too concerned by it. Bob Z mentioned 64 bit as a “possibility” for the first time this year, so I see that as progress. I’m doubtful we’ll ever see a 64 bit version, but at least acknowledging it is a step in the right direction.
Worrying about SV is pointless because ultimately there’s nothing you can do about it. It is what it is,and will be what it will be.
Worrying about SV is also fruitless because literally it bears no fruit. I’d rather spend my time and energy (especially emotional energy) worrying about my business, what we are doing right, and what we are doing wrong. That is fruitful in the sense that I see a return from improving - and we are far from perfect, but striving to improve all the time. When we make the time to worry about ourselves we make decisions that affect our future, and most often we see a return from that on the bottom line.
You can defend SV all you like, but facts are facts.
Well it’s been a while since Mark was accused of being an SV defender, but maybe he’s inherited the Russ mantle 
I’d like to be clear (since obviously Mark wasn’t) that I’m not defending SV. I’m simply saying I don’t care about them at all. They are free to do whatever they like, as are we all. Ultimately they will stand or fall based on the decisions they make. I might not have done the same thing in their place, and you might not have done what they did, or what I would do, but it’s easy to make decisions for a company that you are not involved in. It’s harder to make decisions for your own company, and ultimately have to read the scorecard based on your decisions. At the end of the day I respect their right to make their own decisions which lead to their own outcomes.
To be honest when we’re planning our own future the future of SV doesn’t even make the top 10 topics. If they disappear we’ve got the best part of 10 years to make decisions (given that people still on C6 seem to still exist, 11 years after the last C6 release.) there are so many more important things to worry about.
Lastly I’ll say this - I first started using Clarion in 1992. I think about 20 minutes I started I’ve heard predictions of Clarion’s demise, and it’s been pretty regular theme since then. And here we are 27 years later and Clarion is still around. Your worries are not exactly “news”.
Cheers
Bruce
