On: Ask HN: What Happened to Borland?

[varjag]

It was also very distinctly DOS/Windows-first product family. Microsoft OS slide to irrelevance sealed the fate.

[akyoan → varjag]

> Microsoft OS slide to irrelevance

I wouldn't call 75% of desktop share "irrelevant". Tablets are still 20 times less common than PCs. *

* data from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...

[fourthark → akyoan]

But people don’t build desktop applications that much anymore. Windows, macOS, and Linux as GUI platforms have all faded with the Web and smartphones.

It was a huge downgrade in interactive functionality at the time, but the Web has slowly built up over the past two decades so it is almost as functional.

[q-big → fourthark]

> But people don’t build desktop applications that much anymore.

This might be outside of your echo chamber, but lots of companies still very actively build desktop applications (also completely new ones) for their own line-of-business purposes.

[fourthark → q-big]

Agree, I should have specified “for the mass market”.

Totally different inside the enterprise, one reason Borland & Embarcadero focused on it.

[a4isms → fourthark]

“Worse is better:”

https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html

[novok → akyoan]

What happened is the web replaced most native desktop apps, not mobile tablet UIs. There is a reason why web devs are the still the most common type of devs, despite mobile devices being the most common type of device used today by a large mile.

[varjag → akyoan]

Doesn't matter what you run your browser in. The lion's share of job market for developers is distinctly not Windows native applications.