Hey, there's a new Delphi Survey out there, just FYI. If you're a Delphi developer, take the time to give some directional feedback.
I just completed it, and have one recommendation for the CodeGear team: make more accommodation for comments, specifically about particular questions. More than once I found myself wishing I could clarify my input, which sometimes probably seemed contradictory to my answer(s) on other questions. You should let us give feedback on your survey as well, as a last question or something... : )
Saw this on the questionnaire, and had to smile....
...my Virtual Development Environment post from two years ago gets an increasing amount of traffic all the time, so apparently lots of people are looking into this setup. If you're thinking about it too, don't hesitate.... jump! I've been running my dev environment virtual for three years now (can't believe it's been that long), and wouldn't go back for anything. It's just too handy, having it all in its own little portable sandbox...
Related to that, recently came across this post on the same thing, which has some good Q&A in the comments; also VirtualBox, a free/open source virtualization tool. Haven't tried it (I use VMWare (and have become quite addicted to managed snapshots)), but it might be worth checking into if you're in the market.
I've been mainly testing with VM, but developing sounds very nice and portable, and safe. Good idea, I'll have to really consider that after my next OS 'refresh'. Not sure if the performance loss running in a VM box will be worth it, though, what is your experience with performance loss in VM? I also have some issues with network connectivity in the VM when I move from WiFi to WiFi.
Posted by: Joe Stanton | May 12, 2008 at 01:03 PM
Back two laptops ago, there was definitely a performance cost to running inside a virtual machines, but even then I found the trade-off worth it. Now, running an Intel dual core 2.2 Ghz with 4 GB RAM, it's really a nonissue; in fact I very often and running to virtual machines at the same time, while still running my normal day to day software in the host machine.
Posted by: ThoughtsOnThinking | May 28, 2008 at 07:52 AM
Also, regarding the issues with network connectivity -- that was one of the showstopper issues I kept running into when I was running Vista. in my case, I think it was largely a hardware incompatibility, or perhaps a specific driver issue with VM Ware's network layer... but it was a recurring issue with my WiFi setup on Vista. Once I moved back to XP ( which I had to buy a whole new laptop to do) the problem went away completely.
Also, on the newer versions of VM Ware, you can connect and disconnect and also edit your network adapter settings on a "live" machine, which can help with this kind of issue a great deal. ( I have to do that sometimes when I go mobile and swap between WiFi and my Verizon broadband, for instance).
Posted by: ThoughtsOnThinking | May 28, 2008 at 07:55 AM