Totally agreed. I was fortunate enough to start real programming with Delphi 5 (and then 7). Nowadays I know dozens of languages and frameworks but nothing comes close to the experience of quickly prototyping apps that at the end looked good, didn't need any dependencies and were super-small.
Another benefit was that it was possible to interoperate with low-level Win32 API and the enormous component library provided by third-party authors.
> Another benefit was that it was possible to interoperate with low-level Win32 API and the enormous component library provided by third-party authors.
Yes, absolutely. I'm happy to see that "Project JEDI" is still around[1].
Another benefit was that it was possible to interoperate with low-level Win32 API and the enormous component library provided by third-party authors.