C# was originally designed by Anders Hejlsberg, the C# 1.0 features that weren't taken from Java (J++) were based on Delphi, like Properties.

You also have RAD development on .NET.

Although .NET always had AOT compilation via NGEN, it always depends on the runtime being available at OS level.

With .NET Native it is like things were on PC before JVM took off, with strong typed system languages like Delphi and Modula-3 that compile directly to native code.

I know one needs a bit of imagination to make the comparison, but it is how I like to think about it.

FWIW, yes, there is "Delphi for .NET" (but it's actually much more than that - it can also target JVM and Cocoa):

http://www.elementscompiler.com/elements/oxygene/language.as...

i can't speak for the author, but my first thought was the speed. Delphi was almost as easy to develop as Visual Basic, but the result was fast. a native EXE, no big framework-dependencies.

Delphi binaries dont have any dependencies, right?

You can have it both ways, dynamic or static compilation.

If you using COM or third party dlls, which is quite common on Windows, then you need those as well.