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You can download it for free here.

That is such a load of crap! I can't begin to address all of it. If your worried, first use Kylix it is a commercial development suite. Next, there are plenty of commercial products available for linux. Third,you obviously know nothing about the GPL and it's requirements so why do you post such dribble. You can change anything in the source code of a GPL's product and use it for your benefit, what you can't do is redistribute it. If the GPL were so restrictive companies such as theKomany.com couldn't exist. So go back and research your topic before posting.

You won't get any argument from me about Oracle, it is an excellent database. But I would pick firebird, it is open source and free. If you are open to an open source operating system, then why not an open source database? Also, Interbase (the initial commercial source drop) has been used in many commercial applications. It's just another option.

My opinion is that Borland Kylix is underestimated as a RAD tool. It's absolutely brilliant as long as you can stay with c++ and qt. Look at the open version Kylix Open.

My opinion is that Borland Kylix is underestimated as a RAD tool. It's absolutely brilliant as long as you can stay with c++ and qt. Look at the open version Kylix Open.

Now you're asking for a dangerous precedent. VS.NET gives people who should never touch a compiler the impression that they know what they're doing. To avoid turning this into a pissing contest, there are already a coupe of good IDEs for Linux, like Anjuta, which is about right for intermediate coders, and for the "point-and-click" set there's even Kylix which is about as much of a RAD tool as anything you'd find on Windows.

to be honest, i don't understand the motivation for using vc++ in a non-professional (read: outside of work) capacity in the first place. i realize the $99-$129 "professional version" price tag that i've seen, and the even cheaper academic pricing, are not too shabby compared with "enterprise" pricing... but they're still more expensive than $0! there are more than several freely available alternative compilers for win32 machines - cygwin gcc, borland (debugger also), djgpp, open watcom, lcc, MinGW, and Digital Mars (nb: haven't examined the license in detail) to name a few. can anyone else shed some light on why a developer might prefer vc++, or under which circumstances vc++ might be considered a clear-cut better choice than one of the alternatives listed above?

For very early Pascal that was true. As a practical matter most Pascal implementations fall into 4 camps: original pascal, UCSD pascal, Turbo Pascal, and Apple Object Pascal (TurboPascal 5.5,delphi). This is not too different from C: K&R C, ANSI C, Objective C, C++, ANSI C++.

Today, pretty much every Pascal compiler I see implements Borland's Pascal extensions which are the original Turbo pascal set, and the Object Pascal set used by Borland but which was developed by Apple.

But seriously, VB is (one of the) most widely used programming environments for applications development because of the many features it possesses, namely the IDE/GUI and programming features (memory management, string manip., etc). Give me that on Linux and I'll migrate over to it ever quicker!

Delphi is very similar to VB. It has the entire RAD environment along with a clean language and very fast compiler. It is also available for Linux as Kylix.

wishing I knew another app-dev language replace VB

Check out Delphi.

Especially for Java programmers. I mean you already have Borland giving away JBuilder for free. Granted JB9 is slow, but they've improved comipling project dependencies and it now allows you to point at other JDK's.

Especially for Java programmers. I mean you already have Borland giving away JBuilder for free. Granted JB9 is slow, but they've improved comipling project dependencies and it now allows you to point at other JDK's.

Have you considered Together/J as a possible alternative to Rational Rose? It has great Linux support. The app was developed by the same team as IntelliJ.

This is the programming system that is so powerful that the virus writers all use it for those HTML and Outlook email viruses. And the documentation is very complete and thorough. And it's on every windows machine. These languages also have an object model that can be used to program every aspect of a windows client or server machine, including active directory. Look up WMI and ADSI to learn how to use VBSCript and JScript to totally control your windows system or entire network. Also, you can look up those two keywords on Amazon if you want to spring for a book. Furthermore, there are web sites with lots of free scripts that run on Windows.

Plus, you can get free cygwin tools from cygwin.com that will enable you to program in all those GCC languages.

Plus, you can download a FREE Java environment from the Sun website. Mostly command line.

Plus, you can download for FREE, the entire suite of .NET Framework programming tools, at this web page, provided you are willing to live with Command Line tools! You are slashdot, are you willing to live with command line tools to use FREE C# and so on? It's a big download, though.

Plus, you can download FREE perl and Python, already compiled and adopted to Windows from Active State.

Wait -- there's more! Batch files! The latest 32 bit OS's have a powerful batch system with real if-then-else structure! And, on XP, it's even documented !.

Wait -- there's more! Inside Cygwin, there's emacs, and inside emacs, there's Elisp!.

Complete enough for you?

No? Okay how about free command line C++ compiler from Borland?

To which I said, "More like blasé"

Ahh the arrogance of the ignorant.

Pascal beats your silly VB toy in every way imaginable. Go get Delphi , buy a good book on it, and learn something.

JBuilder Personal Edition for Windows: Windows

for Solaris: Solaris

for Linux: Linux

JBuilder Personal Edition for Windows: Windows

for Solaris: Solaris

for Linux: Linux

JBuilder Personal Edition for Windows: Windows

for Solaris: Solaris

for Linux: Linux

Kylix

My first choice is Delphi. I don't think I'd ever say Delphi is better at creating quick`n`dirty apps than VB, but I would most certainly say that it is completely on par in that area, with the added benefit of being much more powerful. (My opinions here are based on VB6 and Delphi5, which are the last two I used heavily before being liberated from Windows GUI work.)

The other alternative I can think of is RealBASIC. Their development environment used to only run on Mac OS, even though it could compile apps for either Mac OS or Windows. Nowadays, the environment itself as well as the apps it creates all run on both Mac OS 9/X and Windows, although I've never used the Windows development environment. I've only had limited exposure to RealBASIC, but based just on those few hours, I would highly recommend any fan of VB at least give it a shot--I know if I ever have to go back to Windows GUI work, I certainly will. (It seems it would especially shine for quick`n`dirty apps because it seems to focus more on simplicity and cross-platform rather than feature bloat.)

But at the same time it's not so easy to pass a serialized type from one system to another without rolling your own solution. Int and String will have no problem but what happens when you try to pass a custom collection type that derives from a hashtable in .net to a j2ee system.

I agree with what he said about it not being spec'd out but I also agree with you in saying it should be left out of the SOAP specs. I think that 3rd party software similiar to Borland's Janeva will come into play when interoperating between two different systems. But a few more complex types in SOAP would be nice.

Tried Borland Kylix?

Tried Borland Kylix?

On the other hand, you seem to be reading a lot into my use of the word "benchmark". Perhaps you're assuming I'm like all those marketroid drones who use bogus benchmarks to "prove" that a particular product is "superior". In real life, benchmarks only prove that a product does one particular thing in one particular circumstance better. Benchmarks have their legitimate uses, but only if you bear in mind their limitations.

And I still think benchmarking MySQL against other DBMSs makes sense. You simply have to be careful understanding what the benchmarks mean. For example, you seem to be saying that MySQL will always beat a fancier DBMS when you use it as a simple data repository, where you only retrieve data one record at a time, using a single-field unique index. OK, let's take that as a given. That still leaves me with some unanswered questions:

• If this is all just a matter of feature overhead, wouldn't Berkeley DB be even faster?

• I know for a fact that MySQL takes a performance hit when you use multi-field indexes or if the indexed field is a string. (That's why Slashdot comments now have unique ID numbers.) Can this cost enough to justify using a "real" DBMS? And are there real-world web applications where this matters?

• This kind of argument always seems to end up comparing MySQL with Oracle or PostgreSQL. Now, these are big (I won't say "bloated", though some would) systems optimized for high-end applications. Users of Interbase and its open-source branch Firebird claim that these products eliminate a lot of the performance issues associated with other databases, while retaining all the features of a "real" DBMS. Has anybody made a serious effort to compare the performance of MySQL with these engines?

There are plenty of people using Oracle in a situation that probably should be using MySQL. I can think of at least three examples in my own company where I've told the folks doing the work that they'd be better off with MySQL, because they're basically batch processing in Oracle, not using any constraints, foreign keys, or transactions.

Then again, both companies sold, and used, high-end servers, so the performance hit was never an issue anyway! People actually just used MySQL because it was easier to install, or because it was what they knew.

Not for me, thanks. I prefer the dynamic duo of Borland's C++ Builder/Kylix. Cross platform gui development? How you say...ah yes...w00t!

For Java, Sun One Studio (crappy name)/Netbeans (inaccurate name) floats my boat. There is a light C++ module for Netbeans but I haven't tried it...no need.

Give Kylix a try - there is a free version you know:

Borland® Kylix(TM) 3 Open Edition delivers an integrated ANSI/ISO C++ and Delphi(TM) language solution for building powerful open-source applications for Linux,® licensed under the GNU General Public License

Download it here.

Not for me, thanks. I prefer the dynamic duo of Borland's C++ Builder/Kylix. Cross platform gui development? How you say...ah yes...w00t!

For Java, Sun One Studio (crappy name)/Netbeans (inaccurate name) floats my boat. There is a light C++ module for Netbeans but I haven't tried it...no need.

Give Kylix a try - there is a free version you know:

Borland® Kylix(TM) 3 Open Edition delivers an integrated ANSI/ISO C++ and Delphi(TM) language solution for building powerful open-source applications for Linux,® licensed under the GNU General Public License

Download it here.

Yes you can develop and compile windows apps under linux. I don't know which free compilers will do it, but I've used Kylix with success. Can anyone else point out GPL or free compilers that do the same?

PVCS - My software company migrated from MS VSS to PVCS, it works much better - but - at least for our relatively large project, it's kind of slow. We've been using it for about a year and it's worked well.
Clearcase - Rumored to be "THE version control system", I've heard it is complicated to setup and use, but Rational Clearcase is supposed to be the end all of version control systems. Checking out the link before posting, it seems that Rational software is now owned by IBM?
Starteam - I evaluated this product a while ago (18-24 months or so ago). It seems that this company has been purchased by Borland. But at any rate, Starteam seemed to be a very comprehensive version control system. We didn't choose Starteam - as many of our developers had already had PVCS experience and at the time Starteam was the new-kid-on-the-block and we didn't want to fight with a new product. We already had enough headaches with MS VSS, we wanted something we knew for certain would be tried and true. That being said, Starteam did look great.
Last but not least, CVS the open source version control system. I've used it a few times, but never set it up or configured it and can't really comment on reliability, etc. I'll assume it's great - I'm know others have mentioned CVS and I'll leave the people that have used it to give you more information.

StarTeam is an interesting product.

I've never actually used it for production, but several years ago I did some evaluation of different source control systems, and stumbled upon it. It's not free, and it's relatively expensive compared to cheaper solutions such as VSS and Perforce, but they've got one of the coolest feature sets of any revision control system I've seen.

For example, one thing that I thought was especially cool about it was that you could actually have the bug system link comments to specific revisions of files in the repository. And they actually have an SDK for custom integration, so you can easily integrate it with your own custom tools.

That being said, CVS works OK if you're doing pretty straightforward stuff. But managing multiple branches on CVS? Ugh!

Let us examine the situation:

1. Separated from parent company to release rival OS
2. Copied an existing OS almost down to the letter
3. Used sneaky tactics to boost their own popularity
4. Trying to crush all competition
5. Shunned by the sane world

Welcome to Firebird SQL: Where do you want to go today?

Been to China [com.com] recently? How about India [rediff.com]?

I used to be part of the team that created Kylix. Now, you can use Kylix for many kinds of development, but where it really shines is developing GUI applications. So I'm not giving away any secrets when I say that Borland created Kylix mainly to tap into the impending boom in Linux desktop apps.

Except that the boom never happened. There was a reasonable demand for Linux software in a lot of places, including South and East Asia (with their 2 billion potential users). But nothing like a boom.

Probably the day will come when there are more computer users in the East than in the West. But it's not going to be for a few years yet. And when that day comes, I suspect the systems will be much better suited for conditions in that part of the world than anything we're using now.

Besides, suppose there was a sudden surge in demand for computers from the East. Hundreds of thousand of desktop systems at once. Where would they buy them? Not from HP or Sun. They'd buy x86 boxes, made in white box factories. Probably Asian factories.

I personally use Optimizeit Suite for Java development from Borland software as early as possible in the development cycle. This gives me an edge to keep the code fast and efficient without too many efforts. Including the profiling process in your development cycle avoid big surprises that you have to fix even if it's sometimes too late to revise your programs. Performance sometimes involves re-evaluating algorithms and that can't be done in code freeze. As it turn out, then even have a profiler for .NET that has just been released.

I personally use Optimizeit Suite for Java development from Borland software as early as possible in the development cycle. This gives me an edge to keep the code fast and efficient without too many efforts. Including the profiling process in your development cycle avoid big surprises that you have to fix even if it's sometimes too late to revise your programs. Performance sometimes involves re-evaluating algorithms and that can't be done in code freeze. As it turn out, then even have a profiler for .NET that has just been released.

context sensitive help with examples coded in multiple languages.

Intellisense that integrates user code documentation.

Template creation to limit junior programmer usage of pretty/useless widgets

Good macro support

Integrated web load testing tools

Integrated Active Directory support

Integrated database support

Integrated debugger

Forms designer for the gui guys (I ain't one)

Class/object browser
For our shop, it is worth the investment. But then, we just get the MSDN Universal Subscription...we don't actually pay for just the IDE. But soon, there will be Sidewinder.

Both languages piss me off considerably (forgive the strong language)!

First procedural (QCL) and now OOP! But everyone knows, that OOP is snakeoil, well except for those gready UML tools vendors and their greedy consultanting brothers who errected a tool industry to cure the problems they caused by pushing OOP into PHB everywhere :-)

Honestly. Quantumn physics is reversable phyics, as physical relevant quanties must be measureable and thus be represented by unitary operators.

This implies that quantumn operations are inheritently reversible and that thus a destructive update is very hard to realize!
Man, non-destructive updates (persistent data!) don't I hear "functional programming" cried out loud here?

Regards,
Marc

well, taste differs. if you want to have VB-like drag-n-drop UI design functionality why not go for Fotre (or it's m,ore on the edge cousin Netbeans) or go and buy JBuilder from Borland. THere're other RAD IDEs that spring to mind as well, VisualCafe' for example (haven't used it for ages though - NetBeans and IntelliJ does all I want)

The only problem with Pascal (nowadays) is that compilers/debuggers seem hard to come by.

Borland sells and maintains an exceptional programming system based on a Pascal dialect called Delphi.

Kylix supports OpenGL on Linux out-of-the-box. Of course there's no law that says you have to use OpenGL (or D3D); you can always write your own custom renderer. They're much harder to write and I get tired of writing graphics code as, frankly, graphics just don't impress me anymore. It's the physics and scripting that are the interesting part of newer games.

My guess is that they were waiting for some tools from Borland on the linux side.
Bioware's engine was written with Borland C++ Builder on Windows and they needed to use Kylix 3 which allows them to compile C/C++ code as well as Delphi.
Disclaimer: I worked on the first couple of versions of Kylix when I used to work at Borland. That said, I just want to say it really is a great development environment and you should check it out if you haven't yet. They have an Enterprise Trial and an Open Edition which can be downloaded here.
--
Karma: Positive --- Seems I haven't screwed up yet!

My guess is that they were waiting for some tools from Borland on the linux side.
Bioware's engine was written with Borland C++ Builder on Windows and they needed to use Kylix 3 which allows them to compile C/C++ code as well as Delphi.
Disclaimer: I worked on the first couple of versions of Kylix when I used to work at Borland. That said, I just want to say it really is a great development environment and you should check it out if you haven't yet. They have an Enterprise Trial and an Open Edition which can be downloaded here.
--
Karma: Positive --- Seems I haven't screwed up yet!

My guess is that they were waiting for some tools from Borland on the linux side.
Bioware's engine was written with Borland C++ Builder on Windows and they needed to use Kylix 3 which allows them to compile C/C++ code as well as Delphi.
Disclaimer: I worked on the first couple of versions of Kylix when I used to work at Borland. That said, I just want to say it really is a great development environment and you should check it out if you haven't yet. They have an Enterprise Trial and an Open Edition which can be downloaded here.
--
Karma: Positive --- Seems I haven't screwed up yet!

My guess is that they were waiting for some tools from Borland on the linux side.
Bioware's engine was written with Borland C++ Builder on Windows and they needed to use Kylix 3 which allows them to compile C/C++ code as well as Delphi.
Disclaimer: I worked on the first couple of versions of Kylix when I used to work at Borland. That said, I just want to say it really is a great development environment and you should check it out if you haven't yet. They have an Enterprise Trial and an Open Edition which can be downloaded here.
--
Karma: Positive --- Seems I haven't screwed up yet!

My guess is that they were waiting for some tools from Borland on the linux side.
Bioware's engine was written with Borland C++ Builder on Windows and they needed to use Kylix 3 which allows them to compile C/C++ code as well as Delphi.
Disclaimer: I worked on the first couple of versions of Kylix when I used to work at Borland. That said, I just want to say it really is a great development environment and you should check it out if you haven't yet. They have an Enterprise Trial and an Open Edition which can be downloaded here.
--
Karma: Positive --- Seems I haven't screwed up yet!

Try Borland's C++ Builder/Delphi (Windows) and Kylix (linux) products.

4 years, is that all

Well duh! That one is so obvious I wonder how much expreience you actually do have with Borland. Kylix is even bundled with Delphi Studio 7 for crying out loud!

Context sensitive help, autocompletion, home-brewed Makefiles etc. are all your fault for using the wrong tools for the job. There are countless IDE's for Linux that will do all of that for you, and more. There is no reason for you to complain about it if you havn't taken the time to properly research your options.

As for documentation and function declarations, all of the C lib and system functions are fully documented in the man pages. man lseek64, for example.

I'm happy that for us pascal junkies, that pascal is finally becoming available for OS X. What would really be impressive, however, would be if Borland got it's act together and released the Delphi Kylix toolkit

Kylix is already a great cross-platform tool for Windows and Linux Object Oriented Pascal development. Making it available for Macs would make it definitely more competitive with the QT toolkit which is cross platform for Windows, Linux and OS X!

So to make a long rant short, I'm not jumping for joy just yet.

It is naive to think the cleaner API wins. Your argument closely parallels the Microsoft MFC vs. Borland OWL debate from years ago. OWL was a far better implementation, yet OWL's defeat was so complete most readers probably have no idea what it is.

It is naive to think the cleaner API wins. Your argument closely parallels the Microsoft MFC vs. Borland OWL debate from years ago. OWL was a far better implementation, yet OWL's defeat was so complete most readers probably have no idea what it is.

IMO, StarTeam's version control system is the best for web or other large scale projects for storing other than just code. They even have a dumbed down product (StarDisk) for the script writers and managers.

We have a project with over 51,000 files that is 130 gigs in size. StarTeam never had a hiccup.

Ken