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The other tools claim to be "RAD," but they're really just IDEs + GUI form designers. With Kylix/Delphi on the other hand, you can visually design very sophisticated data bindings, network connections, and so on. Borland's JBuilder Pro and Enterprise (not cheap) IDE's are equally cool, with great database components and amazing JavaBeans support. The free "Foundation" version is nice, but it doesn't give you that many of the real RAD features.

I thought BlackAdder was promising, because Python is my favorite language and Qt is my favorite widget set. But it's little more than a thin wrapper around the free QtDesigner, integrated with a not-so-hot editor. Maybe someday in the future it'll be a real IDE, but I don't know. Plus, the Python-Qt binding is a little awkward (you basically have to know C++ to use it).

Anyways, good luck. You might want to check out this page on Kylix for VB refugees if you haven't already. --JRZ

Like someone else mentioned, many frown on Java here , but Borland's JBuilder has a Foundation edition that's free (as in beer). You can bump up to the Professional edition for yourself for around $400 (competitive upgrade) or if you've got the $$ to spend the enterprise for $2000 per seat.

It runs quite well on both Linux and Windows, as long as you have some memory, and has many of the IDE goodies you're probably used to (auto-complete, code templating, symbol browsing, etc.). It's also got an API for extending it called OpenTools that lets you plug-in additional functionality -- many good-to-excellent free (as in beer and speech) tools are available.

You say you are looking for something cross platform. One obvious choice is Java. Many vendors have IDEs that will run under Linux. NetBeans is an open source project under the Sun Public License, which is the basis for Sun's Forte product (very much like how Mozilla is a basis for Netscape). Forte Community Edition is free to download and try out. Borland offers JBuilder, with a Foundation Edition available for download. I'm sure there are many others with run under Linux, but this will get you started.

You say you are looking for something cross platform. One obvious choice is Java. Many vendors have IDEs that will run under Linux. NetBeans is an open source project under the Sun Public License, which is the basis for Sun's Forte product (very much like how Mozilla is a basis for Netscape). Forte Community Edition is free to download and try out. Borland offers JBuilder, with a Foundation Edition available for download. I'm sure there are many others with run under Linux, but this will get you started.

Take this quote, for example:
Indeed, there is no commercial GUI builder for Qt or GTK+.
WRONG!
How did Mr. Fountain miss the press release announcing Kylix from Borland? This is a commercial GUI builder and RAD development environment which relies on Qt.

Take this quote, for example:
Indeed, there is no commercial GUI builder for Qt or GTK+.
WRONG!
How did Mr. Fountain miss the press release announcing Kylix from Borland? This is a commercial GUI builder and RAD development environment which relies on Qt.

A product from Borland call JDataStore, is a very high performance pure Java database system which has the particularity (in addtion to being a JDBC/SQL compliant DB) to also being able to store documents of any type directly into a built-in file system.

The examples that come with the distribution actually show you how to store and load files from it. You can then use an upload Servlet, and coouple that with a few JSP (Java Server Pages), and voila you got something which works anywhere.

Note that you will still need to program a way to keep older versions of documents, and a way to implement a locking mechanism for people to check out and check in files. I'm sure any competent programmer can accomplish all this in about a 2 weeks of work, and add another week for fine tuning and testing.

Note however that I assume that (1) storage space is not an issue, considering how cheap hard drives are these days, and (2) that you will not write any sophisticated mechanisms to store only the changes to a document, but rather that you will save ALL versions of all the documents, along with the choice to erase older versions (either with a fixed ptogramatically-fixed time variable, a user command, or both).

Please spare all the flames please, I KNOW there are commecial solutions, I KNOW this is a very simple solution, I'm JUST offering ONE possible solution to the poster's problem. Please spare all the "you can do this better with PHP or ASP, etc". Use the tools you want.

Note that I have already implemented systems which can do all this as outlined above, just not for the same problem domain, so I know what I'm talking about.

I hope this helps.

p.s.: You can use the free Tomcat Servlet/JSP engine to do this.

There's KIllustrator (photo-editing), Konqueror and Mozilla (web browsing, HTML editing etc), and again a good many others.

Oh, and anti-aliased fonts are very very nice, but that's just a bonus of a superior toolkit...

IMO, the programmer community would, in many cases, be far, *far* better off writing their applications using a very high level language.

Like this one???

Funny, however, how many machos wouldn't be caught dead programming with it???? Like if working with C was a sign of intelligence (must be those PHBs who insist on it).

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Pardon me for spoiling your FUD, but:

• PostgreSQL does supports these features.
• Interbase supports them too.

Maybe you should try using these databases before discounting them. Just because MySQL does not have transactions or row-level locking does not mean other 'free' RDBMS do not. As far as your claim that 'you tried'. What, exactly, did you try? Maybe the 'experts' you hired were stupid or incompetent. Maybe your architecture is inefficient. Maybe a hundred other things caused these problems and you incorrectly thought it was the fault of the database.
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"In the land of the brave and the free, we defend our freedom with the GNU GPL."

There are some successful examples of very big Pure Java applications running cross-platform. Borland's JBuilder and TogetherSoft's Together are two very notable examples.

JNI doesn't necessarily mean platform-dependance, just that you have to provide equivalent functionality for the other platforms you support, whether that's in Pure Java or using JNI calls. For example, you could use JNI methods to write log information to the Event Log on Windows NT/2000, or normal Java I/O to write to standard text-based log files on any UNIX-compatible system. That doesn't mean you're platform-dependent.

(Note very carefully - I'm not saying Java is truly platform-independent; just cross-platform capable without a ton of porting work or a complete recompile.)

In addition to RAD systems others have already listed there's also Borland Kylix. Don't know what Klyx is - I take that you don't mean KLyX (KDE version of LyX). Still I agree many windows apps have better UI than their unix equivalents.
_________________________

I would argue that products such as Oracle require as much or more babysitting. I have developed applications that use Oracle for 5 years and would not recommend it unless you are willing to pay for DBA services. Oracle is a complex product that will not perform without 1+ competent DBAs. Is the same true for MySQL? PGSQL? Interbase? BTW-One of the 'selling points of Interbase is that:

Most SQL database server products require expensive MIS staffs to install, tune, and manage them. The InterBase design doesn't require hours of maintenance or a PhD in InterBase tuning. When your applications must run without constant supervision or when your desktop database runs out of steam, InterBase is the clear choice.
--
"In the land of the brave and the free, we defend our freedom with the GNU GPL."

You can write decently fast GUI applications in Swing as long as you use 1.3.x and know what you are doing.

• Quickly design graphical applications
• use pre-fabbed components
• a language that every idiot can use
• a RAD (rapid application development) tool

I hate to say it, but it seems to be truer than ever. It used to apply just to governments, etc.; now it applies to anyone with big bucks.

* I did put the "==" to make believe that I program in C, but in reality, I'm a Delphi junkie...

--

Not theoretically, but actually: Many of the TeamB members are already Kylix experts. They've been in trial-by-fire training for months, since the Kylix Kick-Start last year.

Everyone seems to a little upset with the $999 pro and $1999 enterprise price. If you look at the price of Delphi 5 which Kylix is supposed to replace you'll notice that they raised the price of the 'PRO' edition $200, and dropped the price of the 'enterprise' edition $500. Plus they are releasing a free GPL'd version that cost's nothing compared to the $99 for standard.

Personally I think this is very competive for the tools. I currently use Delphi 5 Pro and will be upgrading to the Kylix Pro version when it comes out.

My complaint, give me an upgrade price from Delphi 5 to Kylix Pro that is in line with the Delphi 5 upgrade price!

To be fair Borland did invest a fair amount of money in the product, and put themselves out on a limb announcing it as coming soon at the Borcon 2000. About time they final got it out the door, guess they where true to there word that they would not release it before it is ready. I have warm fuzzies about this one.

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

Everyone seems to a little upset with the $999 pro and $1999 enterprise price. If you look at the price of Delphi 5 which Kylix is supposed to replace you'll notice that they raised the price of the 'PRO' edition $200, and dropped the price of the 'enterprise' edition $500. Plus they are releasing a free GPL'd version that cost's nothing compared to the $99 for standard.

Personally I think this is very competive for the tools. I currently use Delphi 5 Pro and will be upgrading to the Kylix Pro version when it comes out.

My complaint, give me an upgrade price from Delphi 5 to Kylix Pro that is in line with the Delphi 5 upgrade price!

To be fair Borland did invest a fair amount of money in the product, and put themselves out on a limb announcing it as coming soon at the Borcon 2000. About time they final got it out the door, guess they where true to there word that they would not release it before it is ready. I have warm fuzzies about this one.

TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken

The Dreamcast is going to beat Indrema in becoming the first open-source (I know, but I want your attention) gameplatform. OpenBSD is, as far as I can tell from the mailing list, near to support the ethernet adapter. NetBSD might be a strange platform for SEGA to have running on it's hardware, since NetBSD's license states that you can redistribute binary only. But once the driver is done, it will also (my guess) be awailable for you Linux guys ;) Somebody write an X server for it, and I'm in. (It will even be supported by kylix)

The glib statement is that among speed, integrity, availability and affordability, you can pick three. InterBase kind of spoils the equation, but when you compare MySQL, PostgreSQL, and, say, Oracle, you get the idea.

Disclaimer I had Chinese food for lunch.

--

I think you can make the argument that Interbase lost 'the battle' because they have a lousy marketing department. Until Interbase went Open Source (tm), I had never heard of it even though I have been building Oracle and Sybase applications for the past 5 years.

Sounds more like a marketing problem than a functionality problem.Interbase has cool features that other 'commercial' RDBMS do not have (like events).

Lack of integrity constraints (like FKs) is a good example why both mSQL and MySQL blow chunks, compared to Interbase. The MySQL folks give their reasons not support FKs, but IMHO they are a load of crap.

In my 6 years of developing database applications (Oracle, Sybase, Interbase), lack of FKs is the #1 reason why databases contain unclean data. The MySQL approach of 'let the developer' worry about it is assinine - especially if you have multiple interfaces to insert / update data in your database (e.g., a web interface and a traditional client-server interface).

The only Good Thing (tm) everyone on /. says about MySQL is that it is 'fast'. Interbase seems just as fast a MySQL on my Linux box. (I have never timed their query response times and I would appreciate any published comparisions to dissuade me.

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life."

Where is there any reference to this? They actually waited until after Christmas and a patch in place before releasing any information and after repeated attempts to contact Borland.

You can find Jim Starkey's post archived on the IB-Architect list at egroups. The the post appeared before the fix was published.

And if someone had found the exploit while the patch was being distributed (not unlikely, You get a patch from Borland with instructions to install it urgently. Your database works fine now. Why bother)?

It is not uncommeon for security hot-fixes to the issued with no detailed explanation of the problem they fix. There's a good reason for this. The chances of someone else discovering the problem *and* exploting it, before the fix had been distributed and applied, would have been minimal and IMO worth taking.

And that's the firebird teams fault how? If there are still people out there who aren't willing to take the effort to watch the accepted security advisary mailing lists then they deserve what they get.

Of couse it's not Firebird's fault. In most cases the customers are responsible for their own actions (or in this case, lack of action), but we have to take reality in to account too. Interbase is widely used as an embedded database; Many customers might not realize that they have an Interbase server running on their system. The majority of non-IT companies have no knowledge of CERT and the like and they will never hear of the problem unless their supplier notifies them. Heck, I would even claim that most IT companies doesn't know about CERT. I work at the largest Interbase VAR in my country and I'm sure our compay doesn't read CERT alerts. We must presume that the security alert is meant as a benefit to the users of the affected systems. If the majority of the users benefits most from a delayed alert, I think it should be delayed. Naturally I'm just speculating here - I can't say for sure what most users do or want.

They hated them sooo much they went out of their way to provide binary patches when the patch that was released by Borland was a non-patch. And they even attempted to contact them at all. They could have just gone to CERT with the advisory, Borland be damned. Borland looks like a criminal for putting a backdoor in their software and the firebird team look like saviours. No extra effort needed.

I can't really userstand your point here. Are you saying they shouldn't have or didn't have to make the patch because that was Borland's responsibility? Nobody has complained about Jim's patch and nobody has said they shouldn't contact Borland. Your statement about the backdoor indicates to me that you haven't understood the intended purpose of the backdoor, but that might just be me misunderstandning you so never mind. Oh, and btw, from what I've read, Borland's patch is actually more secure than Jim's. I'm not claiming that there's anything wrong with Jim's patch. One doesn't have to be wrong for the other to be right.

So petty bickering is more important to Borland than their customers security.

Please don't but words in my mouth. Borland got the message and acted on it. This whole situation could have been handled better by both sides and they both seem to be getting their act together now. Maybe this whole fubar will clear the air between them. My original post came as a reaction to the, in my eyes, completely one sided discussion of this situation.

Whats the bet that sys admins around the globe are considering ditching all Borland software because it can no longer be considered trustworthy.

For those who has read more than the headlines, I would say the chances are minimal.

Your attempts to hack a Borland database show more you lack of knowledge than any real proof that the security hole wasn't all that bad.

What's your point? I haven't caimed to be a security expert or having done extensive tests and analysis on this problem. I have worked with Interbase since version 4 and know it very well. I told you of *my* experience in the hope that someone could tell me I were right or wrong. Just assuming that I'm a lying incompetent bastard doesn't do anybody any good.

I think I would trust the knowledge of people who actually hack the software over a poster on slashdot with a very large user id (=> recently registered) and having only posted once (=> someone from Borland with sour graphs?).

What's the purpose of trying to discredit me? I've told of my observations and my opinions. You can disagree with me, but they are still my opinions. Would you rather have me shut up and just hear one side of the story? I don't get it.
True, I haven't posted on /. before because there haven't been anything for me to post about before, but doesn that automatically mean I can't be trusted. Most of the people you say you would rather trust also just registered on /. for this discussion. Instead of attacking me, you could have asked for references; I would have been happy to supply them.
I do not work for Borland and never has (can't you tell English isn't my native language), but I'm an active member of the Delphi community. I have chosen to remain passive and lurking in the Interbase community because of the issues I have spoken of. I won't be part of a community which bites the hand that has fed it (and has fed me through Delphi).

That's it for me on this issue. I've said my piece.

P.S. Jim Starkey has just issued a formal apology to Charlie Caro, Borland, through on the IB-Architect list. Kudos to Jim for this.

First of all JSP pages will always load slow the first time because they're being compiled.

Secondly servlets, being bytecode, are *plenty* fast. I'm pretty happy servlets were used over .

In any complicated system, there are any number of factors that can affect performance. People have a nasty tendency to focus on one "obvious" bottleneck (program speed in web apps, cpu speed in PC apps, buffer size in comm apps), completely neglecting all the other, usually more important, factors.

If you are writing a complicated system like Glasscode in Perl, well, God help you.

Writing it in C is just plain stupid, and is the icing on your troll post.

__________________

First of all JSP pages will always load slow the first time because they're being compiled.

Secondly servlets, being bytecode, are *plenty* fast. I'm pretty happy servlets were used over .

In any complicated system, there are any number of factors that can affect performance. People have a nasty tendency to focus on one "obvious" bottleneck (program speed in web apps, cpu speed in PC apps, buffer size in comm apps), completely neglecting all the other, usually more important, factors.

If you are writing a complicated system like Glasscode in Perl, well, God help you.

Writing it in C is just plain stupid, and is the icing on your troll post.

__________________

First of all JSP pages will always load slow the first time because they're being compiled.

Secondly servlets, being bytecode, are *plenty* fast. I'm pretty happy servlets were used over .

In any complicated system, there are any number of factors that can affect performance. People have a nasty tendency to focus on one "obvious" bottleneck (program speed in web apps, cpu speed in PC apps, buffer size in comm apps), completely neglecting all the other, usually more important, factors.

If you are writing a complicated system like Glasscode in Perl, well, God help you.

Writing it in C is just plain stupid, and is the icing on your troll post.

__________________

Borland is working on Kylix and should be done soon (not like 2.4 soon, hopefully sooner! ;) It is a port of their (IMHO) superior Windows dev tools - Delphi and C++ Builder - to Linux.

Look for it at this URL, at the bottom left of the page: http://www.borland.com/kylix/
--

I dont think wine is the way we need to go to make Linux the standard desktop anyway. Probably projects like Kylix are much nicer for development than hoping to have success with wine.
Ok,okey, Pascal isnt the most cool language of earth, but its atleast a easy way for crossdeveloping good utilities for desktops.

Down the tubes? Really? Looked at their financials lately?

Kylix has been announced by Borland as one of their top new commercial products and they put quite a lot of their resources into it so it is pretty much impossible to release it all free (whatever free means).

However, in the past, Borland has prooved their will to focus on the needs of the Linux and also Open Source community by

• asking the communities themselves for their needs
• using the answers to help develop Kylix project components
• releasing parts of their work (C++ compiler) as free software
• being the first company which is putting many resources into a Linux RAD tool - which is urgently needed but is also a business risk: Who knows if we, the free / Open Source / Linux people, will buy it?

It would be really unfair to trash Borland just because they try to make money out of software development or because they don't release it all as free. Instead we should be happy for every part they might possibly release as free.

(I'm not working for Borland nor do I have any releation to them or something - except for being their customer.)

M.

1. Go to Borland's homepage
2. Click the Kylix link
3. Click the FAQ link
4. Read

M.

Under Is Kylix an Open Source project?, Borland states "The details of the Kylix open source project are currently under development and will be announced at a later date."

But under How will Kylix be priced?, there's the usual "ranges between $99 and $799 for the standard to professional editions and up to $2,500 for the Enterprise editions"

So this means, yes, no, maybe, and perhaps later?

Believe it when I see it, perhaps...

M.

.. theres a Borland Pascal compiler for Linux; Kylix.

I was under the assumption that the tight-nit Delphi group (see the Delphi Super Page) existed as a support group for Delphi programmers to be able to keep up with what was going on in the C++ community. I could not have been more wrong.

Clumsily traipsing into the MSVC++ environment, I thought that the best thing to do would be to use the classes that were available - surely they followed the "standards" of the C++ community, and they would be the best tools to use. So, I innocently wrote all my tools based on CFile, CStdioFile, CString, and the like. What a frickin mistake.

CString is its own abomination, not available anywhere else on any platform, as far as I can tell. I was astounded to learn that the string library that MSVC++ pushes on people is not portable. Until I remembered that the "MS" is Microsoft. Of course they want you to use classes that can't be ported! Duh!

CFile crashes in situations that I've never seen fopen crash. How stupid is that?

Anyway, the thing that, on reflection, impresses me the most about Delphi is that when you pick a tool to use, you're probably using the right one. No, Borland doesn't subscribe to the ANSI Pascal standard - but I've never met anyone who prefered ANSI Pascal over the latest and greatest Borland product.

Yes, it'd be better if Delphi (read Kylix) were standard, free, portable, and already ported to every system on the planet. But I'll be happy with it, when it comes out. It'll instantly make me a /competent/ Linux application developer. Not necessarily a great one, but I'll be competent, instantly. Unlike my situation in C++. If I took my MSVC++ smarts, and tried to use them to code in gcc, I'd be lost. Completely lost. I'd essentially have to start over, and re-learn all the tools I thought I knew how to use. And I've seen the same thing happen the other way, too. Linux / gcc coders scrambling to get anything to work in MSVC++.

When a newcomer uses Delphi to code Windows applications, they are a lot more competent a lot more quickly than someone in the same situation, using MSVC++. I hope, hope, hope that the situation is the same with Kylix on Linux.

http://www.borland.com/kylix/

For all those asking (because the site is /.ed) Kylix is Inprise/Borland's version of Delphi (and later C++ Builder) for Linux.

It includeds a (Qt based) visual form designer, an OO-language (Object Pascal), great database tools and a cross platform OO class library called CLX (which supplements the Windows only VCL).

It will support application developement for KDE, GNOME (or at least GNOME aware, but non-GTK apps) and Apache modules.

More info at http://www.borland.com/kylix/

I believe that Kylix is going to be a breakthough app for the Linux desktop. Many large companies have many apps written in Delphi (and VB). Rewritting these apps in C/C++ isn't an option, and Scripting languages like Python/Perl don't have the tool support for writing these GUI database applications. Kylix is going after that market, and knowing Borland's reputation for writing good programming tools, I'm looking forward to it.

Borland already has the JBuilder development enviroment out for Linux. Although this is Java based, the environment brings the familiar Borland's power IDE interface. It works like a dream with proper hardware under Linux. The Foundation release is free for use. You need to download a license key from the site though.

* Kylix is the upcoming RAD tool from Borland.
http://www.drbob42.com/kylix/
http://www.borland.com/linux/

--Mike--

Borland's first Pascal with Object oriented extentions was Turbo Pascal 5.5 in 1989, and it was somewhat similar to Apple's Object Pascal. The object-oriented extensions to Pascal released with Delphi was very different (the option for non-virtual methods and access control to data members, and the constructor destructor definition was entirely different.)

Who the hell cares about cross platform capability once IBM puts Linux on all of its hardware platforms as they have anounced? Just look at www.ibm.com/linux . I can kick JAVA's ass on Windows and soon on Linux with Delphi ( www.borland.com/delphi ). Who the hell needs JAVA when you can create raw, powerful, nativley compiled exe's in Delphi for Windows and soon in Linux? There is NOTHING you do in JAVA that you can not do in Delphi. If so, please show me. Who the hell needs JAVA when you can create "native" Apache modules nativley compiled in Delphi for Linux? JAVA is childsplay, get serious and learn a real language like Delphi. Those wannabe programmers that use JAVA are a joke. There is always a need for speed. Period. No matter how fast your CPU is. Got that? With Delphi for Windows and Linux and possibly Apple and other platforms, who the hell wants JAVA crawling along as pathetic as JAVA is? And, raw speed is only one of MANY great features of Delphi (OO Pascal). God I hat this Java crap. Just like when VB for Win came out back in 1991. Give a man a toy, he plays with it. Give a man the best tool, he starts producing reliable, stable, and fast products and services. Grow up people, smell the coffee or something, just WAKE UP!!!

Download links are:
Client and server source code
Server Linux binaries

From personal experience, Interbase is perfect for a tight budget situation where you need to server a medium-size userbase.

--
Kiro

You posted the exact same link, but I still won't call you an idiot. Try this one.

I am in the process of finishing up coding a TTabControl and TPageControl for project Kylix. Does this mean I can stop working and go home now?

-- I'm not a Linux guy but I play one at work. --

A successor ffor Pascal? Would that not be Delphi?

Why? It's stable. There are applications for it. Development for it is not difficult (with the right tools)

Someday I hope the open source world will progress to the point where it will stop getting excited every time some corporation tosses a failing product over the wall.

Incidentally, from eavesdropping on the postgresql developer list, I gather that their take on interbase is that postgresql will be as good or better by around 7.1 or 7.2 (the current release is 7.0). I believe the only key feature postgresql is missing at the moment is outer joins.

(Warning, blatant religious evangelism follows.) Postgresql is BSD liscensed, and has a really good team of open source developers actively working on it, including Tom Lane and Bruce Momjian... (unlike Inprise, which is now in the position of trying to drum up community support using an MPL-style license).

Postgresql has been making rapid improvements over the last year or so (though it still has the worst name of any software project, ever...). Bruce Momjian has a book coming out about postgresql and the full text is available online. Commercial support for postgresql is available from places such as Great Bridge.

(And whatever you do, don't mention Perl in this thread, or you'll have the Python fanatics in here too.)