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I found myself wondering exactly what Interbase could do for me

So I dug through their site (not hard to find) and found this lil gem

Interbase Product Overview

Interbase has some very awesome features. The overview took the tone of a semi marketing type item yet it was infomrative and if you read through some of the garbage its rather clear to see as a programmer/developer what Interbase offers.

Some of the features that stuck out in my mind from the over view.

-Small memory footprint
-Triggers
-Stored Procedures
-User Definable Functions with some 'libraries' per say already defined for math and string handling
-Alert events
EX:A certain item goes below xyz dollars it can send an alert using some sort of constant polling method. I am not sure exactly what this one was.. but basically it looks like whenever changes are done to the table if certain criteria are met it can call up a stored proc/UDF or something. This is a bit more powerful than a trigger or a stored procedure since you do not have to do any speical coding on a insert/update/delete.

Some other interesting things... There was a *LOAD* of case studies on the interbase site.

Case Studies

I looked at some of these and they were real industry proven case studies IMO.

Its Free.. and it has a good reputation

You can buy support for it

It appears to be VERY ANSI Compliant and supports all the trappings of MS SQL Server..

It also claimed to be self optimizing... anyways hope this provided a little information.

Jeremy


If you think education is expensive, try ignornace

Well, The City of New York Department of Health is using it,
with the size of the database adding 5 Gb in a year.
Don't know if it's enough for you, though. :)

Seriously, after getting those indexes right and designing your
relations with care, it should be fast enough.

Um, I may be confused here, by why does it matter if Microsoft supports Java on Win2k? I'm quite happily running JBuilder 3.5 on Win2k, which utilizes the Sun JRE and Borland's all-Java IDE. As far as I can tell, those two proggies allow me to run Java apps on Win2k just fine...and all I need to run apps is the JRE.

The Free Country's Developer City has links to an absolute crapload of free stuff, including a heap of free Pascal and Delphi compilers. The Borland abandonware stuff is here (free registration required).

What I heard has lead me to beleive that you can also compile C and C++ with Kylix. That would the best thing about it. I know pascal, C, and C++, and it shouldn't be too difficult to pickup on the variations in Delphi--especially now that there are books on it.
Now that JBuilder will be supported on the Mac OS X, they might port the other tools (like C++Builder and Delphi) too, but that is just speculation. It would be nice to write a C++ program on Linux and have it compile (and run) on WinNT/Win9x and Mac OS X all at once. Support 3 platforms with the development of only 1.
Their venture into the UNIX world began with JBuilder on Solaris. I think this is the case because they made JBuilder 3 Enterprise, Solaris Edition available via the web on 10/19/1999. I may be wrong about some of this. I think they are heading in the right direction! I look forward to thier future.

What I heard has lead me to beleive that you can also compile C and C++ with Kylix. That would the best thing about it. I know pascal, C, and C++, and it shouldn't be too difficult to pickup on the variations in Delphi--especially now that there are books on it.
Now that JBuilder will be supported on the Mac OS X, they might port the other tools (like C++Builder and Delphi) too, but that is just speculation. It would be nice to write a C++ program on Linux and have it compile (and run) on WinNT/Win9x and Mac OS X all at once. Support 3 platforms with the development of only 1.
Their venture into the UNIX world began with JBuilder on Solaris. I think this is the case because they made JBuilder 3 Enterprise, Solaris Edition available via the web on 10/19/1999. I may be wrong about some of this. I think they are heading in the right direction! I look forward to thier future.

What I heard has lead me to beleive that you can also compile C and C++ with Kylix. That would the best thing about it. I know pascal, C, and C++, and it shouldn't be too difficult to pickup on the variations in Delphi--especially now that there are books on it.
Now that JBuilder will be supported on the Mac OS X, they might port the other tools (like C++Builder and Delphi) too, but that is just speculation. It would be nice to write a C++ program on Linux and have it compile (and run) on WinNT/Win9x and Mac OS X all at once. Support 3 platforms with the development of only 1.
Their venture into the UNIX world began with JBuilder on Solaris. I think this is the case because they made JBuilder 3 Enterprise, Solaris Edition available via the web on 10/19/1999. I may be wrong about some of this. I think they are heading in the right direction! I look forward to thier future.

Essentially it's Delphi for linux, but I have to wonder why they are keeping the linux and windows versions distint.

Sure I realise there are some very large parts of linux missing from windows, and vice versa, but surely the way forward is to abstract these details as much as possilbe from the programmer.

Sure it means that low level components have to be developed seperately for each OS, but this would make code immediately compile on both platforms.

I haven't looekd in on this project for a LONG time but you may want to check out REALbasic (just noticed they wrote IE for mac in it :)) because it lets you build Mac and Windows from the same source, despite the OS differences.

None the less, I love borland/inprise/whateverdafucktheyarecalledtoday, and their software and so long as it's not another JBuilder (cringe) i'll be happy :)

Incidentally, Borland has done the Java community and themselves a massive favour by making JBuilder Foundation free (as in beer). It's a brilliant fully featured product- highly recommended!

Roberto (Java fanatic, in case you hadn't guessed)

Incidentally, Borland has done the Java community and themselves a massive favour by making JBuilder Foundation free (as in beer). It's a brilliant fully featured product- highly recommended!

Roberto (Java fanatic, in case you hadn't guessed)

Okay--so this conference was a total bust. Somebody in Kansas City did a wretched job organizing a conference, and the conference was wretched.

Do not let this get you down. In fact, the conference may not have been all that bad. Imagine being the 14th person in that opening presentation with Bruce Perens--a whole lot better communication than being one of 2000 at a mega-conference on the west coast, no? When LinuxWorldExpo draws 30,000 attendees you're not going to be firing automatic weapons at a Geeks with Guns gathering, lest it bring out the National Guard.

This may well be a sign of a maturing Linux community.

I've been a Visual Basic programmer since the day the product shipped (I've been programming in Basic since the days when it was an acronym). When VB first shipped it generated a positively electric buzz--it was phenomenally cool. But after the initial hype, after the initial thrill, and after a few developers noticed that there were some serious limits to what you could do with VB1, there seemed to be a plateau....

Right about that time Microsoft organized a conference in New York City with Boston University. Big deal, big ticket conference, with a huge fee to attend. And approximately nobody signed up. Microsoft called me up personally to invite me to attend, and the person asked me if I had any friends who'd like to come along too. For free. (And bear in mind--this was organized by professional conference organizers, in midtown Manhattan. This wasn't some poor guy in over his head in Kansas.)

Even with the last-minute scrambling, there were something like 40 people there--maybe less. Microsoft people openly worried about looking that stupid in front of the entire New York IT world. It was a cast-iron disaster.

Except that it wasn't. During the early buzz of Visual Basic there was a small group of self-employed programmers using the tool, and a larger group of corporate programmers who were playing with it at home. By the time this conference rolled around, a lot of those guys had jobs as VB programmers, and couldn't get the time to go to the conference. Or didn't feel the conference would tell them anything they couldn't hear online. VB has gone on to huge things in New York City and elsewhere, of course, and a poorly attended conference in 1992 hasn't made the slightest bit of difference.

That may well be the same thing with this Linux conference. Sure--poor promotion will hurt. But poor attendance by the locals may well mean that people are using Linux at work, and that in turn means that Linux is infiltrating the corporate world.

You may see more conference reports that show poor attendance. It doesn't mean that Linux is in trouble--it probably just means that a lot of Linux users have been to a conference or two, heard the speeches extolling Open Source, and are biding their time (and keeping their money) until there is something new! and exciting! about Linux to come hear about.

That may be coming: Borland/Inprise is now projecting that Kylix, their cross-platform version of Delphi, will ship later this year. When developers can take advantage of a visual development IDE and deploy on Linux, there may be a phenomenal explosion of interest. And when corporate IT managers discover that the boys in the back room have been running the company proxy server on Linux for months, you may well see an explosion of interest in Linux all across corporate America.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a Linux evangelist. But I would not, at all, consider this conference (or Roblimo's similarly pessimistic views on PC Expo) reason to get discouraged about the potential of Linux.

The penguin may just be sitting on the tip of the iceberg....

I did about 2 years at HP developing image processing/manufacturing software in WinNT. I had to use MS Visual Studio to communicate with the hardware so I developed that stuff as a DLL. Since it was all low level stuff built on my own class library, I didn't have to use MFC which was a real blessing. The only time I butted heads with MFC was when I would write a quick and dirty application to debug a piece of the DLL.

Did you ever try to remove a button from an MFC application? If you're not careful it will chew up and spit out your project before you know what hit you.

The rest of the application(s) I did in Borland's C++ Builder. Remember, Borland is releasing Kylix sometime this year, with the C++ Builder version to follow soon after. Kylix is is Delphi for Linux. It is a marriage of all of the stuff you like about programming in Linux, with the slick, integrated IDE.

Delphi Rocks and it's going to be great on Linux. If you're careful with your code, deploying your application in Win32 will be as simple as recompiling it.

Go to community.borland.com for more information on Kylix.

With Regards,

Phillip H. Blanton

I think Forte for Java, Community Edition is a good option, but people might also want to take a look at the JBuilder Foundation, Community Edition.

The "Legal Notice" on Borland's Community Web is rather interesting. I especially like:

Copyrights: The materials on this Site are copyrighted and protected by worldwide copyright laws and treaty provisions. You may download one copy of the information ("Materials") found on this Site on a single computer for your personal, non-commercial internal use only unless specifically licensed to do otherwise by Inprise Corporation in writing. Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph, Inprise Corporation does not grant any express or implied right to you to any patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, or other intellectual property

Only one download of an HTML page? And only for non-commercial use?

• BDE went into maintenance as of Delphi 5. It was originally written as an interface for single-platform Paradox files, and grew into what must have been a crufty mess. It will not be ported to Linux; MIDAS is the preferred DB-connectivity scheme under both Kylix and recent versions of Delphi / C++B. BDE will remain in maintenance mode for the foreseeable future to maintain backwards-compatibility with a zillion apps.
• CLX is designed as a wrapper for both Qt and GTK. If you read the Borland Community site, there are papers there that describe Borland's POV as "We don't care what toolkit/desktop env/wm the user has on his / her system, and neither should you." Use CLX, and the Borland classlib will check to see what the user has available and present the app accordingly. Rev. 1 will work better with Qt than GTK, on the grounds that they had to start somewhere (and signed a contract with TrollTech). That contract also covers the development cost of using Qt for non-Open Source software, so long as you call CLX and not Qt directly.
• The bosses at Borland have promised the staff that the "Inprise" name is going to go the way of Taligent and PeoplExpress.

I can't speak from any specific comments or commitments from Borland, but there HAS already been a port of Delphi to the Alpha processor (mainly as something to run native with Windows NT running on an Alpha box). Much of the compiler core is written in Object Pascal, as well as the IDE (which was written with Delphi), so I can't imagine that it would be particularly difficult to port to other environments.

Porting from Windows to Linux is a much bigger step than going from an i386 platform to some of the other architectures, especially if you can make sure the system calls are consistant. That is one big bonus that Linux has over the Microsoft products.

Delphi is close enough to Pascal that it might be good - structered language, some OOP.

Actually, Delphi probably isn't a good first language for precicely the opposite reason that BASIC sucks -- Delphi is too object oriented for beginners to understand basic program flow. My vote is for Turbo Pascal 7.0. That is the absolute best teaching language there is, and IIRC, it was originally designed as an instructional language -- teach kids about structured programming, functions, OOP, memory management, disk access, etc. Go with TP 7.0. It's free, too. You should be able to find it and other older, free programming stuff here (apologies - couldn't verify the link because their DNS appears to be acting up).
---

--- Borland C++
--- C++ Compiler
--- Borland Turbo C++ Suite
--- Borland C++ Builder

The license cited is for Borland C++ Builder -- a completely different product from Borland C++. This betrays either gross neglect, or deliberate inflammatory rhetoric. Anyone, anywhere could screw thenselves up using the wrong product in almost any task. Therefore getting the name right is the most basic act that anyone can be expected to do.

Besides, as has been noted elsewhere, Borland C++ Builder *generates* code for you. You can write and distribute the binary, or any source code you write -- but not source code that Borland writes.
_____________

#include <dos.h>
int main() { sound(2600); return 0; }

I'd post a binary at my web page, but I'm booted into GNU/Linux at the moment. But don't try phreaking with it: the phone company now has a "blue box" alarm.

JBuilder is nmore than a cross-development tool. It's the proof that WORA works. JBuilder itself is writtn in 100% Java and the same exact bytecode is distributed on all supported platforms (Linux,Solaris and Windows).
This by itself should be encouraging since JBuilder is a big application.

The distribution of a JVM should not be aproblem since the JRE, not the JDK, is redistributable by license. In other wordss, you can bundle your app with a JR, you don't have to bundle te JDK.

--
Paolo Ciccone
JBuilder dev.Team

Could someone please correct the flaws in my thinking? [snip] MS making it virtually impossible to write decent software for their OS without shelling out huge amounts of money to them?

Certainly. Mr Borland would like a word with you, even if you insist on using The J word. Even one of Mr Stallman's followers could help you out if you promise not to grass them up.

Nothing you can do about the price of the target platform though.

Dave :)

Could someone please correct the flaws in my thinking? [snip] MS making it virtually impossible to write decent software for their OS without shelling out huge amounts of money to them?

Certainly. Mr Borland would like a word with you, even if you insist on using The J word. Even one of Mr Stallman's followers could help you out if you promise not to grass them up.

Nothing you can do about the price of the target platform though.

Dave :)

I do both the RAD/GUI Delphi style development and the old-school non-GUI under the covers stuff. Guess what? For most purposes, RAD is the way to go. The company I work for chose Delphi because it could get the job done fastest, which is what RAD means: Rapid Application Development. The development estimate for C++ was (I believe) more than twice what it was for Delphi.

That's why Delphi is a "professional" tool. A better analogy than "hand-holding" is "running off ahead of you and building you a mass-transit system and then you just specify the schedules." Yes, I think that's a much better analogy.

As for what you're harping on about, that statement that insulted you, well, perhaps you should actually take a look at that poll they're referring to. A good chunk of those votes are a result of the slashdot article.

JBuilder 3.5 is here.

Delphi and C++Builder for Linux....details. Should be cool.

try here.

here instead of wherever the main article was pointing.

Short summary sentance from the page:

Kylix is a "Linux component based development environment for two-way visual development of graphical user interface (GUI), Internet, database, and server applications."

At least according to David I, who promises "More Antique Software Coming Soon To The Museum" on Borland's developer community Web site.

Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.

Inprise Offers InterBase 6.0 - Linux for Public Field Test

InterBase 6.0 for Linux now available for download on InterBase web site. (www.interbase.com)

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif., March 8th, 2000 -- Inprise Corporation (Nasdaq: INPR) today announced a public field test of InterBase 6.0 for the Linux operating system now available as a download from the InterBase web site, http://www.interbase.com/open/downloads/linux60bet a.html

Two years have gone by since InterBase 4.0 was originally released as freeware for Linux. Following on from recent announcements regarding the open-sourcing of InterBase 6.0, the new version of its cross-platform relational database - Interbase would like all interested parties to freely download and test this latest version of InterBase for Linux. Any feedback on this new version can be sent to ib_support@inprise.com or alternatively users are encouraged to participate in the field test newsgroups

Other field test versions of InterBase 6.0 for Windows, Solaris and CPM will be made publicly available shortly.

About InterBase 6
InterBase 6.0 is a powerful, high-performance cross-platform relational database designed for business-critical, mobile computing and Internet-based applications on Linux, Windows NT, Solaris, and other UNIX operating systems. Since 1985, InterBase has provided technologically superior relational database solutions to meet the business-critical database needs of numerous companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, MCI, Northern Telecom, Bear Stearns, the Money Store, the US Army, NASA, and Rob Schieck's mers.com web site. Through its ease of use, maintainability, simplified deployment and small footprint, InterBase has become the preferred embedded database solution.

The Linux and Inprise development community tells us that this release of InterBase is one of the best things that has happened to them this week. There is no doubt that InterBase and Linux are a perfect fit, because both are known for stability and reliability combined with absolute zero cost of ownership," said Markus Kemper, Director of the Mustang 5.0 Ownership Club at InterBase.

About Inprise/Borland
Inprise Corporation is a leading provider of Internet-enabling software and services that reduce the complexity of application development for corporations and individual programmers. Inprise delivers integrated, scalable and secure solutions distinguished for their ease of use, performance and productivity. Committed to open platforms, Inprise continues its tradition of service and support for millions of software developers around the world through its online developer community and E-commerce site http://community.borland.com providing a range of technical information, value-added services and third-party products. Founded in 1983, Inprise is headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, with operations worldwide.

InterBase: the OPEN source database (minus the source)
Spamming for karma. If AC's do it, then karma whores cant. penix penix penix.

Kylix will do C, C++ and Delphi, so...

See the original press release here.

Your troll/question was clearly answered in the article. Its all about choice. Linux is about choice. The freedom to do it your way. The freedom to choose your tools, your GUI or no GUI, etc. Scroll down to:

"Why would anyone pay money for development tools for a "free software" OS like Linux?"

On first blush, the notion of taking a commercial product like Delphi to the so-called "free software" Linux platform sounds crazy. Why would anyone pay money for Linux development tools when Linux ships with a free C compiler built-in?

Answer: Quality, Features, Support, and most of all: Choice. Linux is about choice. Any Linux advocate who says Delphi is not welcome in the Linux space is a hypocrite.

(emphasis mine.)

They're also porting C++ Builder to Linux so you don't have to dirty your hands with the evil of Pascal ;) There's a press release here.

Yes, I'm aware that compilers are largely OS-independent seeing as all of the OS-specific code is contained within the libraries. However from the Project Kylix press release here, I read the following:

Plans are for Project Kylix to be powered by a new high-speed native C/C++/Delphi compiler for Linux ...

That's the reason I made that statement.

As a long-time Delphi developer, I'll be incredibly annoyed if they don't continue to improve what I think is the best Windows development tool out there.

At the same time, I'm hoping and waiting for Kylix (Delphi for Linux) to hit the streets. It'll be nice to have modern development tools for Linux. For some more info about Kylix, check this link out

Borland's development tools are awesome. I just hope Corel doesn't manage to screw it up.

The link is WinShoes. These are open-source Winsock plug-in components for Delphi

He's written about making the open source decision in this case study. His reasoning for open-sourcing was that developer components are a tough market to sell into, and that it was better to just release them open source and make money as a consultant/contractor based on his reputation as a coder. He hasn't regretted his choice.

I hope this answers some of your questions!

Jbuilder for Linux is quite unstable (using JDK 1.2.2) and has other annoyances (like I can't copy/paste to other X apps). And it's pretty darn slow on my PII-266 (even with 160MB memory) too.

I think I'm going back to emacs...

Yes, and your Borland compilers are out of date (3.0? That was in 1992!). I don't know what gcc version DJGPP uses, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't have all the latest C++ features just yet.

And you might want to get Borland 5.5 sometime. Why not? It's free, as in Surge (Surge being preferable to beer)

~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd

This is not Borland's C++Builder product. What's being offered is the the command line compiler, linker, resource compiler (which translates descriptions of a program's GUI into something executable), and some other stuff.

It appears to be enough to build software from source. It appears not to be enough to do serious software development (e.g., no debugger).

What's announced is a Windows-only compiler. (It might work with Wine, but what's the point?)

This news isn't interesting for normal slashdos readers. This download is for windows users only and it's only the command line compiler tools with very little documentation and a few examples.

I have a different slant for this article. Borland have stated they intend to release delphi to linux. And if you look at the results of the JUL99 survey, the first Q/A they asked was 1. which language ared you primarily interested in developing in on linux? Of course the answer was C/C++. So what better way to pave for delphi (and release of cpp builder?) to linux than to allow users (windows developers - their primary target) to download a free (but older) compiler to get used to.

What does perplex me is the later question, 3.The particular development tool I would most like to see for Linux is - (sic), the answer was a race between c/c++ with rad (cpp builder) and a new IDE that works with existing linux tools. Maybe thats what the Jbuilder gui was about?

Go have a look at the results of the survey to gain a better idea of where borland is heading...cpp builder on kde/gnome using native gui (or wine) that's most likely not open sourced as long as it's high quality and costing between US$100 - US$300.

check out the 4 easy steps you have to go through in order to get it....

--

This is the 'foundation' level package, and is a free download. Also available for Windows and Solaris.

From Bugfest ! Win2000 has 63,000 'defects'

Allchin said Microsoft spent 500 person-years and $162 million on people and tools specifically to improve reliability of the product.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has a rough estimate for the number of man hours spent on "improving reliability" of Linux distrobutions? The Borland Developer July 1999 Main Survey Results counted 5656 respondents involved in "System development (OS, kernel, desktop, etc)".

500 person-years testing is impressive for a closed source application, but the input from the Linux developer community is surely more than that? Over two years (98 to 2000), 5k5 developers putting in only 2 hours a week would give more than 500 person (working) years. That does not include other users who provide bug reports, patches etc., but wouldn't bother if the product wasn't Open Source.

Looks like Microsoft's methods of recruiting weren't entirely kosher either.

Best regards,

SEAL

Borland's version of the news here.
--
Making iDirt 1.82 a safer place, one bug at a time.

Actually Java support has extended past just solaris and Windows. Sun has released the JDK1.2.2 for Linux, get it here! And when you're done, snag the new JBuilder Foundation! They're both really stable, and really good. I've benchmarked a chess program on them, and it's comperable with the Windows version. The compiled code is identical, Jbuilder has all the same features, and the JRE is actually executing about 5% faster than it does when I boot to Windows. Not that it's particularly fast compared to native binaries... but still it's good to see.

-enjoy!

--

Here are some contacts, I encourge a nice letter, and possible a copy of the GPL.

Sales Reps:
mailto:bkelly@borland.com
mailto:swhite@borland.com
mailto:hredding@borland.com
mailto:mbell@borland.com
mailto:dbush@borland.com
mailto:jlweil@inprise.com

Other Contacts:
mailto:webmanager@inprise.com
mailto:consulting@inprise.com
mailto:customer-service@inprise.com
mailto:ftpadm@inprise.com
mailto:resume@inprise.com
mailto:listserv@inprise.com
mailto:newsgroup-admin@borland.com
mailto:ecommerce@inprise.com
mailto:inprise-training@inprise.com
mailto:y2k@inprise.com
mailto:ydavis@inprise.com


Be nice, a good letter will give you extra Karma points, and send a copy of the GPL in a second email.

/. Effect with GPL everywhere will cause them to really think hard.

Here are some contacts, I encourge a nice letter, and possible a copy of the GPL.

Sales Reps:
mailto:bkelly@borland.com
mailto:swhite@borland.com
mailto:hredding@borland.com
mailto:mbell@borland.com
mailto:dbush@borland.com
mailto:jlweil@inprise.com

Other Contacts:
mailto:webmanager@inprise.com
mailto:consulting@inprise.com
mailto:customer-service@inprise.com
mailto:ftpadm@inprise.com
mailto:resume@inprise.com
mailto:listserv@inprise.com
mailto:newsgroup-admin@borland.com
mailto:ecommerce@inprise.com
mailto:inprise-training@inprise.com
mailto:y2k@inprise.com
mailto:ydavis@inprise.com


Be nice, a good letter will give you extra Karma points, and send a copy of the GPL in a second email.

/. Effect with GPL everywhere will cause them to really think hard.

Here are some contacts, I encourge a nice letter, and possible a copy of the GPL.

Sales Reps:
mailto:bkelly@borland.com
mailto:swhite@borland.com
mailto:hredding@borland.com
mailto:mbell@borland.com
mailto:dbush@borland.com
mailto:jlweil@inprise.com

Other Contacts:
mailto:webmanager@inprise.com
mailto:consulting@inprise.com
mailto:customer-service@inprise.com
mailto:ftpadm@inprise.com
mailto:resume@inprise.com
mailto:listserv@inprise.com
mailto:newsgroup-admin@borland.com
mailto:ecommerce@inprise.com
mailto:inprise-training@inprise.com
mailto:y2k@inprise.com
mailto:ydavis@inprise.com


Be nice, a good letter will give you extra Karma points, and send a copy of the GPL in a second email.

/. Effect with GPL everywhere will cause them to really think hard.