Borland Releases Kylix 2

Tal Cohen writes "Borland Kylix 2 is now available. Most new features are geared at Enterprise-level developers; the Open edition is still available for free download. The CLX (cross-platform component library) is covered under both GNU and Borland's license." The new features list is interesting - a fair number of buzzwords, but it also looks like they are supporting a lot of the new stuff. The white papers have some interesting topics - including gcc vs. Kylix.

Comments

Turbo Pascal

[Hougaard]

That was cool, now Borland is just a has-been company!

Re:Turbo Pascal

[lekter1]

Borland doesn't get it. I think Kylix it's a dead product. There are too many competition on the open-source field.

If only it could use gcc instead a propietary compiler...

Re:Turbo Pascal

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you insane?

The performance of the code generated by gcc sucks goat penis on all platforms. The performance on ix86 can be called mediocre at best in comparison to commercial compilers. On other platforms it is simply abyssmal. And this is not a troll. Anyone who has been forced to use gcc on Sparc or Alpha platforms can testify to this.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[LeftHanded]

They went with Delphi/Object Pascal because the compiler technology was familiar to them, because the compiler is simpler, and because they wanted to take advantage of their Delphi market. Although Borland used to kick butt with its Turbo C product Back in the Day, Visual C++ from MS is now killing them in the C++ market. Delphi is a pretty popular RAD tool, not dead at all.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[truthsearch]

I don't see much competition among the all-in-one development environments for Linux. Kylix is an attempt to become the MS Visual Studio of Linux. I don't see anything else as broad as this. KDevelop is kind of a Turbo C app. I'm not familiar with KDE Studio, but it seems to be the only real competition.

Developers, and especially companies, really want the grand development environment that nicely brings everything together. That's exactly why every Windows developer eventually dropped Borland's array of products and went to MS Visual Studio.

Borland here is trying to keep up with the times and learn from the past. I think this is a great step for Linux.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[robvasquez]

The whole reason all the Borland guys went to MS was the fact that Borland damn near went out of business. Their Turbo C/Pascal stuff ROCKED.

I remember picking up my first copies for $99...CHEAP for a sweet C compiler for my 386!

But, they took forever to get in to the 32 bit DOS world, and Watcom ate their asses up with their compiler and 32-bit DOS extender, DOS4GW. Meanwhile, Microsoft was smoking their asses (and everyone else) in Windows with Visual C++ and 32-bit code. Had Borland C++ Builder came out a little sooner....Hard to dominate on a platform when you've got to compete with the OS maker!

Re:Turbo Pascal

[marcovje]

Then use Free Pascal, it is GPL'ed, and can compile
nearly the entire Delphi syntax.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[marcovje]

Most people don't have numeric computational software that need the last penny.

Other computer subsystems (network, memory/cache,DISK) are the bottleneck.

There is only a very small market for ultra optimizing compilers, and you have to know them well
to get a real performance boost.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[bradintheusa]

Are you nuts. This product kicks butt compared to all the other IDE wannbes. Borland is the only alternative to Microsoft and doing a great job producing the best tools. It's revenues and share price (and profits) are all up up up.
What is there not to like?

Re:Turbo Pascal

[Anonymous Coward]

All true, wich is a rather bitter pill to swallow considering jsut how BAD VC sucks ass. Puhlease - could we get anymore nonintuitive? could we try harder to break compatability in hard to find/poorly documented ways in _every_ release?
Bah.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[ahde]

and developers got sick of the bloat and confusion that was MS Visual Studio, and flocked to Linux.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[mikera]

Having used both Visual Studio and Delphi, I can honestly say that Borland is way aheead in the Visual development stakes. If anything, it has been MS playing catch up in terms of tool quality.

Borland lost out to Visual Studio because of that little thing called the OS monopoly. Companies wanted the assurance that their tools are very closely tied to the OS. Borland's products are still IMO much better, and given the much leveller playing field on Linux I really hope they can succeed.

Basically, if you haven't played with Delphi/Kylix before I seriously suggest you give it a shot. It's free to try, goddamit, and I'm sure most good coders can suspend their disdain for Pascal for long enough to realise that it's actually pretty damn good.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[Anonymous Coward]

Execpt for the Following Problems

Delphi is a Rapid Applications Development Language and Free pascal does not have the tools that make Delphi so fast at developing apps. You lack most of the component (CLX,VCL)libs, the great Borland Database Engine and the great debugger. Delphi is fairly cheep A$150 and is worth every cent.

Re:Turbo Pascal

[marcovje]

See your own subject :-)

I was talking about a replacement for TP.
That doesn't mean that FPC can't be a good substitute
for Delphi for some tasks. (and standard RAD isn't one of them)

Most FPC programmers are also Delphi programmers that use FPC for more specialistic tasks.

can KDE threaten to sue?

[L-Wave]

Didn't adobe threaten the KIllustrator guy for the name of the app? Well, wouldnt the 'K' break some kde copyright/naming convention they adopted? also isnt there an app out called 'Klyx' ?

Re:can KDE threaten to sue?

[gTsiros]

"delphi" is a greek name. "Kylix" is greek for something else. Now, all you lawyer-trigger-happy geeks may stop this nonsense.

Re:can KDE threaten to sue?

[larien]

They could only sue if they'd trademarked the name, which I doubt. As that name is derived from 'lyx', they'd be on pretty shaky ground if they tried to in any case.

Besides, part of Adobe's gripe was that Killustrator was in a similar space to Illustrator; Klyx and Kylix are different products (development vs document processing).

Re:can KDE threaten to sue?

[marcovje]

That would be dangerous, since I wouldn't be surprised if Kylix is actually _older_ than klyx.

Since lyx is the original package, and klyx came only
lateron.

Re:can KDE threaten to sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they cannot. They don't have the money to pay American lawyers. Theoretically - Yes. IRL a sound and refreshening - No.

Re:can KDE threaten to sue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so, since the name Borland has chosen is in line with the naming they use for their other products. "Delphi" is a greek word (it was an ancient oracle), "kylix" is also a greek word, which was a two-handled drinking cup. The resemblance to other K-words is a (probably well-thought) coicidence

Downloaded this a while ago....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty cute, looking forward to C++ builder when that comes by for Linux, anyone got any time frames.

Re:Downloaded this a while ago....

[_DMan_]

I spoke to a Borland rep at a trade show 2 weeks ago. She told me the beta would be available early next year.

Bleh

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing personal, but they can keep it until C/C++ support gets onto said feature list.

Re:Bleh

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and I'm still angry that it doesn't have support for punched cards and 8 inch floppies.

Maybe too late

[lekter1]

I think it's too late for Borland. Maybe two years before ...

But now I think it's too late. Kdevelop and the recently released kdestudio 3.0 gold is playing hard.

Re:Maybe too late

[the_2nd_coming]

well considering Borland is trying to sell to delphi shops I don't think there is any compitition from Kstudio or Kdevelop......Kdevelop is cool though :-)

Re:Maybe too late

[uradu]

That's funny in a way. KDevelop is trying hard to emulate Visual Studio, which itself has done its damndest to incorporate any Delphi features it could pilfer (esp. ever since Heijlsberg got on-board), while also introducing a slew of new languages and a new component model. Yet Delphi is still considered the black sheep, because it uses Object Pascal. Well, happy C# coding--never mind that it's a veritable semantic OP clone.

Re:Maybe too late

[Junks Jerzey]

Kdevelop and the recently released kdestudio 3.0 gold is playing hard.

You've never used Borland's Object Pascal compiler. For all intents and purposes, even going back to the early days of the Pentium, it compiles instantaneously. Give it a large project on a 333MHz PII and--bang--it is compiled and linked before you lift your finger off of the Build key. This is a huge, huge productivity boost.

Does the compiler do as much optimization as gcc? No. But it's still an optimizing compiler that gets within the "I don't care about the difference" range.

When I see people talking about needing dual Athlons to get their gcc compile times down to the single digit minutes, then I'm appalled. With Delphi you're at *zero*. That's liberating beyond belief.

Re:Maybe too late

[Daath]

It's not too late, just ...about time ;)

There are a lot of pretty cool delphi (object pascal) hackers out there, and tons, tons, TONS of Windows apps written in Delphi just waiting, and begging to be ported to linux. And thank god for that :)

Re:Maybe too late

[iplayfast]

I've found exactly the same thing. I program in several languages, and Delphi definititly is the fastest compile time. The IDE is also nice and allows quick development time. Also has a good debugger. It's worth the investment of 1 or 2 days to learn pascal.

Re:Maybe too late

[Anders]

[Delphi] compiles instantaneously.

Am I right in assuming that this is due to the equivalent of pre-compiled headers and overall better modularization than C(++) allows? Paraphrased: is it the compiler or the language that gives opportunity for these short compile times?

Re:Maybe too late

[Anonymous Coward]

It's prob a bit of both. The original turbo compilers were legendary for their speed - both pascal & c/c++. That being said, though, a pascal compiler should _always_ be faster then a similar c++ one simply because c++ involves way too much preprocessing, & (generally) too many files. Imagine - a world without header files :)

Re:Maybe too late

[bitflip]

I don't like it. When am I supposed to take a smoke break?

Re:Maybe too late

[Junks Jerzey]

Am I right in assuming that this is due to the equivalent of pre-compiled headers and overall better modularization than C(++) allows? Paraphrased: is it the compiler or the language that gives opportunity for these short compile times?

Sure, there are some things about Object Pascal that make it simpler to compile than C: no macro preprocessor, module info isn't contained in huge text files that need to be compiled over and over again, syntax is generally cleaner, and so on. But there are clones of Object Pascal and they don't get anywhere near the amazing compile times that Borland gets.

The big implementation wins, as best I can tell, are:

1. They removed the need for a traditional, general linker. Modules are written to disk in a very simple format, what seems to be a binary image that just needs a small bit of patching.

2. The compiler is simple recursive descent, without separate lexing and parsing phases.

3. Much of the core of the compiler is highly optimized, with much of the critical portion written in finely tuned assembly language.

Re:Maybe too late

[zulux]

I can't stress how haveing a near-zero compile and link time improves your coding speed. You can literally use the Borland's OP compiler as a 'coding spellcheck' - just hit the build button and in a flash, you cursor is at the first error.

Re:Maybe too late

[Blake]

When I see people talking about needing dual Athlons to get their gcc compile times down to the single digit minutes, then I'm appalled. With Delphi you're at *zero*. That's liberating beyond belief. From Gerald M. Weinberg's classic, "The Psycology Of Computer Programming":

... if the programmer has invested very little waiting time in a run, he may tend to value that run less ... For initial work, however, when the programmer is just getting syntax and keying errors out of his code, terminal access would seem to be desirable. However, people in shops where four runs per day are assured are apparently not as troubled about these "trivial" errors as are programmers in less well run shops.

Now granted, he was writing about timesharing systems vs. batch systems, but I think the theory still applies. If my project takes an hour to compile, I'm going to be a lot more careful about making changes, than if it takes a couple of seconds. And I'll try and fix more of the compiler errors from one pass. Restricted, perhaps, but I claim that it leads to better code sooner. And in the hour that it's compiling, I can check through the code for logic errors, too. Later, Blake.

Re:Maybe too late

[mikera]

OTOH, I think that a fast compile time helps you a lot because it encourages testing. Compile early, compile often is my motto.

Thinking long and hard about a problem is great, but you can still miss something obvious that you would notice in a second if you just ran the damn thing and watched the garbage pour out.

Deplhi/Kylix was designed very much with a RAD/XP audience in mind so the fast test cycle is very important. If you're doing that properly, you should be putting lots of asserts and sanity checks in your code anyway.

When people were curious about Delphi, I would often just boot it up, and write a full GUI application with database access in about five minutes, and maybe ten lines of code. The same thing in C++ might take that long just to compile :-)

Re:Maybe too late

[Anonymous Coward]

"while also introducing a slew of new languages"

"happy C# coding"

Contradiction here?

.Net and mono are not language dependent.

Re:Maybe too late

[uradu]

> Contradiction here?

Explain.

> .Net and mono are not language dependent.

Where was that implied?

Re:Maybe too late

[sg_oneill]

There is indeed that. I also suspect there is some other voodoo in there. At the office I have a chumpy old p166 hanging around truly being strangled by mandrake 8.1 (must look into reverting to RH. Mandrake is awesome for modern machines, perhaps the best, but it absolutely masacres old machines.)

Anyway to cut a long story short, kylix really does compile quick, like Delphi on the Pc. the "units" are pre-compiled, and it seems to have some sort of karma where it can grab a previous compile attempt and fix it rather than starting again. Well, that's my suspicion.

The "MADE WITH KYLIX UNDER THE GPL" banner is a little painfull, as it tennds to imply that the GPL is some sort of 'shareware' licence, which it isn't, and I do hope they sorted out the ugly dependency wierdness in V1. It's likely to get a download for me, because other than that, it's a winner for quick and dirty corporate GUI apps.

Re:Maybe too late

[mazor]

3. Much of the core of the compiler is highly optimized, with much of the critical portion written in finely tuned assembly language.

None of the Delphi/Kylix compiler is written in assembler. Borland says it's written in plain old C. Asm gives you incremental performance boosts in general. Design is where you get orders of magnitude performance gains.

-mazor

Re:Maybe too late

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather let the compiler pick out logic errors and simple errors like typos.

Re:Maybe too late

[Blake]

Yeah, but that's the problem. The compiler will never pick out logic errors, just like spellcheckers can't tell you when you've used the wrong form of "too" (or was that "two"?)

With a little more time between compiles, and perhaps a quick syntax-checker, you would be more likely to check for logic errors, instead of just assuming the compiler will catch them...

Later,
Blake.

e-buzz word whip lash...

[killthiskid]

I just read the "what's new" page and I got e-buzz word whip lash...

They should put up some damn warnings or something.

i.e. : Build Web Services-enabled database middleware with DataSnap(TM) that scales and interoperates with your complete e-business solution...

Ok, now a serious question... is ANYONE out there using this? I've read the reviews, I read some tutorials, and my interest is sparked, but I want to here some testimony.

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[O2n]

That phrase alone is "bingo" for everybody in the audience...

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[iplayfast]

I use Kylix do do game's programming with SDL, it's compatible with both Delphi and Kylix so it's an easy port between windows and Linux.

Also the Pascal is so fast to develop in, I've decided that I like it (horrors!) more they C/C++. (And I do like them).

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[borgboy]

Yep. Lots of people are using this. Lots. DataSnap is the new term for what Borland previously branded as their MIDAS technology, but due to trademark collisions, yada yada...

DataSnap is based around a couple of classes:
1. a TClientDataset class, which is responsible for representing an in-memory dataset which can be persisted as XML and has the capability to record offline dataset changes and post them back to the data persistence layer when necessary.
2. a TDatasetProvider, which links a TClientDataset to a persistence layer, such as a RBMS such as Oracle, MySQL, Interbase, DB2, or even (gasp) MSSQL. There is also an TXMLTransformProvider that can act as a 2 way mapping layer from a dataset to an XML document.
3. A TCustomRemoteServer descendant which supplies the remoting capability - placing the TClientDataSet and the TDataSetProvider on separate machines. These components can provide connections via HTTP, vanilla sockets, CORBA, etc. There are also load balancing helpers to distribute the load.

And then there are the Web Services. Yep. That works too. It's SOAP, plain and simple.

We've got a DataSnap app deployed today, handling payroll data for ~1400 retail outlets. Heck, the TClientDataset class itself is worth the investment, even if you never build a n-tier system with it.

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you integrate SDL into Kylix?
Do you have any source code or example? I'm
quite interested on it!!!

Thanks a lot for any help :)

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[killthiskid]

That's awesome! I've just got into using SDL (and openGL). I've been trying out both Visual C++ and the free Borland C++Builder Compiler.

I'm really interested in cross-OS compatability, thus I really don't want to use Visual C++.

Do you have a site? Or code? Or someplace you could point me for info?

Damn, I never even thought of doing that...

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[Anonymous Coward]

First OWL and now Linux - Borland just have a weird talent for picking losers.

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[red_crayon]

is ANYONE out there using this?

Using whiplash or using Kylix? I've been using Kylix (v. 1) to port Delphi code to Linux, and then modify it from there, and it works great. Simple apps cross-compile with little or no change(s).

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[ahde]

c'mon they didn't even say enterprise... or is that word licensed by Sun?

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[iplayfast]

The followin site has info
Jedi code

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[O2n]

Probably. :)
Anyway, you can come up with a decent bulls#it bingo card without having to use "enterprise" at all; but I must admit it's a good word...

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[Drazi100]

what? they picked you?

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[Malcontent]

Three questions for you.
1) did you build it in kylix or delphi?
2) can you build a self contained SOAP server without needing IIS or APACHE?
3)Are you really telling me that I can use http as a transport layer between client and the server databases? That would be cool as hell.

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[borgboy]

1. Build as in compile or build as in code it? You have to compile it in Kylix for it to run on Linux, but the two are source compatable, to an extent.

2. Yes, using the Indy HTTP server component, for example, it is possible to build a self contained SOAP server running on any port you like.

3. Yes, really, you can use http as a data transport layer. I think there is an option to use SOAP as the transport layer, as well, for those not capable of hosting httpsrv.dll

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, with the recent release of JEDI-SDL beta 4 we have also managed to get it included on the Companion CD of Kylix 2. All the demos have been tested to work with both K1 and K2 and I have compiled them with Delphi 4 onwards ( Yes the same .DPR file compiles under both Windows and Linux ). There are 16 OpenGL demos and various other 2D style demos and games. Various members of the team are currently preparing for the SDL competition in December.

As mentioned if you want to download them jump over to http://www.delphi-jedi.org/Jedi:TEAM_SDL_HOME and if you decide you like it you can ask for help and exchange idea on the JEDI-SDL mailing list @ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JEDI-SDL/join.

I hope this helps,

L8R,

Dominique Louis
http://www.DelphiGamer.com := for all your Object Pascal game development needs;

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,
Here is an example of a basic Delphi/K2/FPC SDL program...

program JEDISDLApp;

uses
SDL;

const
SCREEN_WIDTH = 640;
SCREEN_HEIGHT = 480;
SCREEN_BPP = 16;

var
Screen : PSDL_SURFACE;
flags: UInt32;

procedure TerminateApplication;
begin
SDL_QUIT;
Halt(0);
end;

begin
if (SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) 0) then
begin
TerminateApplication;
exit;
end;

if ( ParamStr(1) = '-fullscreen' ) or ( ParamStr(1) = '-fs' ) then
flags := SDL_SWSURFACE or SDL_FULLSCREEN
else
flags := SDL_SWSURFACE;

// Set the title bar in environments that support it
SDL_WM_SetCaption('JEDI-SDL Simple App', nil);

Screen := SDL_SetVideoMode(SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, 16, flags);
if (Screen = nil) then
begin
TerminateApplication;
exit;
end;

play_game;
TerminateApplication;
end.

There you go. Obviously I have not included the play_game procedure but I am sure you get the idea.
Now this app will compile and work under both Windows and Linux if you have the SDL libraries installed.

Also With the recent release of JEDI-SDL beta 4, we have also managed to get it included on the Companion CD of Kylix 2. All the demos have been tested to work with both K1 and K2 and I have compiled them with Delphi 4 onwards ( Yes the same .DPR file compiles under both Windows and Linux ). There are 16 OpenGL demos and various other 2D style demos and games. Various members of the team are currently preparing for the SDL competition in December.

As mentioned if you want to download them jump over to http://www.delphi-jedi.org/Jedi:TEAM_SDL_HOME and if you decide you like it you can ask for help and exchange idea on the JEDI-SDL mailing list @ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JEDI-SDL/join.

I hope this helps,

L8R,

Dominique Louis
http://www.DelphiGamer.com := for all your Object Pascal game development needs;

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[Malcontent]

Cool as hell I am putting in the order right away.

Re:e-buzz word whip lash...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kylix and Delphi are code-compatible, as long as you only use CLX in Delphi. Kylix, of course, can't do any Win32 stuff (MFC-based components/controls).

Delphi?

[rbeattie]

Why doesn't Borland just call this thing Delphi for Linux?

Notice it doesn't ever say WHAT language it uses on the website? I wonder how many developers downloaded this thing and then said, "What? I have to program in Pascal?!?!"

-Russ

Re:Delphi?

[DAldredge]

Please look at http://www.borland.com/kylix/ and notice the big "Delphi Compatable" button...

Re:Delphi?

[Codifex Maximus]

And just what is wrong with Pascal? I happen to think it's a wonderful language - it can be depended on. I'd rather use Delphi/Pascal ANY DAY rather than program in any version of BASIC.

Re:Delphi?

[frleong]

Why? Because Kylix is supposed to be able to compile C++... in the future... Anyway, sticking to Delphi for Linux limits the compiler to Pascal only, which is no good.

Re:Delphi?

[ThePilgrim]

Pascal was the second language I learnt, right after BASIC and just before COBOL

Re:Delphi?

[mark-t]

While Pascal isn't a _bad_ language in and of itself, C++ would be a better choice as a platform language for an X-based application, since C++ is more conventionally interoperable with C, which in turn is the most common language used on Unix systems. Of course, Borland owns Object Pascal, and they are certainly free to munge its syntax even more to make it interoperable with C, but I'm of the view that if they have to change their own language to make it fit one particular paradigm, then that language may not have been the best choice. I'm waiting for the C++ version of Kylix before I invest in it. (No argument about the BASIC issue).

Re:Delphi?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would feel sorry for you, if I had not gone

BASIC, Z80, 6502, Pascal, FORTRAN, 68000, COBOL

God I feel old......

Re:Delphi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pascal was the fourth language I learned, right after BASIC, FOCAL (on a PDP-8!), and Fortran.

Re:Delphi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Close - The Kylix "platform" is designed to be easily ported to other languages in general, c/c++ being, of course, a pretty good target.

Re:Delphi?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are ignorant if you think Object Pascal is not a very powerful language. It's amazing how many people base their sentiment (vs knowledge) of Object Pascal on their understanding of Pascal. It's no different than basing your idea of C++ on C (actually it's worse).

If you think Object Pascal is not a modern, fully object-oriented language along the lines of C# and Java, then you are badly mistaken. The highly touted C# falls somewhere between Java and Delphi. Which is hardly surprising, given that the Anders oversaw the creation of Object Pascal/Delphi and that MS is terribly afraid of Java. Borland has created a wonderful language in Object Pascal. Unfortunately, the ignorance displayed in this forum regarding the language is largely due to Borland's marketing department.

For those who would like to actually know something about the Object Pascal, before opening their mouths, I suggest http://www.marcocantu.com/papers/ooplang.htm and "Delphi in a Nutshell" by Ray Lischner.

Kylix 2 Already??

[chas7926]

I just bought Kylix version 1 in July. I thought releasing an entire new product rather than fixing the existing product was a trick that only Microsoft pulled. I guess the economy crunch is getting to Borland as well.

Re:Kylix 2 Already??

[DAldredge]

First it is only $129 to upgrade and YOU DO NOT HAVE TO UPGRADE...

Re:Kylix 2 Already??

[rhost89]

Im not happy about this either, i spent way to much to buy kylix, and now they release ver 2 which should have been an update. Needless to say i wont be buying ver 2, and after this I probably wont buy another version of kylix ever again, nor will i recomend it to anyone.

Re:Kylix 2 Already??

[DAldredge]

It is only $129 for the upgrade. Why is this a problem? Would you rather that Borland no upgrade Kylix???

Re:Kylix 2 Already??

[rhost89]

No they should progress through software versons when new feature sets become available, (Note i dont care about their new features, version 2) but they shouldnt CHARGE ME for an update to the stuff i allready bought(also version 2, should be a patch for ver 1), give me a patch. If i wanted to pay for support after ive allready bought the product, i would have bought a M$ product.

Re:Kylix 2 Already??

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he`d rather the upgrade was maybe £10, seeing as he`s just bought it, and its a bug fix, not a new version?

Re:Kylix 2 Already??

[DAldredge]

There is a patch for Kylix 1 that should be released in the next 4 weeks. Search dejanews.com for kylix patch

Waiting for C++

[wiredog]

I started programming with TurboC and Turbo Assembler. I'm now using Builder 5. The drag'n'drop interface is very nice, as are the make files (which are XML,btw). Borland has always had very good compilers, and the STL they use is quite nice. They also ship printed documentation, for those of us who actually rtfm. As soon as they have the C++ version done (RSN for about a year now), I'll buy it.

Re:Waiting for C++

[conan_albrecht]

I'm sure a C++ product will follow, much like C++Builder followed Delphi. However, I can understand why they didn't implement this for C++ first: their target audience is not C++ programmers.

Any C++ programmers who are already programming for Linux are probably using gcc and the many tools available. Borland is trying to woo Windows programmers to Linux. Since Delphi already has a large source code base out there, making it source code compatible with the Windows version helps Windows people feel comfortable in Linux. These people would have a much harder time switching if they had to start using gcc and vim.

Once they feel they've wooed as many Delphi developers to Kylix for Linux/Windows development, I'll bet we see a C++Builder for Linux as well.

Re:Waiting for C++

[Daath]

There will be a beta out in the near future I've heard. IIRC they (delphi and c++builder) use the same backend compiler - so it shouldn't be too long :)

Re:Waiting for C++

[Anonymous Coward]

Any C++ programmers who are already programming for Linux are probably using gcc and the many tools available.

As a C++ programmer using linux, I fit into the category you make. We use g++. Why? Because its nearly the only thing available. I think that this is almost a given, and irrelevant to Borland's entry into the market. Of course we use g++, it is the de facto standard.

Borland is trying to woo Windows programmers to Linux.

Well, since they have existing customers there, that makes sense. But I'm sure they'd be happy to pick up a few new customers too!

I'm damned excited for Borland C++ Builder to become available on linux. It's good compiler (g++ 3.02 gives it a serious run for the money, though), but the environment and debugger really make BCB for linux worth getting. (That is, assuming it's as good as the windows version.)

Re:Waiting for C++

[mark-t]

I guess I was too busy complaing about Kylix not doing C++ to notice it before, but it may be that the reason Kylix doesn't do C++ yet is because of the high level of interoperability that would be expected with gcc. Sticking with object pascal, they are unlikely to run into any problems of that sort. I know I'd expect complete interoperability with gcc from Kylix's C++ implementation - if that's not there, I may as well be programming for Windows only.

Re:Waiting for C++

[liquid_schwartz]

The reason why they chose to port over Delphi first was (probably) that the C++ Builder software that they have uses the work that they put in Delphi but with C++ wrappers. So if they can port over Delphi classes to Linux now the C++ version is probably close behind.

Borland again...

[CMBurns]

One thing Borland really mastered is to sell inferior products at insane prices.

Just take a look at JBuilder: In v.3.x the debugger was next to unusable, and they knew there was a problem. Once we met some of Borland's consultants and they basically stated "yes we know that version was crap, but the problems will go away if you buy v.4". Well it turned out that all of my Borland griefs were solved by a simple uninstall followed by an installation of Forte.

To sum it up: I don't really believe Borland is able to put out stable, useful versions of their products. Furthermore, Kylix is a Pascal rehash, and (for my tastes) lightyears behind modern technology.

Hoogla Boogla

Re:Borland again...

[Ronin Developer]

Alas, you are equating apples to oranges.

First, I am not a Java developer. But, I am aware that one of the biggest problems facing the JBuilder team was the diversity of Java VMs (i.e. some worked and some don't). JBuilder allows you to target multiple Java VMs with ease and that was a bane to releasing a "stable" product. They worked with the various Java VM teams (Blackdown is one that comes to mind) to make it compatible. JB3 was a blacksheep product. JB4 fixed many issues and JB5 is now the current product.

After having coded in C, C++, the forsaken VB and a slew of other languages, I discovered Delphi in 1994. I haven't looked back since.

Why? Because it has enabled me and my teams to develop applications in a fraction of the time that C++ would have required and substantially more stable and reliable than VB has ever been. My Delphi apps came in on or ahead of schedule and don't crash. IMO, Delphi is a secret weapon when you need to get high quality, database applications out to the market place when under a tight schedule.

Yes, Delphi has had its bogus releases (Delphi 4 in particular). D3 was very stable and D5 fixed D4. D6 now offers cross platform development capability (if you use the CLX library) via Kylix. The language, Object Pascal, is not the same as Pascal just as C++ is not C. I suggest you take a few hours and learn the differences between Object Pascal and Pascal. The only real downside to Object Pascal is it is more verbose than the equivalent C/C++ code. But, then again, it's also a lot easier to understand and maintain (a side benefit of its Pascal roots).

Kylix has bugs (just as any major new tool does). Blame that on both errors in the Kylix tool itself as well as buggy Linux distros (RH in particular). To me, the only bug that really affects me in Kylix is the fact that TThread is broke. Did they fix it in K2? Let's hope so.

My point being, is that you had a bad experience with a single Borland tool. Never mind the fact that many other development shops gave it high praise...you had a bad experience.

Before you blast Borland for putting out "inferior products at insane prices", I suggest you learn more about their products, read some serious critical reviews and then try the products yourself. You may come to realize just how far off base your statements really are.

As for the high prices...well, I can't dispute that. They did it to keep pace with Microsoft. Why? Because how can a product be good when it costs so little? Surely that other product that costs twice as much must be twice as good. Right? By that reasoning, I guess that means that Open Source and Free software must really suck. We know that's not true. FWIW, Borland now appears to be reviewing their pricing structure.

Re:Borland again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoramus. Why don't you just admit that you've never used Object Pascal?

Re:Borland again...

[Ronin Developer]

You truly are clueless, aren't you? This isn't about the average slashdotter. The need for a high productivity development environment for Linux is essential to move Linux into the mainstream and for its widespread acceptance in the business world supported by the IT community.

While the argument that there are powerful, free tools for Linux holds. The generally accepted Open Source model for development tools simply will not cut it in a real IT shop. Tools used by IT shops need to be stable, robust, and supported. I like knowing that I can pick up the phone and get somebody when there is a problem that I don't have the immediate time or resources to solve. That's what I pay for.

Users (business and home) want their favorite applications (or a strong competitor) available for an OS before they will accept it. These two areas are the niches where Delphi 6 and Kylix fill. D6 and Kylix do deliver what they promise. I can attest to that.

Pascal as a language is generally dead. The modernized Object Pascal is an OOP language that meets many of the requirements of C++ programs. Object Pascal is far from dead. On the Windows platform, it is very viable. Because of the type safety inherent in the language, it's pretty hard to screw up development of simple apps. Yes, for pointers you need to do a few odd things. That's why we have class refernces. These are basically smart pointers. But, the object model is quite robust and capable.

The underlying language is not dependent upon the visual elements you seem so quick to condemn. However, when a Delphi 6 or Kylix developer can sit down, write, test and deploy a SOAP service in under 10 minutes (yes..it was canned..but demonstrated at Borcon 2001)....well that's pretty amazing. Even more amazing is that with little effort, you have CGI, DSO, or ISAPI modules to fit almost any web server.

These services have all the native support of Delphi's (and Kylix's) database and internet connectivity, a highly interactive development environment and a fully capable and visual debugger.

Okay..I sound like a sales person. But, I'll tell you. After working with C, C++, VB, Powerbuilder and a slew of other languages, Delphi kicks butt on the Windows platform. The advent of Kylix and CLX on Linux will enable those same high powered productity and business apps developed using Delphi to be run on Linux. That's what it's all about...it's not a language war...it's about viability.

Re:Borland again...

[CMBurns]

> But, I am aware that one of the biggest problems
> facing the JBuilder team was the diversity of
> Java VMs (i.e. some worked and some don't).

So you are also aware of the fact that it didn't even work with the VM that came with JBuilder?

Re:Borland again...

[Ronin Developer]

Funny. I haven't heard that. My copy ran just fine on my Windows machine. But, since I am not a Java developer, I surely didn't push it to its limits.

What platform did you install it on? What kind of HW did you have in that machine? Did you address this on the JBuilder support group? Any responses to your inquiry?

Re:Borland again...

[CMBurns]

> But, since I am not a Java developer, I surely
> didn't push it to its limits.

It worked quite OK for smaller applications, but it surely didn't perform well (or even acceptable) in a production environment.

> What platform did you install it on? What kind
> of HW did you have in that machine?

Installed it on Win2000, the HW was up to the task. Maybe I should add, that this wasn't some bent and twisted geek box. It was solely used for development and I'm not the "install everything in sight" type. JBuilder was simply crap back then.

> Did you address this on the JBuilder support
> group? Any responses to your inquiry?

Sure. As I've said before, they told us that they knew there where problems (especially with the debugger). The support people told us: "We've fixed that in v.4". No support would have been better than that.

Re:Borland again...

[Ronin Developer]

What support people? Did you have a paid corporate support plan with them or did you just use the NG? The NG is run by a group known a "TeamB". They are not paid support staff but volunteers. While they try to do their best, sometimes their answers leave much to be desired. Same thing goes with general NG questions. I've always found that questions that go answered are almost always a result of nobody knowing the answer rather than not giving a damn.

A statement like "We've fixed that in v.4 sounds like an NG response or from a dumbshit help desk person. If it came from the paid support staff, you'd expect them to offer you an upgrade or tell you how to acquire v.4". Did you ask to speak to their supervisor? In any event, if it came from their staff, a letter to Dale Fuller or David Intersimone may be in order. Believe it or not, they do answer their own e-mail.

And yes...v3 did suck. But I suggest you grab an evaluation copy of J5. I think you'll be pleasantly suprised.

Disclaimer -- no...I do not work for Borland and I am NOT on TeamB.

Re:Borland again...

[Anonymous Coward]

Better rethink your stance on technical support.

At my company, at the enterprise level we are investing heavily in Documentum for document management. Needless to say, their tech support sucks, their product is difficult to install and impossible to remove. Removal on Windows is by reformat-and-reinstall, because it currently leaves stuff laying all over the registry.

But it does the job well for document management.

And, most users who have had to call Microsoft support would say their experience with it is probably not very golden.

Given the computing industry's generally seeming desire to trim support costs to keep bottom lines from getting too necrotic, especially among larger market-share products...

QT Embedded support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this have support for generating QT Embedded applications?

If so, then you can write PDA applications for the Sharp device in the previous story using Kylix/Delphi/Pascal++.

Not that any non-Delphi person would want to, in my opinion ;)

Of course, I am basing all this on the assumption that Kylix actually currently uses QT as the base GUI component set, via its own intermediary toolkit abstraction. If I am wrong here, please correct me.

Re:QT Embedded support?

[marcovje]

Maybe it could be hacked in, but nothing could hack
in an ARM codegenerator.

There is something called pocketstudio though, and
for m68k palms you could use Free Pascal
www.freepascal.org

Re:QT Embedded support?

[marcovje]

Maybe it could be hacked in, but nothing could hack
in an ARM codegenerator.

There is something called pocketstudio though, and
for m68k palms you could use Free Pascal
www.freepascal.org

Re:QT Embedded support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn. Yes, forgot about the ARM thing. Good point. Maybe Borland could license one from ARM and incorporate it. I reckon a RAD system for PDAs like Kylix would go a long way...

Re:QT Embedded support?

[StrawberryFrog]

If so, then you can write PDA applications for the Sharp device

I very much doubt it - they only target the x86 processors.

Besides that limitation, you can do anything - commandline aps, roll your own classes to wrap APIs, program procedurally if you wanna. Of course, the less of the class libary you use, the more time you'll spend on framework code.

Never mind that these are the guys...

[uradu]

that introduced the $49 IDE back in 84, and have consistently turned out more standards-compliant C++ compilers than you know who. And your tastes obviously don't count for much if they lead you to that opinion about Object Pascal. It's still considered by many one of the most advanced and elegant natively compiled languages around. OTOH Forte is certainly not considered the greatest IDE by many. But then again, those are YOUR tastes.

Re:Never mind that these are the guys...

[elflord]

I like the way you need to use stupid hacks to get around the "disappearing console" problem. I espeically like the way Borland advocate that CS 101 students hack around the problem using non-standard code.

As for the mandatory MS bashing, it's interesting to note that prior to 3.0, g++ has a hideously broken standard library (namespace std doesn't work correctly, the streams only superficially resemble the standard, it ships without sstream. g++ 3 is a big improvement, I just hope they can iron the bugs out so that the distributions start shipping it as the default.

Re:Never mind that these are the guys...

[uradu]

I'm not saying the Borland products are without warts, but they should be kept in perspective. Regarding g++, it seems Borland currently has the best C++ compiler on (x86) Linux. I think even the OS community hasn't found much to knock about it except the fact that it comes from a for-profit company.

Enterprise?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Enterprise level"? That's so dotcom ... does anyone still use this technology?

delphi portability?

[juraj]

Has someone of you used this to port Delphi app to
Linux? I had a nice free LGPL-covered application, that
I wanted to compile using kylix open edition. But a lot of things are different.I see a lot of units, like QDialog, QForm, etc. under Linux, but they're counterparts in Windows are Dialog, Form, etc. So is there any sourcecode compatibility? Is there a tool for doing this?

Re:delphi portability?

[marcovje]

I heard mosttimes it is an easy port, but not simply
a recompile.

Depends on your app.

Also check out Lazarus (lazarus.freepascal.org)

Re:delphi portability?

[LordKronos]

As they have done in some of the previous versions of Delphi, I suspect they do this using unit aliases. In one of the config dialogs, you can specify which units to alias, such as "Dialogs=QDialogs". They have been doing this since at least Delphi 4, maybe even earlier.

Re:delphi portability?

[vtechpilot]

Actually it is much easier to write the app in Kylix first and then port to Delphi. This is because Kylix forces you to write CLX (cross platform) code, and Delphi lets you choose between CLX and VCL (cross platform and not cross platform) code.

Re:delphi portability?

[robinjo]

I've ported a pretty big non-gui app. It was pretty easy. Moving from Delphi's old sockets to Indy was the biggest thing. Then I just wrote higher class classes, wrapped all the Windows api stuff in those and made a WinStuff-unit out of them. A similar one for Linux. Then some ifdefs for units and done. Now the project compiles without changes in Delphi 5 and Kylix 1.

I hear it's even easier with Delphi 6 but haven't felt like upgrading yet.

Re:delphi portability?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have ported some Delphi (GUI-)Components as well as several Utility-Libraries to Kylix, it was not just recompiling but mostly so.

I have also ported a few Dialogs that I designed in Delphi to Kylix (and some of them back again). This is mostly a matter of changing the units in the use clause (VCL vs CLX) respectively adding a few {$ifdef}s around them.

I have not yet tried to port a complex application, I wanted to wait for Delphi 6 to arrive here before doing that, but for whatever reason my software supplier has not shipped it yet. Now Kylix 2 actually caught me unprepared, I didn't expect it so early after the release of Kylix (1). I guess it is a good thing since Kylix (1) had a few stability problems which they will hopefully have fixed in version two.

btw: This is rather old news, the release date of Kylix 2 was more than a week ago. I submitted it to /. back then but it was never published.

Re:delphi portability?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Q units for Kylix correspond to Delphi regular units. For simple apps, all you may need to do is change the unit names in the uses clauses. Some units rely on the VCL - and are not useable in Kylix (exceptions being the units in the rtl/sys/ and rtl/common directories). There is a listing of all units that are available in one or both - or their corresponding units in VCL/Kylix in the help file. All of the code that you expect to be windows specific is (COM, ADO, etc...) seperated into it's own units.

So anyway, yes your sourcecode should be compatible - unless it uses windows specific technology. You will need to change the "uses" clauses to the appropriate Q forms (and you may need to change a few others, since CLX caused a slight reorganization of units), and you'll have to check for use of Windows-specific code (such as strings, file/directory semantics, case sensitivity (not in Delphi/Kylix, but in the Linux environment). All are explained on page 10-12 in the Kylix (1.0) manual.

There is also a conversion utility available at http://www.xnet.com/~johnjac .

Re:delphi portability?

[MarkusQ]

Has someone of you used this to port Delphi app to Linux?

I used K1 to port two smallish apps from D6. I had to do a few small source code changes, but it was mostly painless (much easier, say, than going from T5.5 to D1 w. the class/object change).

-- MarkusQ

They definitely don't make it easy...

[Genom]

They definitely don't make it easy to "register" for the download -- first they want all sorts of personal info that really shouldn't be required (phone #, street address, etc...) - THEN, if you don't fill out EVERY field (including those not marked as required), and say "YES" to all of the spam checkboxes at the bottom, their javascript form handler balks at you.

Not to mention that you *have* to have javascript enabled to even register...

I was going to check it out -- but I *refuse* to give them free reign to spam me by phone, fax, email, and snal mail for the privilege of doing so.

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

For me it worked without fill out those not marked as required and the spam checkboxes.
But I agree.

some questions:
Can they ask you all this information?
And can they force you to be contacted?
I thought we had a right to keep a bit private...

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[tweek]

I have got not ONE bit of spam from Borland yet. I've downloaded and registered Kylix, Interbase AND Delphi Personal Edition.

You can usually trust the companies like Borland when you UNCHECK the box that says sell my info, that they won't sell your info.

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[tb3]

Noticed that, huh? It gets worse; after you fill in all that stuff, download and install it, you have to email Borland for an 'activation key' before you can run it.

And, I went through the feature set and only one of the new features is available in the open verison.

I went through that crap once, but I won't bother going through it again. Borland are certainly going against the spirit of free software, if not the letter of the law.

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[stewart.hector]

You do *not* have to email borland for an "activation key", you get it off their website - normally straight after the download of software.

I too have never been spammed, contacted in anyway - I've registered with them years ago - when community.borland first started.

All this crap about being spammed and having to email borland is just a lot of crap from people who don't know better.

yes, I think having to register with borland is a pain in the arse. But IMO, worthwhile at the end of the day - very good quality applications.

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[tb3]

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you. I had to register (on their website, not by email, I got that part wrong) and get the activation key emailed to me. I still have the archived email in case I want to re-install the thing, which I probably won't.

If the open editon of Kylix is *really* open they should just let you download it, not hassle you for your email address and other information. That just sucks.

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[egreB]

I had to register

Read the post you're replying to. Nobody denied the fact that you had to register.

That said, I think it's worth the hassle to register Kylix. It's really a great iniative to get non-pro pre-Windows-programmers like me up and running with Linux development quickly. That's just what the community needs right now.

If the open editon of Kylix is *really* open they should just let you download it

I agree with you here, but I suspect Borland has it's reasons. I imagine they want to keep track on how many copies of Kylix is out there, and so find out if this project is worth the costs of further development. IMHO, they should just change the name from "Open Edition" to "Personal" or something.

-egreB

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[maxpublic]

So who says your information has to be accurate? According to various sites around the internet I've lived at "123 Happy Place" for quite some time now....

Max

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[ignavus]

first they want all sorts of personal info that really shouldn't be required (phone #, street address, etc...)

I just love it when they ask for phone numbers - and insist that it is mandatory. I live on the other side of the world (hello! this is the Internet, not just America).

Like, they are going to ***phone*** me from the US about a free download???? Do they even know what time zone it is here?

Re:They definitely don't make it easy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too resourceful, or didn't you think of creating a second "online identity"? It's a must these days. Create an email account on yahoo mail that you will only use for registering software. Nobody's forcing you to use your real address and phone#, either.

Kylix isn't Klyx

[Tha_Zanthrax]

They won't be sued. Kylix and Klyx are completly different apps. The name Kylix isn't stolen from Klyx. Like Delphi is also the name of a greek goddess, a Kylix is a greek fruitbowl of some sort.

Re:Kylix isn't Klyx

[Anonymous Bullard]

Should we beware of g/r/eeks bearing fruitbowls now?

Well, wine is made of processed grapes so fruits are in the right bowlpark...

"A Kylix is a large wine cup with a shallow bowl. It has two horizontal handles. Attaching the bowl to the foot is a high stem." (Darin Glatt, who ought to know his Greek pottery)

Klyx, as it turns out, is also the brand name for a pharmaceutical laxative used in some northern European countries.

Therefore both Kylix and Klyx have the ability to make things run internally with results that may take your breath away.

Stop this stupid discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, what's wrong with you people over there?? Complaining about Kylix being dead and all that. Do you guys have any idea what 'normal' developers want from a development environment? No, they don't need pointers and that bullshit. They want an easy to use ide where they can build forms and make stuff work. And they don't need C++, Pascal will do perfectly. Most apps aren't that difficult (lot of databases, etc.) and digging in the OS is therefore not necessary. And you surely don't want to spend three weeks finding out how to make gcc work.

I've tried Kdevelop and honestly, I didn't figure out how to compile the bloody thing so I dropped it. Next thing I did was installing Kylix (wow, at last an easy installation procedure) and it worked. I've build the little app I wanted in a minute and it compiled flawlessly.

So, unless you're a nerd (no negative connotation, just indicates that you want to spend a lot of time finding out the smallest details of your system), Kylix is an easy to use and nice ide.

You guys should be glad that Borland did some effort for the Linux community but no, nothing but criticism. So, cut the crap and admit that Kylix is a great tool for rapidly developing apps.

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried Kdevelop and honestly, I didn't figure out how to compile the bloody thing so I dropped it.
Did you try:

./configure
make
make install
?

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

In all fairness, Kylix was a little quirky on the install, unless you had the latest-greatest release of certain distros that met the requirements. OTOH, I've certainly installed Winders apps that were a lot worse. And once installed, you could sit down and write an app with Kylix in a very easy fashion. I heartily agree that we should all thank Borland for helping the Linux community. Judging from the newsgroups, there's quite a community growing up around Kylix. I'm glad to see that Borland is committed enough to update their product.

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[marcovje]

Most pascal bashers can't even tell why C/C++ is more
superior than an advanced dialect like Delphi.

One of the major things is templates, which I'd love to
see in Delphi

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[marcovje]

Note that I didn't mean to imply that C/C++ is better
than Pascal.

But there are some rare C/C++ features that don't have a direct eq in Object Pascal. If they are really
useful is a matter of taste and implementation

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[MrCynical]

C/C++ is the worst application language I could imagine. If you want to write an OS great, but it is not designed for applications. Give Object Pascal a spin it is a GREAT language.

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[szo]

surely don't want to spend three weeks finding out how to make gcc work.

What is so hard about gcc? Is
apt-get install gcc
that hard?

Szo

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[djhankb]

Thank You.
I'm sure that everyone here was using TurboPascal
back in the day and loving it. There is no need to be flaming Borland for no reason. Sure... Delphi may be the Black Sheep of the windows community, but the reason for that is because of Microsoft forcing VisStudio down everyone's throat. We ALL know that Delphi is a faster, better product. And IMHO, With Kylix being released, we will start to see more and more applications for Linux. Just knock it off with the Flaming.

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[fredrik70]

think he more meant more like how to use gcc

Re:Stop this stupid discussion

[szo]

Still don't get it, Makefile isn't that hard either...

Szo

Measuring developer use of OSS

[pubjames]

It has always been common knowledge that a key to Microsoft's dominance is making things easy for programmers so that they develop for the Windows platform. Is it just me has there been a real drop-off of interest by developers in all things Microsoft?

I remember there was a time about five years ago when most developers wouldn't even consider developing for anything other than Windows technologies and developer's magazines reflected that. These days, however, I see very little excitement about Microsoft technologies, for instance, I don't see lot of enthusiasm amongst developers about .Net and C#. Surely with Windows being the dominant platform, and .Net being Microsoft's new technical strategy, you'd expect some excited discussion about it amongst developers, but it's just not happening.

This is just a feeling I have, and I have been trying to think of a way to quantify it, if nothing else to prove to myself that this sea-change is actually occurring and not just because I now take my information from different sources. The simple metric I have come up with is this - the number of times a word occurs on Google:

Linux - 30,100,000
Microsoft - 20,100,000

This crude metric seems to suggest that Linux has 10m more pages than all of Microsoft's products put together. Seeing as Microsoft has such a dominant position in the desktop space and is still much more of a household name than Linux, I think this is quite a clear demonstration that there is a lot more material about Linux out there than about Microsoft's products.

This came as a suprise:

"Linus Torvalds" - 640,000
"Bill Gates" - 649,00

I would have expected Bill Gates (who's a household name) to occur a lot more than Linus.

This is also suprising:

"Internet Explorer" - 2,730,000
Mozilla - 2,730,000

"Linux developer" - 20,600
"Windows developer" - 12,200

Is it just me, or do these figures suggest that Microsoft should be very worried indeed?

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[gorillasoft]

That is interesting, but so is this:

The numbers fluctuate.

Here are the ones I came up with -

Linux: 33,700,000
Microsoft: 21,700,000

Linus Torvalds: 610,000
Bill Gates: 997,000

Mozilla: 3,060,000
Internet Explorer: 3,030,000

Linux developer: 1,410,000
Windows developer: 1,720,000

I wouldn't take those numbers or yours too seriously as absolute totals, but they do make an interesting point.

Also, one thing to note may be that by necessity there could be more documentation about Linux online than there is about MS products (lack of paper manuals for ISO downloaders, etc. could be reasons), which would lead to more hits for Linux-related pages. Still, it's interesting.

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[kin_korn_karn]

It's not so much a lack of interest in windows as a focus on the web. The majority of software development nowadays (judging by job postings, which indicate growth) is 2 or 3 tier client-server stuff with a web interface.

MS has the worst web server technologies, period. Nobody in their right mind wants to run IIS for a large commercial site, it's too vulnerable to DoS/hacks. Apache on Win32 would fix this but people who are timid enough to run Windows as an internet server are going to be scared to death of the prospect of software that doesn't give them the option of running to mommy (read: tech support) when it breaks.

Also, NT/2k x86 machines don't scale enough to handle the load of a high traffic web site. Load balancing (LocalDirectors, etc.) helps, but why fool with a room full of 1 or 2 processor Xeons when you can buy one really expensive Sun chassis and have room to grow for years without going to the trouble of integrating a new server into the network? Not to mention that x86 machines don't run so well when you try to implement failover stuff like redundant power supplies and hotswap drives on their bus.

Last but not least, NT doesn't run EJB very well. If you want to get performance out of EJB, which is the current buzzword-compliant technology for large-scale software projects, you need a Sun box, period. I'm convinced that Sun and IBM are conspiring to cripple Java on Windows, which is just fine with me.

In most cases, the only necessary MS-based piece I've seen in recent software development is the browser.

MS may have the browser market tied up (with good reason, IE is nice now and XP, I hate to say it, is a great desktop OS), but they've already written a browser and have said under penalty of perjury that they'll give it away for free. They're in the process of eating their lunch on the server side in the big-ticket markets, which is where all the important stuff happens anyway.

Stop worrying :)

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[platypus]

Also, one thing to note may be that by necessity there could be more documentation about Linux online than there is about MS products (lack of paper manuals for ISO downloaders, etc. could be reasons), which would lead to more hits for Linux-related pages. Still, it's interesting.

Yes it is, but I doubt that it's clear that there is more documentation for linux than for MS products.
What we should consider is the linux howtos are mirrored a bazillion times throughout the internet, while in MS's case a lot of documentation is concentrated at support.microsoft.com or other microsoft sites.

A search for "linux networking howto" yields 2770 hits for instance.

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[Pathetic Coward]

It's very simple. If you develop anything for Windows that is successful in the marketplace, Microsoft is going to implement a competing product and kill you. Developing Windows software is corporate suicide. What does everyone think the antitrust suit was about, after all?

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of software development nowadays (judging by job postings, which indicate growth) is 2 or 3 tier client-server stuff with a web interface.

There are job postings?? Tell me, Obi-Wan, where are these "job postings" ...

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

So the above Linux statistics which are trumpeted around so joyously should probably be divided by 2770 to make them scale to the Microsoft stats.

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will make their money in the Intranet server market, not out in the dinky soon-to-be-Balkanized Internet. All the important integration that IIS offers has to do with in-company Intranet information sharing.

It's shocking how important all you modem and DSL users seem to think the World Wide Web is. It has it's value, but the real money in the future is allowing employees to open a web page in Word, edit it, and save it to the Web server seamlessly.

Apache ain't doing that.

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[kin_korn_karn]

There are job postings?? Tell me, Obi-Wan, where are these "job postings" ...

St. Louis, young Skywalker. the market's still OK here. Not great (especially since Boeing lost the JSF contract), but I'm still getting calls from recruiters every so often. My specialty is Perl web dev and it's in widespread use in STL.

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[kin_korn_karn]

[Uh oh, I'm getting trolled by an AC.]

I disagree. I've worked at a few places that have been big enough to have an 'intranet' and when it was time to get real work done, we went back to the original way of doing things - sharing files on a server, sending email attachments, and printing things out to look at.

For example, at my current assignment, there's an intranet, but it hasn't been updated in at least a year. All the current stuff is on our file servers. When we collaborate, we either sit down and talk face to face, ask questions via email, or use a document repository/source control for controlling access to the documents. Web technology is highly overrated for these kinds of things.

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[Drazi100]

makes sense. you definitely need to go to microsft alot more to fix tehir crappy products

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[Anonymous Coward]

the majority of microsoft oriented developers work in closed closets not talking to anybody outside of their group or company. they are spoon fed pretty colored catalogs of software that they can buy licenses for that all claims to make their life better, but which in reality is full of bugs and worthless but cannot be returned once opened and tried out.

Re:Measuring developer use of OSS

[raindog2]

The numbers do fluctuate, but not by that much.

The original poster enclosed phrases in quotes and you didn't. Certain phrases made up of words that are common by themselves (like "bill gates" or "linux developer") get orders of magnitude more hits without the quotes.

Wine and Kylix

[CDWert]

Did anyone else notice Kylix 1 used its own wine distro bundled in, is this jus for the IDE or do the apps actually run under it too. I didnt have time to build an app as of yet....too much time at /. :)

Using wine seems lame to me to run the IDE and if the apps run under it it just plain sucks

does version 2 use wine as well ?

Re:Wine and Kylix

[JWarrington]

Wine is just used for the IDE. The apps are QT based apps, with no wine requirements

Re:Wine and Kylix

[stewart.hector]

Kylix used WineLibs, not wine - which are different.
Wine is to run windows applications
winelibs are to link against winelibaries during compilation - ie, you have a windows application, and you want to compile it under linux - easier porting.

Yes, in Kylix 1 the IDE was sluggish.

Kylix 2 has less dependecy on WINELIBS, but it is still there. You can see postings on borlands news server - http://newsgroups.borland.com .

Hopefully K2 IDE will be alot faster.

Re:Wine and Kylix

[Grayswan]

I noticed that Kylix 1 choked over VNC. I assumed that was due to the influence of wine. Can I get a witness from the congregation?

When everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking.

Re:Wine and Kylix

[IIEFreeMan]

> Hopefully K2 IDE will be alot faster.

But is the help system still as slow as 3DSMAX running on a P75 ?

Why couldn't they use HTML like everybody else !

Re:Wine and Kylix

[mazor]

>> Why couldn't they use HTML like everybody else !

Probably because HTML based search tools they tested couldn't handle the hundreds of thousands of help topics in the Kylix online help index.

HTML help is nice in concept, but for quick searching on your local machine the available tools are pretty awful.

-mazor

Re:Wine and Kylix

[Anonymous Coward]

I used Kylix 1 and now 2 over vnc. You have to be running in 16k colors, other than that works fine for me.

There will be a Kylix 1 update

[robinjo]

Borland has told in their newsgroups that there will be a Kylix update. So no need to buy Kylix 2 if you just want a bugfix.

Good for business

[gorillasoft]

I don't see where anyone has mentioned that this should be good for some businesses. In the case of a shop with split MS/Linux computers, they can write one internal business app in a RAD environment that will run on both of their systems. This allows for the good productivity of a RAD tool with the portability of Java, C, etc.

It could also be an incentive to switch over to Linux - they could have their apps written in Delphi on Windows, and then move as slowly/quickly as they want when converting to Linux without necessitating major code porting. In a slow economy, cost savings are of more obvious importance to management.

Of course, all previously MS-only code (VB, etc) would still need to be reworked, but there are benefits to be had for businesses looking at Kylix.

If Kylix takes off, it could really be a boon for Linux.

It's what we need

[ChrisJC]

Kylix is the sort of decent integrated software Linux needs. You get a complete IDE that all fits together and works.
It is a shame that the rest of Linux is not like that. Different kernels, different window managers, different environments, different shells, different config tools, all written by different people with different syntax and different look and feel. The obstacles to a newbie are phenomenal - I know as I was one recently. The chance of downloading some software and it compiling or working is pretty damn slim, is your kernel the right version, do you have the right glibc, have you the right libraries. What a bloody mess. Linux will only succeed when the entire system is as slick as Kylix, with all the crap thrown out, and Joe Sixpack can use it. Until that day, Linux will stay in the bedroom and the server room, and stay well off the desktop.

And don't expect a decent bit of software like Kylix to be free, there's a lot of work in that, and somebody has to pay for that.

Re:It's what we need

[Anonymous Coward]

The above being, of course, nearly all the important reasons I was so hyped for (then crushed by :( ) BeOS. The best of both worlds - a modern OS with a strong *nix influence but with an "owner" with strong control.

Kylix 2 is not a "fix"

[Shadowin]

Kylix 1 isn't broken. Kylix 2 Enterprise was released because Kylix 1 Server Developer did not have the Websnap and Biznap components. They were going to call it Kylix Enterprise, but I guess they decided the amount of new features constituted a major software release.

Still lacking features..

[rasjani]

Still no support of postgresql.

Still no support of GTK. (Wtf is that gnome icon even doing in there in kylix page ?)

And is the beast still compiled against wine libs ? (Yes, the first version was compiled against wine, no matter what you say. It was, and it is)

Re:Still lacking features..

[DAldredge]

Yet there is support for PostgreSQL/RedHat Database. Just look at the feature matrix...

Re:Still lacking features..

[rasjani]

So, Kylix gives me ability to write console stuff, how nice!

Re:Still lacking features..

[Micah]

What gets me is that the FAQ says PG drivers are only in the Enterprise version, while the feature matrix says they're in Enterprise and Pro. I asked in the Borland newsgroups and no one has clarified. Do you know?

That will make the difference of whether I upgrade or not, I think. I'm not paying for Enterprise, nor do i need it.

Dependancies?

[Per Wigren]

Sorry for not RTFM but I don't think I'll find an answer there that I can trust there anyway..

If I develop an application in Kylix, will it require proprietary libs? Can it be included in Debian without broken dependancies (or stupid "installer-packages" that say "go to http://www.göte.cx, download x and put it in /tmp")?

Re:Dependancies?

[Trepalium]

Not exactly. While they are releasing their CLX libraries under GPL, you still need the proprietary Kylix compiler to compile it all up.

Re:Dependancies?

[mazor]

Sorry for not RTFM but I don't think I'll find an answer there that I can trust there anyway..

You could download the Kylix Open Edition and see for yourself. If you can't trust your own eyes, why bother?

If I develop an application in Kylix, will it require proprietary libs?

Nope. You can build non-GUI apps (console apps, Apache DSO modules, etc) in Kylix with no external library requirements other than the system-standard libc and libpthread. The only deployment requirement is that the target system have a modern version of the glibc libraries installed - version 2.2 is best, but 2.1.2 and 2.1.3 with patches also work. (Source diffs for the libdl patches for glib 2.1.2 and 2.1.3 are included on the Kylix CD)

If you build GUI apps with Kylix, you will need to deploy a QT interface library, and QT itself if it's not already on the target machine.

-mazor

I've fallen, Linux help me up!

[ToasterTester]

Borland has been on life support and barely hanging on for years. They chase any buzzword they think will attract a customer and still only a handful of consultants use their products. They have lost all their real talent and there current products are showing it. They jumped on the Linux bandwagon, but forgot to check Linux user don't like to spend money for products. Linux users will spend on services and support, but not products, and they aren't too interested in high end enterprise tools, but because Linux isn't a high end enterprise OS yet. Linux market is web servers and related services.

Borland go buy another magazine and find another buzzword to chase. Linix isn't your life preserver.

Re:I've fallen, Linux help me up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, Borland has mad a solid profit for 7 quarters now. 58 million last quarter I think. In that time, not a single Linux company has turned a profit.

Who is saving who?

Re:I've fallen, Linux help me up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another troll who has no idea what he's talking about.

1. Borland is very healthy financially. In fact, it is sitting on $300 million in cash.
2. Borland's revenues (from operations) have increased over each quarter for over a year. It's stock price has doubled over the last year or so.
3. Borland is as talented as ever. Anders may have gone to Microsoft, and cloned the Delphi language with C# to run on .NET. But Borland is creating a cross-platform library with the original C# (Object Pascal) and CLX.

But don't let the facts bother you. Oh, and by the way - I realize that trolls don't know anything about building compliers, but anyone ( including Borland) can make a compiler based on .Net. It's far easier to make a compiler for CLI than for a CPU. So don't be surprised if Borland or another company severly undercuts Microsoft's pricing for it's new programming environment.

Re:I've fallen, Linux help me up!

[Drazi100]

Linux isn't a high end enterprise OS yet.

huh? neither is Microsoft and they aren doing too shabby.

when I think enterprise I Think SUN not microcrap.

Re:I've fallen, Linux help me up!

[fredrik70]

well, Borland *was* out on thin ice for a while, which upset me alot. My first compiler was a Borland one (BC3.1) and I have hold them very dear since then.. Delphi wasn't for me really when I tested it when it came out but now I'm thinking of giving it another go with Kylix actually - should be a laugh.

Download URL

[HaveBlue]

If you don't want to go through the obnoxious survey, here's the download page: http://community.borland.com/cgi-bin/surveys/thanx .cgi?kylixopenedition_down (You'll still need a serial number/authorization key, though)

borland has released Kylix

[donabal]

yea. i hear about this EVERY TIME I START UP BORLAND C++BUILDER. [since last year...]

man... if only i cared.

--donabal

Re:borland has released Kylix

[donabal]

usually i dont feed the trolls...

if by my website you mean one i post on ~3 times a year, yea. this is my website.

if by my website you mean the one that is put in my profile by DEFAULT, then suck my left testicle.

man, its people like you who rejected the fine art genious Adolf Hitler from art school who then got so angry that he decided to start world war 2.

ugh.

--donabal

C++ is too a priority

[fm6]

However, I can understand why they didn't implement this for C++ first: their target audience is not C++ programmers.

Not true. Most programmers are like you -- they like Borland's RAD technology, but they want to program in C++. Obviously Borland has to cater to them. The thing is that all of Borland's RAD products are based somehow on Delphi. (This even includes early versions of JBuilder, though the current version is 100% Java.) You don't need to know Delphi to use C++Builder, but all the core software -- the IDE, the object framework, etc. -- is implemented in Delphi. So major upgrades to C++Builder are always implemented in Delphi first. The same goes for porting the whole schmeer to Linux!

You can't really do this

[Jagin]

You can't really do this as a valid comparison. Linux developers (and Linux itself) has its development based on Internet services -- obviously it'll turn up a lot of hits!

Another thing -- 'Mozilla' is part of IE's internal identification string.. I can't remember the exact wording, but if you check some of those 'Mozilla' pages, I garauntee most of them won't be about the Mozilla browser we know and love. (I know, I once needed to find some info about Mozilla's DHTML capabilities and kept hitting info about IE).

-1 Troll on the MQR standard

[MarkusQ]

I just bought Kylix version 1 in July. I thought releasing an entire new product rather than fixing the existing product was a trick that only Microsoft pulled. I guess the economy crunch is getting to Borland as well.

1. For any active product, someone will have bought it just before each new version is announced, so the date you bought it isn't relevant.

2. There is very little wrong with K1, and there is a patch for that, so "fixing the existing product" isn't an issue.

3. Since it isn't a "trick" comparing it (the non-existent "trick") to MS is either silly or flamebait.

-- MarkusQ

Open Edition also updated?

[NoP_2k]

A simple question... there are updates for Kylix Open Edition, or the Open Edition will continue being 1.0?

Thanks a lot :)

Re:Open Edition also updated?

[nowt]

Currently it seems 2.0 is not available in the Open edition.

Re:Open Edition also updated?

[mazor]

Borland has said that the Kylix 2 Open Edition will be available online "soon". They usually do time-locked evaluation editions and the Open Edition a few weeks after the primary product is released.

Borland is a no-spam company

[MarkusQ]

I was going to check it out -- but I *refuse* to give them free reign to spam me by phone, fax, email, and snal mail for the privilege of doing so.

I've been using Borland products since the early eighties, and the most I've gotten is a few mailings telling me about events in my area, product updates, and an occasional bit of free stuff. I typically tweek my address to catch/track spammers (e.g. misspell my name), and I've never had anyone else send me something using the address I gave Borland. In short, I'd trust them.

-- MarkusQ

Re:Borland is a no-spam company

[Kruemelmo]

I agree, with one exception: The "C++ Builder Direct" Window which pops up every few weeks after it has made a connection to get the "latest news" from Borland. In Borland C++ Builder 4, you could only disable it by editing the registry. They have learned even here, though - there is a settings page for this in BCB 5.

Is it just me or is that a funny number?

[Bake]

So I guess 640K wasn't enough for Bill Gates huh.

"Linus Torvalds" - 640,000


"640K should be enough for anybody"

Instead he just _had_ to have 649K.

Re:Is it just me or is that a funny number?

[Anonymous Coward]

teeheehee, in canada 649 is a major lottery :)

Unplanned portability

[fm6]

Yikes. The resourcefulness of Delphi programmers never ceases to amaze me.

The way it was supposed to work was that both Delphi (6 and up) and Kylix come with CLX, a cross-platform component library for both Windows and Linux. So making an app cross-platform meant porting it to CLX (which is very similar to the existing VCL), then compiling it twice. But you've managed to achieve this without access to the Windows version of CLX. Pretty impressive.

Incidentally, there's an open source version of CLX. Currently only runs on Linux, but...

Re:Unplanned portability

[robinjo]

Thanks for the credit but it was really easy as CLX is so close to VCL. The guys as Borland have succeeded really well in hiding all the quirks of winapi and qt. As long as you don't use much of winapi (and why should you?), you're pretty safe.

sdl cross platform game development

[iplayfast]

I use Kylix and Delphi 5 to code games under Linux and Windows, using the SDL code. Same code for 2 different OS (OpenGL to boot)

Jedi code

For a great reference and good tutorials check out The great nehe site!

FreeCLX.sourceforge.net

[IgD]

I wrote and mass distributed a cross-platform application that runs on both on Windows and Linux. The problem with Kylix and Delphi 6 is that CLX is full of serious bugs. Borland maintains the CLX programming library on freeclx.sourceforge.net but as you can see from browsing the CVS repository, there have been no updates in months. Borland also lacks any decent bug tracking system on its website. Does anyone else want to comment on there experiences with CLX?

Blazing a trail to the Exit

[mugnyte]

This effort and inginuity behind Borland's development products is notable.

However, as they push in the Linux world, can they really make enough money, even with market share? As any feature they have is soon to be incorporated into the existing cheaper (in many both of the word) IDEs. How do you win with this?

Borland may have to settle for always being a day late and a dollar short. In the big world of dev. tools, this is still a big win.

Object Pascal Rules!

[jackjumper]

*that* ought to get some people to comment.

We've been using Delphi since version 1, and our flagship software (which controls a semiconductor manufacturing tool) is about 200,000 lines of Delphi 5 code. It takes about 30 seconds to compile.

We also do C++ development, with CBuilder. Our largest C++ program, about 30,000 lines, takes 10 minutes.

We've found that our object pascal code is more reliable, maintainable, and understandable than the C++ code we've developed. Even the most diehard c++-heads in our group admit that there is really no technical reason to prefer C++. The only reason they give is that it "looks better on our resume" (to that argument I reply we should be using Java).

Re:Object Pascal Rules!

[_dave_the_one_]

Why is this comment moderated as 'Funny'? Perhaps it's because of the 30 seconds vs 10 minutes thing. Don't you believe him?

I'm a Delphi developer. Yes, this is very, very believable. I simply don't understand all the Delphi-bashing that goes on; I know of no technical reason whatsoever to use C++ over Object Pascal, and I can tell you that from a programmer's perpective it's a hell of a lot cleaner and nicer to use. It's also just as powerful, more so in some cases, and compiles instantly. For any normal application it's finished compiling before you brain has sent the message to pull your finger off the 'Build' button. I'm serious.

And yes, I know it's Object Pascal. It's a pity it's named that, Pascal has a stigma attached to it that really shouldn't apply to Delphi. Borland's Pascal is quite different to the Pascal you may have played with years ago. It has similar syntax in many cases, but it's been radically changed as far as actually writing code with it. It's the cleanest, purest, most powerful and easiest-to-use language I've ever used, and I have used Basic (don't ask), C, C++ and Java.

Not to sound like a zealot or anything, but before you see statistics like these and scoff, or see the word Pascal and look away, please investigate it for yourself.

Re:Object Pascal Rules!

[Anonymous Coward]

No technical reason? How about the fact that C++ is an international standard? Borland could abandon object pascal at the drop of a hat. No way I'm being tied into any proprietry language no matter how good. I hear you saying, what are the chances of that happening? Just ask the large OWL community, or the visual basic community. It happens, once bitten twice shy ;-)

Re:Object Pascal Rules!

[jackjumper]

umm...yeah, C++ is a standard, but, for instance, MFC isn't.

I think you'd find it quite difficult to actually write a useful application that is entirely standard C++ code, especially in this era of windowed environments...

You have to take your best shot, balancing that risk and all others with the productivity you expect to have and the deadlines you have to meet.

We have an app that's been going since Delphi 1 and it still runs under Delphi 6 with minimal changes due to version issues.

Re:Object Pascal Rules!

[fredrik70]

Wasn't that why they choosed to use Pascal rather than c++ for Delphi? because Borland basically was the only on selling a commercial compilera nd that it wasn't in and standards body, so they could add new syntax, etc??
oh might just be a rumour..

The secret to the speed

[vtechpilot]

Borland's Object Pascal compiler is a single pass compiler. The trick is in the way everything is declared first, this allows the compiler to run through once and know ahead of time that a certain procedure or function does exist before it gets to any code that calls it.

You can make C compile in a single pass if you put main() at the bottom, and all procedures and functions above all the other procedures and functions that call them. This way the compiler can compile FuctionA and then when it gets to main() FunctionA is already compiled. When done the other way, the compiler reads through main() then compiles FunctionA and then comes back and finishes main(). Its all that jumping around that slows down compiling.

I've heard but haven't seen for myself that aranging the procedures and functions like this can also result in a smaller binary. YMMV.

Re:The secret to the speed

[mikera]

Actually, single pass compilation makes sod all difference. A pass to scan a parsed file for declarations might take 1% of your time if that. Putting all the declarations at the top is more of a Pascal convention for declaring your interfaces than anything else.

The main compilation-time advantages Pascal has over C/C++ are a simple, elegant langauge syntax, no complex preprocessor, general avoidance of header files, and the fact that modules ("units" in OP-speak) are almost always pre-compiled into a format that makes linking quick (these also double as pseudo-header files). Add to all that the fact that Borland are simply very good compiler writers.

Of course, you lose stuff from C++ that some people (including myself) use a lot such as macros, templates, multiple inheritance etc. Whether you actually need these is debatable, but their exclusion certainly makes for a clean language that is pretty beginner and maintainer friendly.

Last time I used Borland Pascal, it was also pretty good at stuff like dead-code elimination - not sure how GCC compares there.

That is the exact reason VB is popular

[Anonymous Coward]

Morons like me can develop apps quick and easy in it!

Just a guess..

[mindstrm]

but would it make sense that.. yes, MS made it easy to develop apps for a while. But after a while... the same libraries and things that made it easy also constrained programmers.. people had new ideas and new ways of doing things, and just couldn't implement them in Windows very easily.. wheras unix offered a more easy way to bring those ideas to light.

Re:Just a guess..

[fredrik70]

How do you mean same libs?
Win got a pretty large API, it's just a bit.. confusing.. at times. Not a beauty, but most of what you'll ever need is in there.

Give me C++ any day

[UnknownSoldier]

> And just what is wrong with Pascal?

Not trolling or meaning to start a "holy war", as this is just a personal opinion:

- Declarations are backwards, due to the awkward grammer: name type
Compared to the more logical C/C++ way: type name

- The distinction between functions and procedures (the language sports an artifical difference.) The lack of parenthesis in the declaration make it difficult to quickly visually spot functions.

- Operators, or the lack of them (no bit shifts, scope operator, namespaces?) i.e. := for assign? Just give me the dam equal sign already! :)

- Too wordy. { } are don't clutter my code whitespace, like 'begin' 'end' do.

In short, I just hate how the language looks.

It's the same as a person liking one spoken language over another. Sure they both can explain concepts, but which one is more compact, and is "fluent" for the person?

Pascal is a great teaching language, and Delphi is very impressive (Borland has always had lightning fast compiles on their Pascal languages, due to the grammar.) But I'd rather take a language I hate less (C/C++) then one that gives me a grammer that I hate (Pascal & sons.)

I like the multiparadigm support of C++.
i.e. procedural, object orientated, and generic programming paradigms.

For me, Pascal++ is just plain wrong, but if you're productive at using it, hey, more power to you!

Cheers

Re:Give me C++ any day

[CaptJay]

- The distinction between functions and procedures (the language sports an artifical difference.) The lack of parenthesis in the declaration make it difficult to quickly visually spot functions.

That's not actually an artificial difference. The choice behind two reserved words for procedures and functions allows the language's grammar to keep its LALR form, which means you can compile it much much faster. The form of Pascal's grammar is one of the biggest reason it compiles so damn fast compared to C++: there is no operator ambiguity. The same goes for the ":=" operator.

- Operators, or the lack of them (no bit shifts, scope operator, namespaces?)

bitshifts operators: "shl" and "shr". You can apply "and", "or", "not", etc to bits as well.

Namespace: You can delimit namespace by prefixing the name of the unit. Example: MyUnit.TMyClass.Create works perfectly.

Language preference is just that, a preference, but I just wanted to explain some of the features which you seemed to dislike. =)

Regards,

Re:Give me C++ any day

[mikera]

Just curious as to why you think the declarations are more logical one way than the other....

Is that just personal choice/comfort or a more fundamental difference?

a: integer;

int a;

dim a as Int

my $a (who cares about types anyway! :-)

All seem to convey pretty much the same logic to me.

Re:Give me C++ any day

[UnknownSoldier]

> Just curious as to why you think the declarations are more logical one way than the other....
> Is that just personal choice/comfort or a more fundamental difference?

Functionaly, there is no difference.

Personal comfort w/ respect to formatting, white space, and not needing superfluous tokens.

I like to arrange variables in a "table" format.
i.e.

intnWidth ;
intnHeight;
char*pTexels;


Now you can do the same thing in Pascal, but the C/C++ just seems more compact and unclutted:

var
nWidth :Integer;
nHeight:Integer;
pTexels:^Texture;


I find this more readable too:

void foo(
intfoo
, floatfoo2
, char*foo3 )
{
}


I guess it's the same reason I like my HP calc -- RPN just seems more natural.

*shrugs*

Re:Give me C++ any day

[mikera]

Fair enough. I don't mind either way, though it always seems to take a day or two to switch my mind from one convention to another.....

Still, my favourite langauges have to be the pure functional ones like Haskell. Type inference is a godsend, and who needs mutable variables anyway :-)

Jean Ichbiah on Delphi

[Anonymous Coward]

It is interesting that Jean Ichbiah, the designer of the Ada programming language, recommends Delphi for everyday programming tasks. See this this Usenet thread. That is high praise for Delphi (Kylix) indeed. Ada is perhaps the most carefully designed programming language in existence, so Jean Ichbiah knows whereof he speaks. At the time of his recommendation, Kylix did not yet exist. It would be interesting to see what Ichbiah's thoughts would be now.

Not fruit

[fm6]

A kylix is a wine bowl. Believe it or not, that name has nothing to do with Codeweavers. There are various stories, but the one I believe is that somebody saw a picture of a bull painted on a kylix, and thought that kylix was Greek for "bull". Anyway, an "-ix" name works well for this product!

I liked it but ....

[johnnnyboy]

I learned Delphi in college. I liked it a lot and but I still wouldn't use it.

Why? Because it's pascal!

If Kylix was C++ or better yet C# I would definitly use it.

Re:I liked it but ....

[Hairy1]

The sign of a *professional* programmer is that they don't care about programming languages. The rule of thumb is to use whatever tool gets the job done the fastest, with the best quality.

Personally I pick up new languages like I pick up colds :-) I use Delphi for Windows GUI apps, Java for Web Apps (serlvets), and Kylix for Linux GUI apps - which can be the same code base as the Delphi Apps.

Delphi, Java, VB, C++, C, Fortran, Kylix - its all the same stuff. Except perhaps Prolog - thats one language I never had time

Re:I liked it but ....

[fredrik70]

>Why? Because it's pascal!

ah, ok... you *like* it but wont use it? open minded aren't we??

Kylix will Save you $$$

[arbours]

If you are doing any kind of database app for Linux, Kylix will save you its entire cost within a week.

I've used Delphi since Version 1, and only now is MS even getting close to it with their new .NET framework and C#. VB has always been a disaster for DB apps.

And for those using KDevelop, how much code do you need to write for a Client/Server db app with Bound data controls and automatic saves and updates?

I can write a Delphi Db app that runs over the internet in about 20 lines of code, and has over 20 data bound controls and a master-detail grid automatically synchronized. The user just has to download 1 EXE, double-click on it and it runs, no other installation.

I have clients doing this right now and they are just drooling. They don't have to have a web browser and its crummy HTML interface, they get a full GUI client. And it is fast.

Play with it and have fun - and all the time you save can go to hanging around with your girlfriend.

Alex

Looking for a good tutorial / learning environment

[Nailer]

Kdevelop and the recently released kdestudio 3.0 gold is playing hard.

I think I'm a fairly experienced Linux user, on the systems administration and end user level. I think I was one of the first non programmer types to be seriously interested in the OS a few years ago when I started.

I can onviously do shell scripting, and I can also seem to read most C pretty easily. O used to do Pascal and Quattro Pro (!) programming in HS but that's a while ago and I bet I'm rusty. I'd like to get into programming proper.

a) Visually oriented. I'd like to work on both Open and Closed source apps and I think there's much more of a need for GUI apps than yet another CLI text processing tool. I could write the world's first XFree86 setup program which doesn't suck! I'd like to churn out lots of widgets and menus and a RAD tool is desoigned for this purpose. That there's free (beer) versions of these tools makes them appropriate for use on OSS projects.

b) QT based. As an end user my experience of QT apps has been they they are responsive, quick and the APIs are much more stable than their counterparts. I like the speed and crossplatformability of QT, and I'd like to be able to keep a common codebase across Linux, OSX, and Win32. My understanding is that the GTK+ port for Win32 is highly beta and quite limited in ts capabilities. QT, OTOH, works well nad has been used for a number of serious business apps - eg, TOra.

c) Easy to learn and pick up. Enough said.
It seems Kylix offers me what I want, but KDevelop and KDEStudio can, IIRC, also create pure QT apps than should easily work across platforms (correct me if I'm wrong).

Problem: where to start.
* Can I get courses in Kylix aimed at those with a fair amount of computer knowledge?
* Are there any books that anyone here would recommend on the subject of Kylix which? Kylix has only been around a short while.
* Anyone recommend any on line tutorials or web sites with same code I can load into them and get a feel for the various environments?

god awfully ugly

[staeci]

have they had the sense to pretty up their qt yet?

I don't know about anyone else but I don't want to create apps which look like they fell out of the ugly tree - they look out of place on my lovely kde2 desktop.

Technical issues are one thing but the toolkit looks ugly.

Re:Looking for a good tutorial / learning environm

[Paul Komarek]

I'll put in a plug for Python. It's clean, cross-platform, easy to learn (a core focus of the language is making things easy for nonprogrammers), and has support for QT, GTK, Tk, and some other widget libs. There are good books available for learning Python, and the Python community is fiarly strong.
Python is interpreted, so you'll won't see a lot of speed from it. Most applications don't actually need much speed, especially gui apps. However, you wouldn't want to built the SETI-at-home back end in Python, for example.

-Paul Komarek

Real differences

[Sharkeys-Day]

> In short, I just hate how the language looks.

Yep, everything you list is purely cosmetic.

My biggest plus for Delphi:

properties: They take the pain and inconvenience out of accessor functions vs member variables.

Biggest minus:

Delphi is "Borland's Object Pascal". As in proprietary. No standards.

Re:Real differences

[Anonymous Coward]

well, if there was a world of Object Pascal implementations, this would make sense. Since it is the only one, it's kind of a strawman.

The good and the bad from a user's perspective...

[vandan]

Borland's tech support is very good. They have a refreshingly positive attitude towards their customers after dealing with the likes of Microsoft; and unfortunately I have to do this a fair bit...
Their product, however...
Oh dear!

I have Kylix (version 1, Desktop Developer)The IDE is horribly clunky and buggy. It runs under wine. It crashes regularly when doing simple things with drop-down boxes etc. It is an absolute terror under Enlightenment (my fav window manager); I have to run Gnome / KDE to get the windows to behave 'normally' and stop jumping around erratically. Summary: the IDE is yucky. I'm waiting until they port it fully to Linux before upgrading. It's 'usable', but only because I have to...

The 'seamlessly integrating with Linux apps' bit also seems a little ... unfinished. It currently doesn't work with the latest mysql client libraries; you have to download mysql-3.22.32 AT THE LATEST and compile the client libraries from that. Also I have had very erratic behaviour with these mysql libraries. On more that one occasion, I have gone to bed with an app in perfect working order, gotten up, made a few changes, compiled, and found that the app locks hard when opening a mysql connection. The only way around this (short of paying Borland for support - which I suppose I'll have to do sooner or later) is to (wait for it) COMPLETELY uninstall Kylix, and re-install, then load up the project and compile, and voila! it all works. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

After having said all this, Kylix is quite obviously a VERY powerful tool, if not quite finished. Kylix 2 doesn't appear to address concerns regarding the IDE - as I said I will wait until this is done before upgrading. There is definitely potential in there, and hopefully withing 6-12 months I will have a tool capable of replacing M$ Access, which fully gives me the shits, but I use it every day 'cause I have to.

Using google for measuring popularity

[Per Abrahamsen]

I have been using google to measure popularity for some time, the most relevant page here is my free software celebricies page. Google has some problems when used this way, the largest is that the hit count are very unstable. I have seen entries in my list go from 200 to 15.000 and back to 200 in a week, for no obvious reason. Another problem is that it is often hard to find a term that is specific enough, but not too specific. For example, Bill and Gates are both English words.

Comparing apples and mouses...

[pruneau]

I'm suprised that did not strike somebody else.

Hey, wake up, those guys are just comparing stuff that should'nt in the first place !

I mean, those guys are comparing a full-fledged RAD/IDE/object model/whatever with g++, only a compiler. Well, not only, but g++/libg++ are quite independant from each other.

I mean, into developpment, having a _decent_ editor is not an option, not mentionning other mundane things like class-browsing capabilities, etc, etc... Yet another corporate lets-mix-everything-up-to-make-money-from-thin-air plan.

Not that their stuff is not great, but this white paper is comparing a engine with a full-fleged car, and telling you without shame that the latter is easier to drive: ARF, ARF, ARF !!!

Nice try, though...

Code Generation - x86

[morbid]

Although x86 is by far the largest hardware base on which Linux runs, was it short-sighted of Borland to incorporate only their own code generator into Kylix, there by limiting it to that one architecture? Would it not have been an idea to use the back end of GCC (as an option) and get all the other architectures for free?

Re:Code Generation - x86

[Anonymous Coward]

The GNU GPC project tries that since the eighties. It is still in the first stages of Delphi compability.

Go figure.

Re:Code Generation - x86

[morbid]

are you drunk?