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Borland C++ For Linux
Ardax writes: "Looks like Borland is going to be releasing C++ for Linux, according to this InfoWorld article. We'll be seeing more details at LinuxWorld in NY next week. The article doesn't mention whether this will be C++ Builder for Linux, or 'just' a command line compiler. No matter what, this is a sweet thing. I wonder how it will compare to gcc? (I wonder if it will be able to compile the kernel? :-) ) If it's the whole C++ Builder shebang, I wonder if there will be an Open Edition?
Borland's Community site has a blurb about this. There's no comments at the Borland community yet, but some interesting commentary might pop up there."
I could see there being a market for Borland if they released a nice GUI C++ development environment; but if it was just a command line program, can someone explain to me why they would use it instead of gcc. I just see no reason to pay for it if it is a command line program. I can't believe that they would offer some feature that gcc doesn't.
What good is a used up world, and how could it be worth having? --Sting
What an old fart I am. I remember cutting my teeth back in the 80's on Turbo C 1.0 ... and nearly did back flips when they finally got the Windows IDE right with C++ 5.0 some ten years later.
... but an IDE would be even sweeter.
Let's hope it doesn't take them as long to give us a familiar interface. Sure, the command line would be nice, considering Borland's robust libraries and deep oop capabilities
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
Hmmm...
I wonder if this will be like Borland C V1.5 (or was it 1.0? I'm getting old anyways...):
main()
{
int a = 4 / 8;
printf("%d\n", a);
}
Result: 2
It's not a joke kiddos. It was a real bug, just like that.
The creator(s) of C++ tried to make it as backward-compatable with C as possible. But it's not 100% backwards-compatible.
:p). But in C++, you *must* prototype your functions.
For example, in C you didn't *have* to prototype your functions; the compiler would make some assumptions (which weren't always right
That's just one example, I'm sure there are more though...
Borland has always put out wonderful tools, and really worked hard on making their compilers optimized on their platforms, but I think they've missed the boat here. This is most likely for easy porting of other applications written with Borland tools to Linux, because Linux already has a solid toolchain of its own. Regardless, I hope they get back on track.
What I miss most is the old text-based Borland IDE. That was the most productive development environment ever. RHIDE is close, but wasn't stable on Linux when last I checked.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
C++ isn't compatible with C, so to speak, meaning a straight C compiler will not compile your C++ classes. But C++ is by definition a superset of C, meaning that all valid C code will compile cleanly by a C++ compiler. In theory at least.
Borland's IDEs (baring of licensing crap ;-) have always been exceptional. Current opensource IDEs are decent, but they are no where near the quality.
It comes down to maturity. Borland has been making powerful IDEs for a very long time. Development for opensource IDEs however is a fairly new thing (KDEvelop is good, but it is still fairly unreliable and not as featured as I'd like).
After years of tweaking, Borland's got it down pat.
Why bother.
If nothing else, it'll be nice to have an industrial strength competitor to GCC coming from a (former) heavyweight in the development community. I remember Pascal oh so fondly...
And I'll be real interested to see if it will actually compile the kernel!
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Kylix was supposed to be compiler independent. The current generations have only the Object Pascal compiler. IIRC, the next version of Kylix will support C++ too.
¦ ©® ±
void main(void) {
printf("Big deal\n");
}
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
Then all we need is Textpad for Linux and then all well be well in the land of CS coding...
Hhhhmmm... let's see I can use XEmacs with code generation, source templates, tags, class browser or I can use Borland's and not be able to use elisp.
I'm sure MSVC++ kiddies new to unix development in general can enjoy it however. I just hope I don't see 'project files' all over the damn place a year from now in lieu of Makefiles and autoconf.
Don't get me wrong; GCC is greak - but C++ Builder is an impressive way to write GUI applications quickly.
:-)
I'd immediately recompile MemTach for Linux
Best Regards,
Bill
--------- Webmaster, http://www.cpureview.com and
It's not clear (at least from the sketchy information in the article) if there will be an Open Source/free version, but I hope so, and here's why: currently my university requires us to use Windows in our computer science classes, mainly because Microsoft gives us a lot of expensive software for free (if Microsoft makes it, students probably have access to it--Visual Studio 6, Visual SourceSafe, SQL Server, Windows XP Pro, ...)
That leaves people like me--who prefer to run Linux instead of Windows--at a disadvantage. I have to have a dual boot system, and I have to reboot to Windows every time I need to hack out some code for a class. Now, if Borland releases their C++ for Linux and makes it free, I know I could convince a couple of my professors to ditch the Microsoft stuff and use teach the class using Linux and Borland. That would enable me--and the rest of the university--to gain some practical experience coding on the Linux platform, and not just on Windows. Don't get me wrong, there isn't anything wrong with knowing how to code using Windows and Microsoft Visual Studio (in fact it's probably a good resume item), but I'd like to get familiar with some alternatives before I enter the workforce.
The kernel is not written in pure C, even though it's portability would make you think so. It is writen in C with a ton of GNU extentions. So the kernel is really tied to gcc. (which actually makes it more protable because gcc runs on a ton of machines)
The blurb (linked to here mentions that Borland is going to announce C++Builder for Linux. Just a tasty little tidbit that needs to be adressed:P
The time of day is 29:33.
The intel compiler uses the source file's extension to decide whether to compile with the C or C++ syntax
C++
D:\IntelC\Compiler50\ia32\bin>icl ft.cpp
Intel(R) C++ Compiler for 32-bit applications, Version 5.0.1 Build 010525Z
Copyright (C) 1985-2001 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
ft.cpp
ft.cpp(5): error: expected an identifier
int new=3;
^
ft.cpp(7): error: expected a type specifier
return new;
^
ft.cpp(7): warning #120: return value type does not match the function type
return new;
^
compilation aborted for ft.cpp (code 2)
C
D:\IntelC\Compiler50\ia32\bin>icl ft.c
Intel(R) C++ Compiler for 32-bit applications, Version 5.0.1 Build 010525Z
Copyright (C) 1985-2001 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
ft.c
Microsoft (R) Incremental Linker Version 6.00.8447
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp 1992-1998. All rights reserved.
-out:ft.exe
ft.obj
Const defaults to int. You're doing a direct comparison of a floating point with an integer.
I have a PhD in Visual C++. This is widely known among my graduate students.
intel has already release C and Fortran 90 compilers for Linux that are free for non-comercial use. These are very fast compilers when used on a Pentium IV.
I applaud Borland for choosing to put more of their fine products on Linux. I have personally used Borland's products since version 3 of their Pascal compiler, which was a pretty long time ago. In conjunction with TurboPower's libraries, which were distributed with complete source code and no royalties, Borland's compilers, both for Pascal and C/C++, were always truly amazing products.
Now, with the increasing popularity and acceptance of Linux, I believe that Borland's products have found a new home, better than on DOS and Windows. I strongly believe that if Borland continues to implement their fine software on Linux, some great applications, brand-name commercial as well as free, will show up on Linux, making it a strong and competitive alternative to the Windows family of operating systems.
Perhaps someday, a couple of years down the road, Microsoft will begin implementing their software, such as a Microsoft Office for Linux package, just as some years ago, IBM sold native Windows versions of their OS/2 applications. Hopefully, this move by Borland will bring that a bit closer to reality.
Quite a few people still buy Delphi. Delphi users moving to C++ often buy C++ Builder. Otherwise, most everybody else chooses Visual Studio. So, I could see a case made for opening C++ Builder, but not Delphi (which happens to fall under "their Windows products").
I've done hardly any programming for Linux yet. Mostly I've just used a text editor. If Borland doesn't release a GUI for C++, what's another good one? I thought gcc was command-line only & didn't have an IDE. Is there something else? I always assumed there was but have never got around to checking into it. Thanks.
And it even has been floating around for YEARS. Look at some screenshots of it here. I think it might be what you are looking for.
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
How many people actually use Borland's C++ products currently? Of those that do, is this just brand loyalty from the Windows 3.1 days? I've been part of product teams (all using C/C++) developing on Windows, Mac, and various unices, and I've never seen Borland being used anywhere. The last Borland product I've seen used was Turbo Pascal for DOS back in high school.
This isn't meant to start a flame war, I've just never actually seen a Borland C++ product being used, and am curious how big their market is. It may be that the Linux version would actually outsell the Windows version due to lack of competition. And it would totally rock if they released the Borland C++ builder IDE that supported not only the Borland compiler, but gcc and icc (intel) as well.
Needless to say, if they do release the IDE, I'll be very interested to see how well it works. I've tried KDevelop, CodeWarrior (older version - 5.0?), Anjuta, a couple other gnome things, etc. And I'm sorry to say none of them allow me to be as productive as I am with VC++ (with the VisualAssist add-in). CodeWarrior was probably the worst (I hope for their sake 6.0 was better), and KDevelop the most mature. However, none of the open source efforts play nice with cross platform projects (damn it, I don't WANT the make files in the same directory as the source!!!), and are terrible when dealing with large projects. If Borland's product can deal with large cross-platform projects, I'll be a happy camper.
Dan
Any reason this is moderated as a troll? The guy's not making up the output. You can't use new as an identifier in C++, since it's a reserved word.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
No, C++ is not 100% C compatible.
However, it's irrelevant here. The Borland C++ compiler properly supports both C and C++ languages. By default, it depends on file extension, but you can also specify the language option (C or C++) explicitly.
Exchange:
"I have a file I would like to share with you"
IIS:
"Please rape my server... please"
MSVC:
"We think we support the standards, wait, we don't... does that compile yet?"
"Oh, you want that kind of template support. That'll be another 1000$ for our next version"
Office:
"Bug fixes? Have paperclip instead."
BSOD:
"IRQL LESS THAN OR EQUAL..... Reinstall computer"
XP:
"You can use your computer how and when we say you can."
"Our new fancy QOS service now helpfully reserves 20% of network bandwith for itself. Have fun trying to find the right tool to change that"
"What do you mean you don't like our sexy new menu delays?"
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
(picture a pretty gui)
Tools->Options->Build
Compiler: [] Borland C++ []gcc |path|
Linker: [] Borland [] ld |path|
Flags:
The kernel . . . is writen in C with a ton of GNU extentions. So the kernel is really tied to gcc. (which actually makes it more protable because gcc runs on a ton of machines)
Um, no. Using compiler-specific extensions does not make code more portable by any possible interpretation of the word. If it didn't use any extensions, then not only could GCC compile it, so could Intel's compiler, Sun's compiler, etc. That would be portable.
While we're on the subject, though, it would be nice to see at least some of the GCC extensions make it into other compilers. I try to write code without them as much as possible, but in particular I've found the typeof() construct useful, as well as the ability to initialize arbitrary members of a union (yes, I know I could just turn them into structs, but that's a waste of memory). Does anyone know alternate ways of doing things like this in standard C, or whether the GCC folks are doing anything to try and get their extensions included in the standard?
A really great thing with Linux (and NetBSD, and OpenBSD) is *portability* . These OS can run the same way on a variety of hardware.
Something designed on Linux x86 can run on Linux PPC with almost no change.
The master key to make it possible is GCC. Because GCC can compile (and even cross-compile) code for a lot of architectures.
Projects using Borlanc C++ specific features will work on Intel Linux. Nowhere else. This is pity. An opensource Operating System should be open to everyone.
{{.sig}}
From the story:
Looks like Borland is going to be releasing C++ for Linux
How much more related to Linux do you want?
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
whether the GCC folks are doing anything to try and get their extensions included in the standard?
A number of GCC-isms ended up in the C99 standard. Such as support for C++-style comments, inline functions and named initializations of structs.
For more info on C99 differences from C89 try reading Are you Ready For C99? which appeared on Kuro5hin about a year ago.
That's got to be a journalist mangling the message. Borland has been selling C++ Builder for windows for several years already - why would they anounce it now?
This could really mean that either there is a new version of BCB for win32 to be anounced, or that BCB for linux is coming out.
Now it has been Borland's stated intent that the Kylix product line (or even the Kylix product) will support drag&drop C++ as well as Object-Pascal. I don't see why not - they share a compiler back end and a class library.
So either
- Borland has changed direction and not told anyone, and there will be no BCB for linux.
- We are getting BCB for Linux now.
- This is in fact only a commandline compiler, and is just a warmup for a later release of BCB for Linux.
Place your bets.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
there are only about a hundred case studies where all that ultra complex exchange functionality has been recreated in a webapp with php or something in like a day.
No, it isn't built into the email client, but WTF is intuitive about launching the email program to schedule a meeting, or look up someone's phone number. A simple calendar program, connected to finger and an MTA and viola!
Now "development solution" doesn't sound like just a commndline compiler to me.
I expect that option 2 (BCB for linux now) is most likely, and option 1 (No BCB for linux ever) is right out.
There will likely also be a new version of bcb for win32. That's what happened on the Object-Pascal front: Kylix 1 rapidly followed by Delphi6.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Actually this was discussed on the borland.kylix.non-technical newsgroup a while ago. The aim is apparently to be able to compile ANY C/C++ Linux application, in fact the complete system, including the kernel. Thus it will need to emulate gcc's extensions.
We'll see if this turns out or not. That's just what I recall reading in discussions.
But if so it would be pretty sweet, assuming you're not a Free Software zealot (which I am, kind of, but I can see some coolness factor in this). If the pull it off, someone will be able to build an ENTIRE Linux distribution with their optimized compiler. Everything could run faster.
What Linux needs is a kick ass developer environment like Visual Studio.NET, not another C++ compiler: the way software is written, the time it takes to cook up great reusable code, THAT's important. The compiler is just the end station of what's produced.
If you are fortunate to be able to take a look at the Visual Studio.NET releases, you know what I mean. I hope for Linux Borland will come with a toolset that gives the Linux developer the same productivity tools as Visual Studio.NET gives you. But I fear it will be only the v5.5 C++ compiler.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Try SETEDIT; it's pretty darn close.
-- MarkusQ
The upshot of that discussion was that VectorC {PC:Linux} is sheduled for release in April this year. That being based on our 2.0 engine so with C++ compatibility (currently VectorC is C only). While there was (unsurprisingly) a load of anti closed-source rhetoric in public, we did recieve a good number of serious private enquiries from people looking for a compiler such as ours on the Linux platform. It was enough to form a view that the platform is viable for us.
Ultimately I can't see any serious argument against having development tools such as these (Borland C++ and VectorC) on Linux. While it's likely of less interest to the open source/free evangelists wanting everything for free, there's definately demand where Linux is increasingly being used as an industrial platform.
Codeplay looks forward to competing with Borland on Linux.
Mat Bettinson - Codeplay Ltd.
Personally, I could care less about what the actual compiler is. For our product, we use MS VC++ for development and the Intel compiler for release builds (it's a better compiler).
All I ask from Linux is a similar or better IDE. I want to be able to write code, edit resources (dialogs), and do it all from one environment. I want a class wizard (again, I'm a VC++ user). Give me that, and I'll develop software for Linux in all my spare time.
Everyone talks about the advantages of Open Source. Give me this one simple thing, and I as user, will become an open source developer.
Don't make me deal with configure and manual makefiles and all that garbage. Forget it, I'm spoiled. I won't go back to that. It's like going back to the old DOS days. Give me a true IDE environment for development, and you've got me hooked. Throw on top of that a really good C++ class library for dealing with X, and you're done. So, who's doing this?
Also I already have problems getting Windows development jobs because I've refused to touch "Visual" C++.
And who's fault is that? That would be yours, wouldn't it now.
Maybe you should stop complaining that people won't employ you and learn Visual C++. Nobody likes a stuck up programmer.
"Information wants to be paid"
So, if I compile Free code with a non-Free compiler, would people regard it still Free software? This is meant serious, not as a troll.
As for me, it would not matter very much if with which compiler a program is compiled. But maybe someone has a good opinion on this.
Like science? Comics? Wicked...
Funny By Nature
I get twice as fast an executable when compiling my application with GCC 2.95.2 under Cygwin, compared to Borland C++ 5.5 under C++Builder, both with full optimization.
I guess the lesson here is not to use reserved words in your C code if you might compile it under C++, hm? Older code should stick out like a sore thumb as well-- the C++ compiler will knock out the specific line and column position that the error was seen at, making it simple work to rename variables that have improper names, or remove improper comments (as another example in this thread showed).
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
This page lists some of the incompatibilities.
Erik Dalén
Well, Borland is going to 'support' Linux.
Whoooopie. I'm so excited I could just lift a finger in celebration. The "next article" finger to be exact.
Borland was a Godsend back in DOS days, when the Microsoft platform was unreliable and probably the least compatible C compiler ever invented. Those of us who were doing development work on MouseyDos spent our hard earned dollars on Turbo C, Borland C, release after release.
Then along came Windows and competing products from other vendors. Borland provided us with an extensible object framework better than anything that Microsoft had to offer. And then, something happened. All of a sudden, Borland was in bed with Microsoft, and those of us who worked with ObjectWindows, or (horrors) that "other" platform were abandoned like poor relatives at a party.
I personally give Borland a share of the blame for the extension of the Microsoft monopoly and the eradication of that "other" platform.
And now, they're going to bring out a product for Linux.
Well, friends, I won't spend a single cent on a Borland platform for Linux. Linux already has a mature tool chain available (more than one, actually) and in my humble opinion, Borland's products are unreliable. They are unreliable for the same reason every other proprietary product is unreliable; one never knows if tomorrow that product will even exist. If I find serious errors with the product, will Borland fix them, or will they once again decide that politics or bribery rule, and abandon their product (and me) to their own interests?
No, friend. I greet Borland's announcement of Linux support with all the enthusiasm of Borland's last six years of announcements. After spending thousands of dollars on their products only to be left standing in the rain, I will never, ever, buy another Borland product again.
Not ever.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Since that is getting ancient (I want to use more modern C++ features), I have been looking into an upgrade. The compiler must be cheap and easy to install, as Ph.D. students (who have never heard of Unix) will want to compile the application, and I don't want to come in a situation where I have to provide technical support for the compiler.
C++Builder is the obvious choice for a succecor, but the IDE is the worst I have ever encountered, is is slow bordering to unusable, and produce (for my application) ridiculous bad code.
Cygwin was the second choice, since I already use GCC on unix. It is also the recommended way to get CVS, and I can reuse the Makefile. However, the Unix environment is too weird for some of the users, and getting -no-cygwin to work for C++ is non-trivial. So I need a more conventional solution as well.
Visual C++ is what most people use. It has en excellent IDE, produce OK code, and mediocre C++ support. I have found work arounds for the limitations in the C++ support, so that is going to be the replacement for Borland C++.
Borland is a member of the eclipse.org Consortium. Perhaps their new IDE is Eclipse. I hope so. The more I work with Eclipse, the more I like it. There's room for improvement, but those improvements are being made. Eclipse is the only open-source software my company has committed to. It's becoming a core part of our flagship product. No other open-source product can say that.
Out of over 200 comments, so far, there have only been a couple of mentions of the license agreement fiasco. Why is this? Does the Slashdot community forget so soon? This was a really big thing less than 2 weeks ago, and now everyone's happy because Borland is releasing a C++ compiler for linux, hmmm. This seems hypocritical to me. Borland never really apologized for their EULA, they just excused it as a mistake made by their lawyers.See this. There enterprise agreement is not industry standard, it is ridiculous. I guess that it doesn't matter what a company does, as long as it's not Microsoft. It's hard to replace an OS, but not so hard to replace an app--I, personally, would use someting a little less polished, rather than support a company that claims to support a community, but, really, doesn't.
I'm really not trying to be a troll here, I just thought that this needed to be brought up, and, discussed.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
Exactly. You haven't got the experience employers are looking for because you consider getting that experience to be a waste of time.
Pretty much confirms my point.
"Information wants to be paid"
I hope it's better than the version of Metrowerks Codewarrior for Linux. The Linux version of Metroworks' product is nothing more than an IDE wrapping the standare GNU tools.
I expect better from Borland.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Names changed to protect the guilty, but a product I worked on in a previous company used a contractor to write some of the code. The contractor and the guy that ordered it really didn't get on, mainly because the manager was a fool who was rubbish at paying the contractor on time.
After yet another silly dictact, the line #ifdef JOHN_SMITHS_PAPAL_DECREE started creeping into the code...
Cheers,
Ian
I'm one of the compiler team members working on the Linux port right now, so I can offer a few more pieces of information.
:( The IDE has a rich debugger in it, but we would like to see a command-line alternative at some point. Some things just weren't possible for 1.0.
What will be released is the full GUI environment, not just the command-line compiler.
bcc has not been tried on the kernel sources, and I'm doubtful it would work. We implemented enough gcc compatibility to use glibc, but some things, like inline assembly, just didn't make it on the schedule for this release. Expect code that uses lots of gcc trickery to fail.
Compared to gcc it compiles code almost twice as fast. bcc is meant to complement our GUI tool, not compete with gcc standalone. Since the GUI tool focuses on "rapid application development", having fast turnaround times is a big plus.
Probably the nicest item for command-line buffs will be our incremental linker. It should be usable in standalone projects, whether or not you use bcc (will have to do some checking to make sure..). Relinking after a single object change typically takes just a few milliseconds. First-time links are still faster than ld.
There will also be no STABS or DWARF this release. Sorry gdb users.
Heh, well silly! You been using it for 3 years and haven't tried any of the nice features?
It's simple http://www.xemacs.org should be able to point you in the right direction. XEmacs/emacs has a ton to '3rd party' things like class browsers and code generators. You can also get more links to sites from google, and even install packages right from XEmacs menu. =)
My applications works fine compiled with C++Builder (5.0, with BCC 5.5), it just run half the speed I get with GCC 2.95, Visual C++ 6.0 and even BCC 5.0.
Not even close to true. A lot of developers are absolutely passionate about Delphi and C++ Builder. I think they'd riot in the streets if either product were discontinued. Not that there's any danger of this. Even in Borland's darkest days, these products were making money, and never stopped being under active development.
There are lots of reasons for this lack of visibility. The most obvious one is the reluctance of managers to commit to non-Microsoft tools, despite rabid lobbying from their engineers. And there always seem to be rumors of Borland's imminent meltdown -- even as we turn a profit and scramble to house the new hires.
One way to measure the penetration of Borland RAD products is to download and run the VCL Scanner, which uncovers installed Windows programs that use Borland libraries. First time I used it, I was shocked to discover how many of these there were. Some of them were basic system utilities that I had used for years.
Borland is entering a tough market. The Linux system already comes with C++ compilers and IDEs. Perhaps not as good, but free (GPL). This makes any sale dubious. Their products may well be better, but how large a market is there for better products against already established free products?
One place where they have a big edge is in dialog building. Kylix already builds dialogs under Linux, so they know how.
Perhaps what their goal is, is to get people using their products on Linux to be cross-platform, but to make their pile selling compilers for the Windows versions? Sounds chancy to me, but it would let them sell the Linux system at around cost, and still make SOMETHING. I'm dubious about proprietary libraries, but I believe that the GPL (NOT LGPL!) version of the library is available at sourceforge. And that Borland holds sole rights, so they can license it commercially if you pay them.
This means that you can use Borland libraries in GPL software without cost, but if you want to sell the product, Borland gets a share. (Sounds fair to me. Viable? I don't know.)
Given this evaluation, past comments, etc., and what I expect is that this C product will be the C++ companion product to Kylix. And it will probably be available on the same basis.
As to what they'll call it, companies are unpredictable, but what I think they should call it is:
Kylix C++, a C++ environment for the Kylix family.
Then they could follow it up with:
Kylix Python, a Python environment for the Kylix family.
Kylix Java, a Java environment for the Kylix family.
etc.
The kicker would be that all of the various pieces could work together in a relatively seamless way. (This takes a bit of work, but SuperCede Java did this between Java, C, and C++ on the PC side years ago. They finally got bought out by someone who raised the price to $10,000 per copy, but it worked pretty well when it was affordable.) And, of course, gcc has always worked this way.
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
And the answer to that is probably "No" since gcc has been hacked repeatedly to allow for the writing of "optimized" code in the kernel. A deplorable practice at best. c has been embraced and extended in gcc just for the (Linux) kernels sake.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Linus used a Borland compiler to bootstrap the development of Linux, because Minix was compiled with that. (Then when the system was good enough to host GCC, and serve as its own development platform, that compiler was abandoned).
However, you're missing something. ANSI C++ forbids declaration of i with no type.
I understand that declaring a variable with a type made of only qualifiers (const, volatile, etc.) is illegal in C++, but what about unsigned i; or long j;? Are tokens such as "unsigned" and "long" considered qualifiers or part of the basic type?
Will I retire or break 10K?
About 8 years ago I got into OS/2 in a big way and wanted to start developing for it. CSet from IBM was very expensive so I was ecstatic when Borland C++ came out for OS/2. Version 1.0 was pretty damned good - a powerful IDE, a decent set of helper classes (no GUI ones though) and a syntax highlighting editor in an age when IBM CSet++ shipped with no editor whatsoever. All was good or so I thought and I put aside concerns about the few bugs because it worked dammit and 1.01 would iron out the remaining problems.
Version 1.01 came and had some fixes for the existing problems but overall had *more* bugs than 1.0. The classes didn't work as designed, the debugger more frequently hung your machine than worked and worst of all the IDE crashed - randomly. All was getting decidely iffy but I knew that 1.5 was out so I still held out hope.
Version 1.5 and all hope flew out the window and emigrated to Australia. I had never seen a buggy piece of shit in life! The all new improved version may as well had alpha written all over it. It was unusable and I gave up after discovering threading was completely broken - a feature I had used up until then.
Soon after I switched to IBM CSet++. Now that was a compiler. It might have had a totally stinky UI (none at all), but the command line tools were excellent and it came with some pretty good classes too.
I think the speed at which Borland's compilers execute is evidence that they can generate fast code.
Not necessarily. If Borland's compiler is ten times less complex than GCC, but GCC produces code that's twice as fast, Borland's compiler compiled with itself will still feel five times as fast as GCC compiled with itself.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Large companies wanting to port their software to Linux may well be much more comfortable buying a copy of Borland C++ (I know some of my coworkers would be) than using gcc.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
who has lost an argument by looking to see who is swearing first.
bye bye Troll
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
The compiler contained in C++Builder 5.0 identifies itself Borland C++ 5.5. I have never used the free Borland C++ compiler.
I'm surprised to hear that the free C++ 5.5 is six years old, as the Borland commercial product back then was called C++ 5.0.
The GCC of the same timeframe (six years ago) was 2.7.x. Version 0.9 (the initial beta) was from 1987, 15 years ago.