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Borland Releases Kylix 3.0 for Delphi and C++
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Borland is giving us Kylix for C++ after all. Kylix 3.0 is available in Open, Professional, and Enterprise versions. Time to start banging out those CLX apps! The Register also has a story about this."
The writer seems to think that Kylix 3 will be a C++ replacement for Kylix 2. Kylix 3 will support C++ in addition to the existing feature set.
I don't know about Delphi, but most of our code is developed in Delhi.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
[1] http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/hos-23.07.02-0 00/
[2] http://www.borland.com/kylix/open/index.html
I've actually used Kylix 2.0 Open Edition to cross-compile a shareware game I've been working on in Delphi 6. It's very convienent to have one set of source code, and simply re-compile with Kylix for Linux distribution! (Yes, avoiding Windows API calls and such helps... plus I'm using JEDI-SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) for graphic/sound cross-platform stuff). Perhaps now instead of people saying, you can't develop cross-platform games with Delphi you should use C++... I can simple agree (instead of arguing and pointing out that Kylix is cross-platform) and say, sure, I could do that and use the same compiler I've been using all along... leaving certain code in Delphi, but re-writting parts in C++ (just for fun) but no, I don't have to use C++ it's just a language - I prefer Kylix 3.0 for my development environment!
This would be a major reason for schools on tight budgets to turn to Linux for computer programming classes! Why pay for the Microsoft tools (and tax) when this is available? Seems the LTSP folks should look into this...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
They're *selling* it. They're only giving away an "Open" version. The open version can't be used to create commercial apps, and doesn't contain all of the components that make delphi development so easy and efficient. I use delphi at work (I've got it open now, actually), and I've tried the Open version of Kylix before at home... it's way watered down compared to the pro/enterprise versions of delphi/kylix. Still a really useful tool for simple, quick, and fast apps.
It's not a bad business model, considering most people doing non-comercial development won't pay a hefty price for a professional development environment anyways.
ok borland have been shipping their CPP compiler for a while on linux (nothing new)
what this release does I would think is link aganst the CLX to do the GUI stuff
and add their CPP IDE (which is actually visual and drag and drop unlike microsofts which is just a text editor but they call it visual...)
now if they where useing STANDARD CPP why should using GCC be impossible (I suspect they have a few broken things in terms of standard support just like gcc has a few broken things) and the fact that CPP changes every meeting does not help but it would be nice if they said what gcc would require to do this
(I am not talking about opening up CLX just linking your code with it useing gnu tools)
borland selling in effect libs and a IDE would be a good thing IMHO
regards
john jones
Never Winter Nights gameeditor for linux hasnt been released because of this. It was build with c++ builder but they couldnt release it for linux because they didnt have Kylix yet to allow. Yew! Wonder who fast isle can provide the editor ;))
yush
So you'd use a proprietary product, just not if it uses another proprietary product? (that is distributed under a very similar, and even less restrictive, license!)
How is Borland any less evil than Troll Tech?
Huh? How is Troll Tech evil? People wanted QT under the GPL, and lo and behold, they released it under the GPL. Seems like a nice bunch of folks to me.
Perhaps more important, on the C++ side, is the general fact that code compiled with one C++ compiler is not likely to work with code generated by a different compiler. C++ specifies the use of name mangling, but doesn't specify how that is to be implemented. So all your class names and so on are represented in some compiler-specific way in the shared libraries, making them inaccessible to programs compiled with a different C++ compiler, unless the makers of the two compilers have gotten together and somehow agreed on exactly how to do the name mangling (which has not happened to date, that I've heard of).
I can't speak for C support, but the failure of Borland C++ to support the GNU compiler is inevitable, and not anyone's fault, except maybe Bjarne Stroustrup's.
one hundred twenty
is just enough characters
to write a haiku
Screenshots of Kylix IDE...(an alpha version)
http://www.drbob42.com/kylix/hotshot.htm
I tend to agree with the Anonymous poster.. it's an IDE.. the power of CodeInsight, code templates, etc can't easily be demonstrated through a screenshot. Read through the Features to get an idea of what the environment supports.
The long and the short of his answer was that we really can't expect a whole heckuva lot. The developer stated that it was not likely to be highly interoperable with conventional Linux development languages and tools. Certainly importing will be possible, but you couldn't expect, for example, gdb to be very successful with it, nor would it be likely that gcc or g++ be able to link with libraries or object files that were created with C++ Builder for Linux. Further, because C++ Builder extends the C++ language to accomodate certain features, it will not be possible to compile C++ Builder source code with g++.
I hate being the bearer of bad news (I found it discouraging, at any rate), but I'm just repeating what I was told by a Borland developer. As I said, this was about a year ago, so if there is more up-to-date info on this topic from an authorized source, I am sure I'm not the only one here who would be interested in hearing it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I don't know about the other apps you mentioned, but if you purchase Kylix, regardless what happens to Trolltech, you have the right to create and distribute apps you create with it however you like. Any licensing changes made by Trolltech can't apply retroactively, so the stuff you get with Kylix will still be fairly licensed to you to use in whatever manner you want. Okay, you may not be able to link with their latest libs, but you'll have the right to distribute the libs you got with Kylix with applications that use them anyways!
This won't be a big problem because you won't be able to link with those libs with g++ or gcc -- only C++ Builder for Linux. As for Kylix 3 Open, the issue of linking with QT is already covered by Borland's licensing restriction on it which requires that applications built with it be GPL'd, which goes back in synch with TrollTech's license policy anyways.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'