New Borland Development Studio

mesozoic writes "News.com is running a scoop on Borland's up-and-coming development suite, code-named 'Galileo'. It'll be compatible with both .NET and Java, and is aimed at developers who don't want to be cornered into using Microsoft's entire suite of programs. I personally am very nostalgic for Borland's old DOS-based IDE, and I'll be watching for this in the future."

Comments

Am I missing something?

[one9nine]

"Borland is hoping to position itself as an alternative for developers who want to target .Net, but who do not want to be locked into Microsoft's programming tools and technologies. "

If you don't want to be locked into using M$'s programming tools and technologies, don't use .Net. And if you do want to use .Net (gasp), wouldn't you want to use M$'s programming tools and techonologies which will most likey integrate better and will probably be more productive than non-M$ products?

When I used to be a Microsoft guy, I really liked the way Visual Source Safe, Visual Studio and Visual Basic and SQL Server integrated. I had to admit, it was very slick. Buggy as hell, but very nice to work with. Sounds like Borland is streaching itself too thin with trying to be "an IDE for all seasons".

"Are you saying boo or boo-urns?" Booooooooo!

Re:Am I missing something?

[NDSalerno]

"...wouldn't you want to use M$'s programming tools and techonologies which will most likey integrate better and will probably be more productive than non-M$ products?"

Not true. As an example, one would logically think that because Microsoft develops MS Windows then Microsoft's Visual Studio is the best tool for making GUI apps, COM objects, ActiveX, NT services, etc... Heh, not so. Well, ok, Visual Basic is pretty slick with COM/ActiveX, but it's crap for anything else. Likewise, Visual C++ just plain sucks (and I will spare the WHOLE story why I think it sucks). Surpisingly, Delphi makes writing GUI apps, COM/ActiveX, NT services, etc., very easy. But wait! Borland doesn't develop MS Windows, how could this be so?

Still don't believe. Try this out. COM development in Visual C++ wasn't pretty, in fact you had to know two languages: C/C++ and IDL (which is not the case with Delphi, no IDL programming required). Then Microsoft came out with COM+, which was COM with some niceties for development, like automatic reference counting for example. Now did Borland update Delphi to support COM+. Guess what? They didn't really need to. They already had it before COM+ was invented! What? That doesn't make sense. Well check this out. When Borland made support for COM, their IUnknown interface, and sub-interfaces, were designed with some of COM+'s features in mind, for example the reference counting. So while Visual C++ programmers were having fun with COM in the sadistic sense, COM+ finally came out and the Delphi developers said "heh, we already were doing that, COM+ doesn't really apply to us".

So much for the MS tools must integrate with MS technologies better than anyone else. As for .NET you have to keep in mind that part of what makes up .NET are the standard protocols. Speak those protocols and you are in the game (especially with repsect to web service development). Now it may be nice to also have the ability to use .NET classes (the assemblies), but it is not a requirement. Either way, Borland has yet another chance to show that they can make very quality .NET compatible development tools while not being Microsoft, despite Microsoft developing .NET.

As a side note, Microsoft hired some of Borland's top talent away from them. Some of them help develop .NET. The core architect of the original Delphi, Anders Hejlsberg, co-authored the C# language!! So in a way you can say that Microsoft developed .NET but Borland indirectly developed .NET. As a final note, Borland sued Microsoft for such low-ball tactics. So much for fair competition.