Borland C++Builder Revolt

florescent_beige writes "Developers using Borland's C++Builder RAD tool are in revolt. Borland apparently obsoleted this product one year ago. However, the promised migration path (to be described in a now infamous open letter) never materialized. In a last-ditch effort to convince Borland to support them, users have put together a letter justifying (and begging) for continued support."

Comments

Begging is not freedom.

[jbn-o]

Poster writes

[...] In a last-ditch effort to convince Borland to support them, users have put together a letter justifying (and begging) for continued support.

Slashdot places this story in the "fight-the-man dept.".

Asking or begging a proprietor to do what you want is not fighting anyone, it's acknowledging that you are not livin in freedom. Placing yourself in a dependant position by not choosing free software to do the job doesn't bode well for leveraging a free market to supply the desired changes or improvements. Ironically, all the customers the letter cites are capable of paying for the support they want. Perhaps these developers should put some money and/or time into getting someone to distribute a free software program that does what they want so they won't be in this position.

this is why open source rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

if a RAD tool is open source then people can put some time on making their RAD tool better and better. Borland here just puts a dead end to a product which seemed to have some followers. Not good for Borland, not good for Borland users. Now opening up the source seems like the right thing to do.

Borland was great, at one time.

[statusbar]

I started with Borland back in the Turbo Pascal days. I did a ton and a half of work with Borland C++ V3 (with a ton of books!), and then Delphi and C++ Builder after that. Quality of their products has steadily declined. I believe that the 'top gun' at Borland was hired away by Microsoft. Everything has been buggy and problematic since.

One thing that I REALLY liked about Borland back then was their software license. Basically it said that you had the right to 'Use this software as you would a book'. Meaning that you are allowed to install it on multiple computers as long as only one person would be using it at a time - and it could be different people as well.

I lamented the loss of Borland's products 2 years ago. Now, mingw32 and the old trusty standby vc++6 are my windows tools of choice.

As a previous poster said: that is the problem with closed source applications. Sometimes you get burned like this. I was burned before when Borland C++ Builder upgrades didn't load old projects properly and other closed source widget libraries become incompatible.

--jeff++

Re:quite so Re:Begging is not freedom.

[fm6]

It's not a matter of lock-in. Actually, that concept has always worked against Borland, since their tools are always of the "road less travelled" variety -- the main road mainly being Microsoft "Visual" programming products. People who use Borland products don't do it because they have to, they do it because they're totally infatuated with the products. These C++Builder people can easily switch to Visual C++ -- but they'll hate having to do it.

It's not just about visuals

[Kell_pt]

This whole problem has recently become incredibly relevant for me. We are starting a project, and I am in charge of deciding which development enviroment to use.
I started by trying JBuilder. I gave up. It's not that I don't like Java - but it ends up being too ecletic in its stubborness for not supporting things like properties and operator overloading - I know how to develop, I don't need a language that imposes limits, I want a language that is easy to write and read, and I'd rather type C++ than the whole verbosity of Java.
I tried Delphi, but again, it's syntax is aging. Don't get me wrong, it's not just about syntax, but if given the chance to develop in C++ or in Delphi, I'll pick the former.
Lastly, we decided to go with BC6. We didn't adhere to using CLX and decided to go with VCL, confident that at any time it would not be a hard issue to port it over, if need ever arised. I'm not so sure right now.

And it's not all about visuals. It's about things that Borland was innovative in, like BDE/dbExpress and the whole concept of linking databases to datasets and then to data-aware controls. It's the whole atmosphere of using a Borland product and having freedom of choice.

I do NOT want to use C#, even though I like the language. I simply refuse to step back 10 years and go back at programming for a single-platform enviroment. Some people say .NET is the future, but I can only assume that's out of ignorance, or a real commitment to MS platforms. And don't talk about Mono, it's an interesting project, but it's far from being a drop-in replacement for .NET at the moment, and we need solutions now.

So, real world choices for RAD enterprise-grade applications involving database access, complex forms, multi-platform, etc? Delphi, C++ or Java.

Java isn't really slow anymore, but the syntax is a disgrace. Why on earth would I want to write a.setCounter( a.getCounter() + 3 ) when Delphi has had for ages a mechanism of properties that allows me to write "a.counter += 3" - even C++ allows for similar freedom, with operator overloading (although not the same) (and no, JavaBeans aren't the answer).

I know, this post comes out as a collection of assorted gripes, mostly in an attempt to justify why I chose to commit to using Borland C++Builder 6. I believe in it, and Kylix. Where's that going? We have a very tight deadline (don't we all) and using Delphi or BC6 is the only viable chance to beat it. Syntax-wise Delphi feels like using VB (ergh) so to keep some sanity intact, BC comes out as the obvious choice. Uncertainity is deadly when it comes to starting projects and preparing for the future... and it's causing me a great deal of concern wether I'm digging myself, the team and the project into a hole in choosing BC6.