Re:Since that wasn't answered...
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 1
Wow, thanks for the two pointers on Psyco and Eric. I'll definitely play around with Psyco, sounds like a no-brainer if it really works as well as they say. Regarding Eric, it looks like a great little IDE, but unfortunately it exhibits the prime problem with Qt: the yucky nature of its license, esp. WRT using it on Windows. It is a very clean library, and from a purely technical POV it's close to perfect, but I simply don't want to have to think about licensing issues when writing/deploying software. That's what I find so appealing about wxWindows. It does rely more on macros, but overall it's still a very nice and solid set of code, particularly as wrapped in wxPython. And you don't have to waste any thought on which platforms you can deploy it for free, and on which not. At this point I could go either way, since I haven't invested much time in either, just your basic extended Hello World play things and such. I'm knee-deep in some other projects (mostly embedded), so Python is a bit on a back burner. But once I get to the desktop component stage of these projects, I'll seriously consider Python. In the past it would have been Delphi without wasting another thought, but today I do waste those extra thoughts:-)
> while delphi [...] might have looked like a good idea for windows in the > beginning [...], sticking with it wasn't such a good idea
When Delphi first came out, I was a C++ fanatic and was cursing them for basing it on Pascal. I had a Delphi box sitting on the shelf for a couple of years before I finally gave it a try, and I became a convert despite Pascal, not because of it. I definitely see its virtues, and I'd say that for most developers it's probably a better language than C++. It's much harder to be an accomplished C++ programmer, simply because of the added expressiveness and complexity of the language. You know how that goes, if the power is there, someone will use it for evil--mostly out of ignorance.
The reason why Borland went with Delphi first on Linux is simple--C++Builder relied on the VCL, which was Delphi. They probably felt that it was easier to replace the Win32 bits with Qt rather than writing a new framework from scratch, hence they first worked on porting the VCL, hence Delphi naturally was released first. Still, I always thought that binding to a C++ framework like Qt made things a lot more awkward than using a straight C framework like GTK. I think OO libraries marry much more easily to non-OO libraries of just about any other language, since you don't have to worry about calling code through differing vtable mechanisms.
> I find C++ Builder has all the advantages of Delphi
Theoretically, but practically the reliance on the DCU-only VCL somehow always made it feel kludgey. Besides, it always seems to take more leg work to accomplish the same thing. Also, while I used to be a rabid C++ devotee before Delphi, despite the standardazation of C++ there are still so many ways to do many things, and so many different class libraries you can use, that just about every piece of code out there seems to be using a different string class or what have you. In Delphi the class libraries are a lot more standardized (or lacking, depending on your point of view:-). I also find the language a lot more readable on average--I'd rather read Delphi code from a marginal programmer than C++ code. But hey, that's just my take. I find myself using C a lot again lately since getting into microcontroller programming, and sometimes even assembly, so in a way I'm regressing.
Re:We had been thinking about using kylix
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 1
> I assume from your post that you are new to Python. Welcome!
Thanks. I've been playing with it for a few months now, looking for some meaty project to throw at it. I'm still looking for a decent free IDE with code insight-type functionality, because memorizing huge class frameworks isn't my thing. I've tried Boa, which is pretty nice, but I think they went a bit tab control crazy there.
With so much of the functionality of a modern GUI provided by the native widgets nowadays, the speed penalty of an interpreted language like Python is quite negligible anyway. For anything other than data processing you wouldn't even know the difference. I haven't looked at the Python compilers yet--are any of them truly native code compilers, or do they simply package the interpreter and script into one pseudo-native executable?
Re:seen the price of VS.NET?
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
> If you want to make a difference in the roads Borland takes, I can't > stress enough that you *must* tell them what you think and what you want.
But we HAVE, time and again, for years. I stopped believing in them a while ago. Their "corporate" focus is so entrenched by now that they're completely losing sight of the developer community that brought them here. I really don't think there's any hope for Borland. It seems that when companies go public and join the "big league" their ability to interface to any non-corporate entity in any meaningful way is lost. I'm looking at their recent product developments and announcements, and I have no clue where they're planning on going. Some of the products are just plain wrong-headed (why bother competing with a C# IDE when every corporate IS shop pretty much gets all their tools through the MSDN?), and others are shrouded in such marketing mumbo-jumbo that I have no clue what they're about. Besides, the field is getting flooded with good RAD tools in every conceivable language nowadays, many of them free and cross-platform, I think Borland's chances of reviving Delphi (i.e. gaining significant market share) are pretty slim. I guess they're still going strong with JBuilder, but I'm sure they'll find ways of screwing that up, too.
Re:Everyone here who actually used Kylix, speak up
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 1
> Something about an environment that runs wine in the background just doesn't seem right.
It's not, even if everyone repeats it a thousand times. It is linked to winelib, which is a big difference. There are many other reasons why the IDE is slow, but wine isn't one of them.
Re:We had been thinking about using kylix
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I've been a huge fan of Delphi for years, but seeing Borland's attitude lately, and especially their PR double-speak and kowtowing to Microsoft, I think it's time to move on. They seem to be spending a lot more time dot-netting Delphi than evolving the langugage.
For native Win32 apps I still think Delphi is best, even in arrested development. But for cross-platform apps I'm very intrigued by Python and wxWindows (or wxPython). The apps seem to be truly portable, and wxWindows has such good binding to native widgets that you can create truly nice-looking and seamless GUIs. For most business-type applications I think it's a really viable option.
Re:seen the price of VS.NET?
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
> their marketing skills leave loads to be desired
I don't think the marketing and development departments at Borland have ever met. They've had some of the best developers over the years, yet especially in the last few years their marketing and PR was filled with arrogant know-it-alls. And the hordes of apologists for whom Borland could do no wrong don't help. Microsoft may have done VB first, but Borland did it right, yet ironically it's Microsoft reaping the benefits of much of that hard work at Borland.
Re:The Problem
on
Kylix in Limbo
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Insightful?!
> but the problem may lie with Delphi, dontcha think?
Elaborate please. It's still the best tool for whipping out large native Win32 apps. Sure, it's dwarfed by the number of users of MS development tools, but then which other development system isn't? The very fact that Borland survived the development tool shakeout and is still around is pretty amazing. Just because MS languages have such an overwhelming market share says nothing about the (lack of) quality of other tools.
> If you think it was "smart", you should try reading a book sometime.
Because, unlike movies, books are inherently smart. Or do you mean that just by virtue of requiring the ability to read they are automatically superior?
> The average home user, Mom or not, will not install their own OS on their home PC.
Thank you. Even an "easy to install" OS like Windows has so many things that can go wrong during installation and that can completely befuddle your typical "mom" that you might as well promote DIY car transmission replacements. Besides, many of the newer distros are every bit as hand-holding and failsafe during installation as Windows, if that is any argument.
> I suspect he was referring to the EUCD, a piece of legislation very similar to the DMCA
Few know what EUCD means, but everyone has heard about the DMCA. Why not mention that instead directly, without the round-about route of the EU, especially since it was there first? But I guess if one wants to knock the EU, one must find the bad things it does that are similar to the bad things the US do and knock those instead.
> has moved to a Polish host to escape the tyrannies of the > new EU-style DMCAism in the United Kingdom and elsewhere
Because, as everyone knows, the EU has pioneered the DMCA. Don't be such a stereotypical EU-hating Brit and look at the real source of the DMCA, how about it?
If the guy bought it from the WD store for $429.99, that only confirms that Macophiles LOVE getting the retail shaft. This is a $230 drive plus $50 for a dual enclosure.
> And this nonsense about the US being the most violent nation > that ever existed... how about, oh I don't know, GERMANY?
The sad thing is that Germany has undergone a fundamental change in leadership and morality since its heydays of violence, whereas the US has not. Germany today clearly knows that the atrocities it committed during the first part of the 20th century were a Bad Thing, whereas the US thinks that all its actions to date have been righteous.
> I would rather we research it before he or anyone else does, > so we might be able to counteract the effects.
Wow, you're so smart, how come we haven't heard of you? That is the most bull argument for death research. As history has shown, it's quite a bit easier to engineer deadly killers than their antidotes. More money and time has probably been spent on finding a cure for HIV than any other virus, and yet we still have nothing. And that is a (hopefully!) naturally occuring and mutating virus. What makes you think that anywhere near those kinds of resources would be spent to find an antidote for an artificial virus that was purposely engineered to kill as efficiently and unstoppably as possible? Can you envision W. getting up at the next State of the Union and saying "oh, BTW, can we please have another $87 billion to find a cure for a killer virus we clandestinely developed, and which may or may not have escaped the lab"?
> I'd rather it in some lab in the US than in some lab in Russia.
How so? The US is the only country to have used all major WMDs in combat so far. If the US develop it, you're more likely to be at the receiving end than if Russia did, historically speaking.
At that price point you can almost have a one-off custom made just for you. Anybody can make fancy hardware for a price. Call me when they're $299 at Newegg, that's when it gets interesting.
Close, more like "Zoo Ze", with "Ze" as in "Zen". Of course, various regional accents in Germany might sounds more like "Zuh", but not in Hochdeutsch or standard German.
Slashdot Mirror
Burns: Smithers, take my hand and slap them!
Wow, thanks for the two pointers on Psyco and Eric. I'll definitely play around with Psyco, sounds like a no-brainer if it really works as well as they say. Regarding Eric, it looks like a great little IDE, but unfortunately it exhibits the prime problem with Qt: the yucky nature of its license, esp. WRT using it on Windows. It is a very clean library, and from a purely technical POV it's close to perfect, but I simply don't want to have to think about licensing issues when writing/deploying software. That's what I find so appealing about wxWindows. It does rely more on macros, but overall it's still a very nice and solid set of code, particularly as wrapped in wxPython. And you don't have to waste any thought on which platforms you can deploy it for free, and on which not. At this point I could go either way, since I haven't invested much time in either, just your basic extended Hello World play things and such. I'm knee-deep in some other projects (mostly embedded), so Python is a bit on a back burner. But once I get to the desktop component stage of these projects, I'll seriously consider Python. In the past it would have been Delphi without wasting another thought, but today I do waste those extra thoughts :-)
> while delphi [...] might have looked like a good idea for windows in the
> beginning [...], sticking with it wasn't such a good idea
When Delphi first came out, I was a C++ fanatic and was cursing them for basing it on Pascal. I had a Delphi box sitting on the shelf for a couple of years before I finally gave it a try, and I became a convert despite Pascal, not because of it. I definitely see its virtues, and I'd say that for most developers it's probably a better language than C++. It's much harder to be an accomplished C++ programmer, simply because of the added expressiveness and complexity of the language. You know how that goes, if the power is there, someone will use it for evil--mostly out of ignorance.
The reason why Borland went with Delphi first on Linux is simple--C++Builder relied on the VCL, which was Delphi. They probably felt that it was easier to replace the Win32 bits with Qt rather than writing a new framework from scratch, hence they first worked on porting the VCL, hence Delphi naturally was released first. Still, I always thought that binding to a C++ framework like Qt made things a lot more awkward than using a straight C framework like GTK. I think OO libraries marry much more easily to non-OO libraries of just about any other language, since you don't have to worry about calling code through differing vtable mechanisms.
> I find C++ Builder has all the advantages of Delphi
:-). I also find the language a lot more readable on average--I'd rather read Delphi code from a marginal programmer than C++ code. But hey, that's just my take. I find myself using C a lot again lately since getting into microcontroller programming, and sometimes even assembly, so in a way I'm regressing.
Theoretically, but practically the reliance on the DCU-only VCL somehow always made it feel kludgey. Besides, it always seems to take more leg work to accomplish the same thing. Also, while I used to be a rabid C++ devotee before Delphi, despite the standardazation of C++ there are still so many ways to do many things, and so many different class libraries you can use, that just about every piece of code out there seems to be using a different string class or what have you. In Delphi the class libraries are a lot more standardized (or lacking, depending on your point of view
> I assume from your post that you are new to Python. Welcome!
Thanks. I've been playing with it for a few months now, looking for some meaty project to throw at it. I'm still looking for a decent free IDE with code insight-type functionality, because memorizing huge class frameworks isn't my thing. I've tried Boa, which is pretty nice, but I think they went a bit tab control crazy there.
With so much of the functionality of a modern GUI provided by the native widgets nowadays, the speed penalty of an interpreted language like Python is quite negligible anyway. For anything other than data processing you wouldn't even know the difference. I haven't looked at the Python compilers yet--are any of them truly native code compilers, or do they simply package the interpreter and script into one pseudo-native executable?
> If you want to make a difference in the roads Borland takes, I can't
> stress enough that you *must* tell them what you think and what you want.
But we HAVE, time and again, for years. I stopped believing in them a while ago. Their "corporate" focus is so entrenched by now that they're completely losing sight of the developer community that brought them here. I really don't think there's any hope for Borland. It seems that when companies go public and join the "big league" their ability to interface to any non-corporate entity in any meaningful way is lost. I'm looking at their recent product developments and announcements, and I have no clue where they're planning on going. Some of the products are just plain wrong-headed (why bother competing with a C# IDE when every corporate IS shop pretty much gets all their tools through the MSDN?), and others are shrouded in such marketing mumbo-jumbo that I have no clue what they're about. Besides, the field is getting flooded with good RAD tools in every conceivable language nowadays, many of them free and cross-platform, I think Borland's chances of reviving Delphi (i.e. gaining significant market share) are pretty slim. I guess they're still going strong with JBuilder, but I'm sure they'll find ways of screwing that up, too.
> Something about an environment that runs wine in the background just doesn't seem right.
It's not, even if everyone repeats it a thousand times. It is linked to winelib, which is a big difference. There are many other reasons why the IDE is slow, but wine isn't one of them.
I've been a huge fan of Delphi for years, but seeing Borland's attitude lately, and especially their PR double-speak and kowtowing to Microsoft, I think it's time to move on. They seem to be spending a lot more time dot-netting Delphi than evolving the langugage.
For native Win32 apps I still think Delphi is best, even in arrested development. But for cross-platform apps I'm very intrigued by Python and wxWindows (or wxPython). The apps seem to be truly portable, and wxWindows has such good binding to native widgets that you can create truly nice-looking and seamless GUIs. For most business-type applications I think it's a really viable option.
> their marketing skills leave loads to be desired
I don't think the marketing and development departments at Borland have ever met. They've had some of the best developers over the years, yet especially in the last few years their marketing and PR was filled with arrogant know-it-alls. And the hordes of apologists for whom Borland could do no wrong don't help. Microsoft may have done VB first, but Borland did it right, yet ironically it's Microsoft reaping the benefits of much of that hard work at Borland.
Insightful?!
> but the problem may lie with Delphi, dontcha think?
Elaborate please. It's still the best tool for whipping out large native Win32 apps. Sure, it's dwarfed by the number of users of MS development tools, but then which other development system isn't? The very fact that Borland survived the development tool shakeout and is still around is pretty amazing. Just because MS languages have such an overwhelming market share says nothing about the (lack of) quality of other tools.
> Where does that leave movies with subtitles? :-)
Overseas, where they belong! Just kidding, I love subtitles. In fact, I INSIST on subtitles.
> If you think it was "smart", you should try reading a book sometime.
Because, unlike movies, books are inherently smart. Or do you mean that just by virtue of requiring the ability to read they are automatically superior?
> and Trinity is really a man.
And his name is Chad.
> Obviously they had their top minds working on this.
That's the first thing that came to my mind, too. I think he's also a founding member of the Royal Society For Putting Things On Top Of Other Things.
> The average home user, Mom or not, will not install their own OS on their home PC.
Thank you. Even an "easy to install" OS like Windows has so many things that can go wrong during installation and that can completely befuddle your typical "mom" that you might as well promote DIY car transmission replacements. Besides, many of the newer distros are every bit as hand-holding and failsafe during installation as Windows, if that is any argument.
> I suspect he was referring to the EUCD, a piece of legislation very similar to the DMCA
Few know what EUCD means, but everyone has heard about the DMCA. Why not mention that instead directly, without the round-about route of the EU, especially since it was there first? But I guess if one wants to knock the EU, one must find the bad things it does that are similar to the bad things the US do and knock those instead.
Where did I imply otherwise? Before you get snippy, maybe you should learn basic English comprehension.
> has moved to a Polish host to escape the tyrannies of the
> new EU-style DMCAism in the United Kingdom and elsewhere
Because, as everyone knows, the EU has pioneered the DMCA. Don't be such a stereotypical EU-hating Brit and look at the real source of the DMCA, how about it?
If the guy bought it from the WD store for $429.99, that only confirms that Macophiles LOVE getting the retail shaft. This is a $230 drive plus $50 for a dual enclosure.
That's all the searching you'll ever need. Anything else is just lies and slander!
> And this nonsense about the US being the most violent nation
> that ever existed... how about, oh I don't know, GERMANY?
The sad thing is that Germany has undergone a fundamental change in leadership and morality since its heydays of violence, whereas the US has not. Germany today clearly knows that the atrocities it committed during the first part of the 20th century were a Bad Thing, whereas the US thinks that all its actions to date have been righteous.
> I would rather we research it before he or anyone else does,
> so we might be able to counteract the effects.
Wow, you're so smart, how come we haven't heard of you? That is the most bull argument for death research. As history has shown, it's quite a bit easier to engineer deadly killers than their antidotes. More money and time has probably been spent on finding a cure for HIV than any other virus, and yet we still have nothing. And that is a (hopefully!) naturally occuring and mutating virus. What makes you think that anywhere near those kinds of resources would be spent to find an antidote for an artificial virus that was purposely engineered to kill as efficiently and unstoppably as possible? Can you envision W. getting up at the next State of the Union and saying "oh, BTW, can we please have another $87 billion to find a cure for a killer virus we clandestinely developed, and which may or may not have escaped the lab"?
> I'd rather it in some lab in the US than in some lab in Russia.
How so? The US is the only country to have used all major WMDs in combat so far. If the US develop it, you're more likely to be at the receiving end than if Russia did, historically speaking.
> Priced at $3,970
At that price point you can almost have a one-off custom made just for you. Anybody can make fancy hardware for a price. Call me when they're $299 at Newegg, that's when it gets interesting.
> it's pronounced more like "ZOO zuh"
Close, more like "Zoo Ze", with "Ze" as in "Zen". Of course, various regional accents in Germany might sounds more like "Zuh", but not in Hochdeutsch or standard German.