As one who has observed Borland since their beginnings, I can happily state that I trust their work, their eithics, and their concerns for quality. I have used more high quality products from Borland than from any other vendor.
Components which are wrappers to Windows controls will have to become wrappers to widgets under Linux. Components included with Delphi will have correspondence to elements of most, if not all, GUIs.
Yes they are, and I can hardly wait. As to Java, however, I must disagree with you. Coming from the Windows side of things, emacs is as arcane an approach to editing as I have ever seen, and frankly, my habits in editing are so entrenched that I will simply NOT change editors now, other than to something simple and transparent.
Linux lacks a good RAD tool, and is woefully lacking in thorough docs for developers. True, the source is all there, but people, I am not looking for a hobby -- I'm moving to Linux to develop apps. And if I must invest months in understanding the platform, then I'll switch to BeOS instead.
Case in point: the serial programming HOWTO is weak, hasn't been updated in 18 months, and is acknowledged by its author to fall short of the mark. I use serial I/O in all of the apps which generate my livelihood, so imagine how happy I am to see that.
On the other hand, I have an excellent serial I/O component in Delphi, and I look forward to seeing it ported to Linux.
I'm not here to develop tools, but to develop apps. To do that, I need reliable and mature tools. Delphi is one such which serves me well under Windows. I will race to buy it on Linux!
Inprise/Borland is about 4 miles from here as the crow flies -- 10 miles for my aging Volvo. I was there a couple of weeks ago for a visit, and got the grand tour, besides.
There's quite a lot left of Borland, and it is very much alive and well. I have used their stuff since Turbo Pascal 1.0 on CP/M, and have made my living using their tools for about 16 years now.
Imagine how long it will take me to decide to purchase Delphi for Linux!
I've thought along those lines, too, but then we would be asking Borland to a) abandon their already excellent and carefully honed compiler, and b) undertake to base their corporate success in Linux on a compiler they will first require months to analyze.
Borland has a responsibility (whether or not the open source radical fringe can appreciate it) to preserve the value of the company to its shareholders. That's not a policy; it's a law.
Besides, I fully expect the Borland compiler backend to perform as well as, or better than, gcc. Borland has had to keep tuning in the unending battle with M$.
Yes, the VCL is key, but as C++ Builder also parses and compiles Object Pascal, the real issue is replicating the functionality on top of GTK or some other widget set.
Borland has a strong compiler, which has always done well in performance, both compile time and run time. It has also done well in ANSI compliance, and as it has been the common back end for Delphi and C++ Builder, Borland's commitment to making it good is the at the core of their business.
Borland also has, in Delphi and C++ Builder, strong RAD tools which will make it very easy for thousands of Windows programmers to move apps to Linux, furthering the growth of the Linux community.
The range of their questions in the survey, and their willingness to publish preliminary findings shows that they are committed to delivering what the market seeks.
As to commercial software, I welcome paying for a great tool, rather than getting a good one for "free". My time is worth much more than I will pay for the tool, and my experience with Borland tools gives me confidence that lack of source access is not an issue.
Borland's VCL has not been open source, though developers do have source access to most of it. There are patent issues involved, and I would expect to see the source access to the VCL remain much the same under Linux.
I have already invested thousands of dollars of my time in Linux, and am not yet ready to try to ship a product. If I had Delphi, or C++ Builder, I would have reduced that investment by an order of magnitude, and would be hard at work on my applications.
Your comment goes beyond mere flaming. If you can only lash out and make unsubstantiated comments, you would do well to keep your own counsel, instead.
I can take Borland's word on their future plans, as I have history with their product. Taking your word, even for where you may have worked, much less in what capacity, would be a leap of faith. And you offer nothing on which such faith might be built.
Delphi will be great on Linux. C++ Builder already supports MFC, but that doesn't tie it to Windows. In fact, the entire VCL for C++ Builder is in Object Pascal.
As much as I hate the C language, I am willing to move to it, if it is all that is supported on Linux. Life would be much better, however, with choices.
My main concern with Linux is for my own productivity. Having used Delphi since it came out, I will hate developing in any language which does not give me such a strong tool.
Linux is a strong OS with a painful lack of productive tools. The *nix environment has always been a hacker's wet dream, and I'm sure it's great fun, but many of us are looking for killer tools which will allow us to write useful and solid apps quickly. And these days, that's the only way to do it, in the commercial market.
After having spent years in Delphi, I find the gcc alternative depressing. Back to doing everything the hard way, and spending an inordinate amount of time on GUI construction, which is, after all, NOT the reason we write apps.
The beauty of Delphi/CBuilder is the freedom they give to refocus on the real purpose of the app: getting some tasks done. In the best of all worlds, the GUI is simply a nice way of packaging a good tool so that it is easier to use. In Windows (and in X) the GUI management coding is tedious in the extreme. And there are way too many calls to remember.
In Delphi I routinely construct interfaces which would drive me crazy without such an effective tool. Without Delphi, I would not have ventured into developing Windows apps at all, but would have refocused on embedded apps.
My checkbook is ready, Borland. Bring on the tools!
C++ Builder has the same IDE, and presumably you consider that C++ sucks less?
Multiple inheritance sucks beyond any other language issue. It is not necessary, and mostly provides yet another way for things to be buggy.
Java style is best left to Java. Let each tool do its best in native form.
Container classes have been implemented in third party components for Delphi.
As to Eiffel... well, that would give them a truly no-sale tool, wouldn't it? Any commercial software company needs customers to survive. From whence would customers appear for Eiffel? All indications are that it is an interesting intellectual exercise (as is Oberon) but no risk of becoming a popular tool.
The Borland IDE supports more than the old Wordstar style interface. Brief and Epsilon mappings are also supported. Perhaps they could be persuaded to add Emacs, for those of you who appreciate that abomination. See? Each of us hates something.
And I know from my own recent conversation with David Intersimone that Borland is serious about Linux. I was only surprised to see notice of a poll so soon.
I would be thrilled to see Delphi for Linux, or C++ Builder for Linux, or JBuilder for Linux. Better still, I hope to see all of them, over time.
After all these years of language and IDE development, it should be painfully obvious to anyone who reads/. that there are many paths to production of useful software. There are those for whom the low level tweaking is the holy grail, and others who lust after RAD, and there are as many opinions as there are developers.
The single most valuable lesson we should all take from Windows is that freedom to choose is essential. This is what MS seek to eliminate, as they strive to control the desktop; it's what Linux strives to return, as it competes with Windows. And, it's what BeOS also offers, in another different flavor.
What I want most is to be able to develop solutions which are not portable (portability is one of the most misused and abused terms in our industry) but are platform agnostic. I want to be able to present users with a hybrid system in which each PC is used for what it does best, and the software environment presents a toolset which is consistent in its presentation on each platform.
The answer to this will not come from Wine, or any other emulator, but from development tools which make make such design and development economically practical.
Language isn't the issue: Borland can offer C++ or Pascal or Java, all of which they already support on Windows.
In the world in which programming is done for more than a hobby, productivity is a major concern, and Borland tools have kept me more productive in Windows than any others. I have no doubt that they will do the same for me under Linux. I am impatient to have them.
What excites me is not becoming intimate with the inner workings of the OS or gcc, or egcs, but the prospect of producing highly effective and stable applications in a short timeframe. That's what RAD is about, and RAD is what Borland's tools are about.
Actually, it was C++ for OS/2 (which I still have.)
The other port was Turbo Pascal for the Mac, which they did long ago.
The main problem with Borland (or any other vendor) porting tools to Linux, or developing tools for Linux, is that so many here seem to think that the Linux/Unix way is the only way, and won't buy the tools after they lobby for the vendor to produce.
Historically, non-Windows has meant unprofitable. As large as the computer industry is, the developer subset is much smaller, and the Linux developer subset may not support any commercial tools.
The execrable state of Linux installation, configuration, and documentation, all speak to the reality that Linux is a cult system, best suited to geeks with Unix in their backgrounds.
Oh, and before you flame me for that, I am a geek with almost no Unix in my background, but who wants almost desperately to move away from Windows. Linux has been my first pick for an alternative, and the complaints I make are based on a couple of months of intensely disappointing experience.
We see this sort of insanity every day. The USPTO has repeatedly demonstrated its incompetence in the granting of patents in the areas of electronics and software.
Once one has seen diff and any windowing environment, the notion of combining the two is obvious, and therefore should not be patentable. To earn a patent, an invention is supposed to embody something novel. A patent granted in 1989 on such a "technology" would hardly have been novel.
As lawyers have ably demonstrated their willingness to indulge in such shenanigans, and as the real victims (as always) are customers (us!) it only makes sense that we make a practice of not purchasing products from companies who practice this sort of silliness.
Advanced Software is now on my own list of companies to ignore.
Cringely is whining. I lived through most of what is covered in the book and movie, right here in Silicon Valley. The movie is guilty of what movies always do: simplifying and taking license, so that they can present a story in a short time.
Cringely complains about accuracy, yet my recollection is that Mike Swaine had a hand in the writing of the book.
I anticipated revisionism, but found very little, and none of it critical to the story. I expected a pro-Apple slant, and didn't find that, either.
The story showed that both Jobs and Gates are driven and not very nice people. Few could argue that point.
Also, as Woz found little to complain of (and he was clearly much closer to the story than Cringely) I think we should write off these rants as being just a tantrum.
Advocacy is a good thing; zealotry too often is not.
Flamers are a breed apart. I'm not certain it is possible to appeal to their good sense (which may be in short supply.) It matters not what the reason for the flame -- flames are always offensive.
I'm not sure whether Mindcraft is guiltier than the flamers in this; both are acting childish, and before the dust settles, both will earn much ill will.
The best we can do, I'm afraid, is to take note, and to discourage if we can, any further flames.
1. I will not accept any telemarketing. 2. I will not pay people to flash ads in my face.
Telemarketers who get through to me get a minimally polite negative response, unless they try to insist. I pay for my phone service, and I do not pay to facilitate intrusive selling.
I pay for computers to do what I want them to do, not to see ads when I boot. And especially as Windoze requires reboot at the drop of a hat.
I will make plain to the companies with whom I do business that BIOS ads are a non-starter. Moreover, the company for which I work will not ship a PC which contains ads.
This smacks of MS and Compaq as the motivators. I have never bought Compaq, and never will. And I will shortly be a former Windoze user.
Hell will freeze over before I tolerate this kind of BS on my desktop.
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commercial bad
free good
As one who has observed Borland since their beginnings, I can happily state that I trust their work, their eithics, and their concerns for quality. I have used more high quality products from Borland than from any other vendor.
Components which are wrappers to Windows controls will have to become wrappers to widgets under Linux. Components included with Delphi will have correspondence to elements of most, if not all, GUIs.
Just to keep it simple: VC++ sucks. And it has since 1.0.
Delphi has been intuitive since 1.0.
VC++ is like a drug habit: debilitating.
Yes they are, and I can hardly wait. As to Java, however, I must disagree with you. Coming from the Windows side of things, emacs is as arcane an approach to editing as I have ever seen, and frankly, my habits in editing are so entrenched that I will simply NOT change editors now, other than to something simple and transparent.
Linux lacks a good RAD tool, and is woefully lacking in thorough docs for developers. True, the source is all there, but people, I am not looking for a hobby -- I'm moving to Linux to develop apps. And if I must invest months in understanding the platform, then I'll switch to BeOS instead.
Case in point: the serial programming HOWTO is weak, hasn't been updated in 18 months, and is acknowledged by its author to fall short of the mark. I use serial I/O in all of the apps which generate my livelihood, so imagine how happy I am to see that.
On the other hand, I have an excellent serial I/O component in Delphi, and I look forward to seeing it ported to Linux.
I'm not here to develop tools, but to develop apps. To do that, I need reliable and mature tools. Delphi is one such which serves me well under Windows. I will race to buy it on Linux!
Inprise/Borland is about 4 miles from here as the crow flies -- 10 miles for my aging Volvo. I was there a couple of weeks ago for a visit, and got the grand tour, besides.
There's quite a lot left of Borland, and it is very much alive and well. I have used their stuff since Turbo Pascal 1.0 on CP/M, and have made my living using their tools for about 16 years now.
Imagine how long it will take me to decide to purchase Delphi for Linux!
I've thought along those lines, too, but then we would be asking Borland to a) abandon their already excellent and carefully honed compiler, and b) undertake to base their corporate success in Linux on a compiler they will first require months to analyze.
Borland has a responsibility (whether or not the open source radical fringe can appreciate it) to preserve the value of the company to its shareholders. That's not a policy; it's a law.
Besides, I fully expect the Borland compiler backend to perform as well as, or better than, gcc. Borland has had to keep tuning in the unending battle with M$.
Yes, the VCL is key, but as C++ Builder also parses and compiles Object Pascal, the real issue is replicating the functionality on top of GTK or some other widget set.
You heard correctly. The ANSI standard does not specify a format.
SOS : Standards Often Suck
Borland has a strong compiler, which has always done well in performance, both compile time and run time. It has also done well in ANSI compliance, and as it has been the common back end for Delphi and C++ Builder, Borland's commitment to making it good is the at the core of their business.
Borland also has, in Delphi and C++ Builder, strong RAD tools which will make it very easy for thousands of Windows programmers to move apps to Linux, furthering the growth of the Linux community.
The range of their questions in the survey, and their willingness to publish preliminary findings shows that they are committed to delivering what the market seeks.
As to commercial software, I welcome paying for a great tool, rather than getting a good one for "free". My time is worth much more than I will pay for the tool, and my experience with Borland tools gives me confidence that lack of source access is not an issue.
Borland's VCL has not been open source, though developers do have source access to most of it. There are patent issues involved, and I would expect to see the source access to the VCL remain much the same under Linux.
I have already invested thousands of dollars of my time in Linux, and am not yet ready to try to ship a product. If I had Delphi, or C++ Builder, I would have reduced that investment by an order of magnitude, and would be hard at work on my applications.
Please, Borland, move with all possible speed!
Your comment goes beyond mere flaming. If you can only lash out and make unsubstantiated comments, you would do well to keep your own counsel, instead.
I can take Borland's word on their future plans, as I have history with their product. Taking your word, even for where you may have worked, much less in what capacity, would be a leap of faith. And you offer nothing on which such faith might be built.
Delphi will be great on Linux. C++ Builder already supports MFC, but that doesn't tie it to Windows. In fact, the entire VCL for C++ Builder is in Object Pascal.
As much as I hate the C language, I am willing to move to it, if it is all that is supported on Linux. Life would be much better, however, with choices.
My main concern with Linux is for my own productivity. Having used Delphi since it came out, I will hate developing in any language which does not give me such a strong tool.
Linux is a strong OS with a painful lack of productive tools. The *nix environment has always been a hacker's wet dream, and I'm sure it's great fun, but many of us are looking for killer tools which will allow us to write useful and solid apps quickly. And these days, that's the only way to do it, in the commercial market.
After having spent years in Delphi, I find the gcc alternative depressing. Back to doing everything the hard way, and spending an inordinate amount of time on GUI construction, which is, after all, NOT the reason we write apps.
The beauty of Delphi/CBuilder is the freedom they give to refocus on the real purpose of the app: getting some tasks done. In the best of all worlds, the GUI is simply a nice way of packaging a good tool so that it is easier to use. In Windows (and in X) the GUI management coding is tedious in the extreme. And there are way too many calls to remember.
In Delphi I routinely construct interfaces which would drive me crazy without such an effective tool. Without Delphi, I would not have ventured into developing Windows apps at all, but would have refocused on embedded apps.
My checkbook is ready, Borland. Bring on the tools!
C++ Builder has the same IDE, and presumably you consider that C++ sucks less?
Multiple inheritance sucks beyond any other language issue. It is not necessary, and mostly provides yet another way for things to be buggy.
Java style is best left to Java. Let each tool do its best in native form.
Container classes have been implemented in third party components for Delphi.
As to Eiffel... well, that would give them a truly no-sale tool, wouldn't it? Any commercial software company needs customers to survive. From whence would customers appear for Eiffel? All indications are that it is an interesting intellectual exercise (as is Oberon) but no risk of becoming a popular tool.
The Borland IDE supports more than the old Wordstar style interface. Brief and Epsilon mappings are also supported. Perhaps they could be persuaded to add Emacs, for those of you who appreciate that abomination. See? Each of us hates something.
Borland has announced that JBuilder is being rewritten in Java, so it will soon be platform independent.
On their site, you can also see that they will preview JBuilder for Linux at their developers conference later this month.
And besides the boatload of work saved, and your honor, the customers would be well served by having platform freedom.
Some of the die-hard gcc folks tend to overlook that what promotes Linux growth is good for all.
And I know from my own recent conversation with David Intersimone that Borland is serious about Linux. I was only surprised to see notice of a poll so soon.
I hope you will get the URL problem fixed. Soon!
I would be thrilled to see Delphi for Linux, or C++ Builder for Linux, or JBuilder for Linux. Better still, I hope to see all of them, over time.
/. that there are many paths to production of useful software. There are those for whom the low level tweaking is the holy grail, and others who lust after RAD, and there are as many opinions as there are developers.
After all these years of language and IDE development, it should be painfully obvious to anyone who reads
The single most valuable lesson we should all take from Windows is that freedom to choose is essential. This is what MS seek to eliminate, as they strive to control the desktop; it's what Linux strives to return, as it competes with Windows. And, it's what BeOS also offers, in another different flavor.
What I want most is to be able to develop solutions which are not portable (portability is one of the most misused and abused terms in our industry) but are platform agnostic. I want to be able to present users with a hybrid system in which each PC is used for what it does best, and the software environment presents a toolset which is consistent in its presentation on each platform.
The answer to this will not come from Wine, or any other emulator, but from development tools which make make such design and development economically practical.
Language isn't the issue: Borland can offer C++ or Pascal or Java, all of which they already support on Windows.
In the world in which programming is done for more than a hobby, productivity is a major concern, and Borland tools have kept me more productive in Windows than any others. I have no doubt that they will do the same for me under Linux. I am impatient to have them.
What excites me is not becoming intimate with the inner workings of the OS or gcc, or egcs, but the prospect of producing highly effective and stable applications in a short timeframe. That's what RAD is about, and RAD is what Borland's tools are about.
Actually, it was C++ for OS/2 (which I still have.)
The other port was Turbo Pascal for the Mac, which they did long ago.
The main problem with Borland (or any other vendor) porting tools to Linux, or developing tools for Linux, is that so many here seem to think that the Linux/Unix way is the only way, and won't buy the tools after they lobby for the vendor to produce.
Historically, non-Windows has meant unprofitable. As large as the computer industry is, the developer subset is much smaller, and the Linux developer subset may not support any commercial tools.
The execrable state of Linux installation, configuration, and documentation, all speak to the reality that Linux is a cult system, best suited to geeks with Unix in their backgrounds.
Oh, and before you flame me for that, I am a geek with almost no Unix in my background, but who wants almost desperately to move away from Windows. Linux has been my first pick for an alternative, and the complaints I make are based on a couple of months of intensely disappointing experience.
I was using DR-DOS in 1991, and it was much much better than MS-DOS. Outdated it was not, nor as buggy as MS-DOS, either.
We see this sort of insanity every day. The USPTO has repeatedly demonstrated its incompetence in the granting of patents in the areas of electronics and software.
Once one has seen diff and any windowing environment, the notion of combining the two is obvious, and therefore should not be patentable. To earn a patent, an invention is supposed to embody something novel. A patent granted in 1989 on such a "technology" would hardly have been novel.
As lawyers have ably demonstrated their willingness to indulge in such shenanigans, and as the real victims (as always) are customers (us!) it only makes sense that we make a practice of not purchasing products from companies who practice this sort of silliness.
Advanced Software is now on my own list of companies to ignore.
Cringely is whining. I lived through most of what is covered in the book and movie, right here in Silicon Valley. The movie is guilty of what movies always do: simplifying and taking license, so that they can present a story in a short time.
Cringely complains about accuracy, yet my recollection is that Mike Swaine had a hand in the writing of the book.
I anticipated revisionism, but found very little, and none of it critical to the story. I expected a pro-Apple slant, and didn't find that, either.
The story showed that both Jobs and Gates are driven and not very nice people. Few could argue that point.
Also, as Woz found little to complain of (and he was clearly much closer to the story than Cringely) I think we should write off these rants as being just a tantrum.
Advocacy is a good thing; zealotry too often is not.
Flamers are a breed apart. I'm not certain it is possible to appeal to their good sense (which may be in short supply.) It matters not what the reason for the flame -- flames are always offensive.
I'm not sure whether Mindcraft is guiltier than the flamers in this; both are acting childish, and before the dust settles, both will earn much ill will.
The best we can do, I'm afraid, is to take note, and to discourage if we can, any further flames.
Ads are fine, in their place.
1. I will not accept any telemarketing.
2. I will not pay people to flash ads in my face.
Telemarketers who get through to me get a minimally polite negative response, unless they try to insist. I pay for my phone service, and I do not pay to facilitate intrusive selling.
I pay for computers to do what I want them to do, not to see ads when I boot. And especially as Windoze requires reboot at the drop of a hat.
I will make plain to the companies with whom I do business that BIOS ads are a non-starter. Moreover, the company for which I work will not ship a PC which contains ads.
This smacks of MS and Compaq as the motivators. I have never bought Compaq, and never will. And I will shortly be a former Windoze user.
Hell will freeze over before I tolerate this kind of BS on my desktop.
Not surprising that there is no feedback path on the Phoenix website....