"To paraphrase Planet of the Apes, it appears some operating systems are more equal than others."
That's not Planet of the Apes you're paraphrasing, it's George Orwell's _Animal Farm_.
Unless it's even older, and *he* was paraphrasing someone else, too.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Source level compatibility - for whom?
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Delphi for Linux
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"Delphi uses Borland's VCL library which wraps up most of the important elements of the Windows API, but not all of it. That was a concious design decision -- not to try and wrap everything [ . . . ] Because of that, many existing Delphi and C++Builder programs have some Windows API calls sprinkled in with their VCL code. [ . . . ] it won't be as easy as a recompile [ . . . ] even if as much as 20% of the code needed to be tweaked"
Another issue is *where* that Win-API-calling code is located.
If it is in your project itself, then you have work to do -- but then you've bungled on re-use and all those OO benefits already...
If you isolate it in an IDE-installable component, you'll only have to port that once, and as long as the interface is the same, your project code is then freely movable.
For instance, I've bungled like this myself in one current project: I override the Create and CreateParams methods in some of my forms to make them appear as part of another form, the code is taken directly from Charlie Calvert's "RitcheyForm" in _Delphi 2 Unleashed_. But the new "Frames" in Delphi 5 seem to be exactly the same code wrapped up in a component/form type -- port those to Delphi/Linux (which no doubt Borland will do), and all I'd have to do was use those in stead of my own semi-kludge and I'd be done.
The issue of API code hindering portability will be a problem mainly for in-house and third-party *component* developers, not *application* developers, I think.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"I also hope they use the QT widget set, its object oriented and generally eaiser to program than GTK+"
That's irrelevant.
Whatever they implement Delphi on top of, that implementation *will* be the VCL [Delphi's class library, the Visual Component Library] "on top of" whatever it is.
That's the whole point -- Delphi more or less *is* the VCL; the compiler is just incidental, needed to translate your VCL-using code (and the VCL itself) into machine language.
So if QT is easy and GTK+ hard, or whatever, doesn't really matter to the *Delphi* coder -- Borland's people will get to wrestle with that, porting the VCL. (OK, that was an over-simplification, since one of the main points of Delphi is that you can also write your own components. But basically it's true.)
One possibility, though, is that it would in fact be easier for them (and us, and third-party component developers) to use GTK+ if it is *less* "advanced" than QT; it's one thing to build on top of a low-level API, that can be tedious enough -- but implementing a higher-level class library on top of *another* high-level class library that "goes against the grain" of the one you're trying to build looks like it could be a real struggle.
AFAICS, FWIW, etc.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"If you use MS-based tech (COM/DCOM, MFC, ADO, etc.) in Windows Delphi apps, how can you expect this to port to an environment that doesn't have these things?"
Yup, that makes it hard.
That may be one partial reason why many Delphi developers use as little as possible of that kind of stuff.
Besides just in general wanting to do as little as possible to promote MS-proprietary "technologies", even on MS platforms, that is.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Huh?!? What are you talking about?
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Delphi for Linux
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"If the Windows Share/Cripple-ware crowd thinks (which seems to be the case here) that this will somehow cause a demand for their crap to be ported over to linux, they are sadly mistaken."
So you think the license is built into the language; Delphi can only be used to build shareware?
My, what a fuckwit you must be.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"What Borland can do is simply write the delphi compiler that transforms Objective Pascal into C, which can then be compiled through the gcc backend."
Eh, 'simply'?!? What a horrible kludge!
"I believe AT&T did this with their C++ compiler, but I could be mistakened."
No, you're not mistaken; that's what they did.
You may have noticed, though, that it isn't what they (C++ compiler vendors; dunno if AT&T has one any more) do nowadays.
I think there is a reason for that.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Check out Torry's Delphi Pages.
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PigleT writes:
"Me, I hope that delphi becomes one way of doing gtk and qt stuff in pascal, rather than a *rival*."
Oh, I'm fairly sure that that's exactly what Borland wants to do. They'd be stupid to invent a whole new GUI widget set, wouldn't they? Then they'd just have one more headache, developing and maintaining that. No, *two* -- the other would be, developers might be reluctant to use something that didn't automatically give their applications the same "look and feel" as what end-users are using already.
"Would open source still be so cool if there were more that ran on windoze?"
Hell yes! In fact, at http://www.torry.ru/ you'll find some components (plug-in stuff ready to use in the RAD IDE) that are already LGPL'd. The Delphi community -- yes, I think there *is* such a thing -- is actually among the most "Open" you'll find on Windows.
(I think it's because using such a wonderful tool makes you much more happy, and happy people are much more likely to be sociable and generous. No wonder perhaps that Visual Basic code slaves, and the poor souls who have to wrestle with "Visual" [Ha!] C++ / The Abomination Known As MFC to give them their "components", are such grinches...;-)
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
First, I don't think KFK2's "Maybe I can get a deal with the Delphi 3 I have for Win9x" meant "Wow, maybe I can sell my Delphi / Windows CD to someone"; I think it meant "Maybe Borland will recognize it as a valid ground for quoting me an 'upgrade' price, not the full one, for Delphi / Linux".
Second, what "all the computer magazines" have you seen D3 CDs on? Danish ones?!? Here in Finland, I've only ever seen Delphi 2 -- repeatedly, actually -- on *British* magazine _PC Plus_.
(Yeah, D5 is officially out; the first official launch in Europe was here in Finland last Thursday, August 19.)
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
No, I don't think the survey was "rigged".
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PimpBot writes:
"I would never have expected Delphi to have *that* big of a demand...perhaps Borland rigged the survey?"
No they didn't.
It's just that there's a *LOT* of Delphi developers in the world, who really really like their tool, and would want to see it on Linux (I'm one of them; see my user profile). And the survey was publicised on... surprise, surprise: Web sites about *Delphi*!
Which is the logical thing to do, of course: Borland wanted to know if they could *sell* their tool. So the logical people to ask are those who already have proven they're willing to pay for it; existing Delphi developers. Come on, admit it: The/.ers who took the survey, most of whom OBVIOUSLY (judging from their comments in this and the other recent forum) wouldn't know Delphi from a hole in the ground, would -- *did*! -- just yell "if it isn't GPLd it's useless!" Sure, I'd love to see that too (and as soon as I have my Linux machine up and running again, I'll go to the Lazarus project and see if I can help out), but that's useless news to Borland -- they're a commercial company.
So did you expect all of us to scream louder for JBuilder or C++ Builder than Delphi, or what? Well, there are several reasons why we didn't. Reason #1: Delphi, Object Pascal-based Delphi, is Borland's greatest seller -- not C++, not Java. Reason #2: There are already a lot of C/C++ and Java-based tools available on Linux, but nothing for us OP fans. Reason #3: With C++ Builder's VCL being identical to Delphi's, we *know* that porting Delphi is the key -- do that, and C++ Builder is a good as ported, too.
There, hope your brain is "in whack" now; good luck with your classes, now that you are awake!:-)
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
No, they still won't *officially* commit to Delphi on Linux. But they're not that far from it:
At the official launch of Delphi 5 here in Finland last Thursday (Aug 19), when talking about the *next* version... the presenter twice did the old "I'm not really talking about CoughDelphiForLinuxCough" trick. (OK, actually it wasn't so much a "cough" as holding his hand before his mouth and mumbling it; I think he must have squeezed a nostril shut with his thumb too, because it sounded really nasal -- but that definitely was what he said.)
I think they're pretty sure that this *IS* something they want to do.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"The real question, though, is why use Delphi when you could use Java? Native java compilers aren't much different from Delphi, other than having the more familiar C++ syntax."
Well, that's one very good reason to go with Delphi in stead of Java -- Java's C++ish syntax sucks, just like it does in C++ itself...
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"I wonder what makes Delphi such a good RAD tool. I can't believe that the main reason is the use of Object Pascal."
Well, no -- in a word, it's the VCL (OK, that was an acronym, not a word).
"The tool's design and such must contribute significantly. I have nothing against Pascal--it was the first programming language I learned. However, it isn't very popular."
It is with us who *use* it... Does that count for anything, or do you subscribe to the Fly Diet Theory?
"I'd rather use a popular language and become an expert in that language since those skills would be useful anywhere."
OK, have fun in your new career as a Visual Basic programmer!:-)
""How about a Delphi-like took based on Java?"
So what did you think Borland JBuilder is?!? Sheesh...
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"This brings me to my next reason for prefering Qt; it has a very elegant design. Those guys at trolltech know how to execute an OO design in C++. Let the well trained OO designers handle writing elegant OO toolkits (like Qt); the masses (many of whom aren't nearly as well versed in good OO design) use the toolkit and its structure to lead them to a good design."
Yeah, exactly -- and that is what Delphi and C++ Builder are all about: An *extremely* elegant OO toolkit, the VCL, written by the *really* well trained OO designers at Borland. (I mean, what did you think it was -- the base language? C++B's language is just ordinary dime-a-dozen C++, except for one or two added keywords. And yes, dammit, they *were* necessary to enable a RAD IDE, even though they are a kludge. So what -- OP isn't, and C++ was one already anyway...)
And since all the OO elegance you need is in the VCL, you don't *need* that in the widget set it is implemented on top of; a simple API will do -- hey, these tools live on Win32, right?
Another factor was goodwill and "True Open-ness". Sure, QT's license has gotten better lately... But TrollTech *is* still a commercial entity, and as such their product is presumably less "Free" than GTK. But then, in order not to "diss" QT/Troll *too* much -- because it is still definitely the second-best alternative -- I suspect many of us answered like I did, "KDE", on the next question about desktop environments; those are after all a bit less fundamental than the widget set below them.
Now do you see where these percentages are coming from? Seems to me they're perfectly consistent with Delphi coders wanting their tool to come to Linux, *not* being naive or ill-informed but having thought the issues over rather thoroughly, and answering accordingly.
I know that's why *I* answered the way I did, and the overall results are (surprisingly, even to me) consistent with that thinking.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Your non-standard usage of terminology confuses the issues -- perhaps because you are confused about them?
"Object-based" (as opposed to "Object-Oriented") is generally taken to mean "can use -- or fake using -- objects, but cannot create them"; that makes Delphi/Object Pascal OO, and VB Object-based.
"Hybrid" (as opposed to, for want of a better term, "totally OO") means the ability to do stuff the old-fashioned non-OO way *too*, in addition to OOishly. In that sense, the only "totally OO" languages I know of are Smalltalk and apparently Eiffel. Is that what you wanted Delphi to be?
Sorry, can't be done -- if it were, it wouldn't be Delphi any more.
Judging from phrases like:
1) "...go for languages with much better OO support, such as Java..."
2) "...I found it extremely difficult to understand the flow of the program..."
3) "...a bad idea is this whole aspect of building a GUI first, and then attaching bits and pieces of code..."
4) "...avoid this... harder than doing it the Delphi way... fighting the IDE..."
5) "...I was somewhat disappointed when I actually got to see what it was..."
Make it seem to me as if you haven't really understood it -- "seen", perhaps, but *learned*?!?
Some attempted answers, in short:
1) So what's better with Java's OO support than Delphi's? Maybe you hadn't noticed that the "Beans" component model is pretty much a copy of OP's object model -- maybe you didn't know that Sun actually *bought* it from Borland?
2) Hmmm... Dunno if I can help here... How's this: Think "state", not "flow"? (Yeah, that leads to modal programs -- but hey, I can't say it better!)
3) Well, you shouldn't expect the IDE to give you *all* your code; write the real action in your own procedures (investigate Data Modules and Action Lists), then just call it from your event handlers.
4) Try using it intelligently in stead of "fighting" it. Sorry, but it had to be said...
5) Well, *learn* it in stead of just casting a quick glance.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Well, one reason might be that people wanted to say "I'm equally interested in both of these environments" (and wanted to stress these two, collectively and more or less equally, over others, so they couldn't just leave the question unanswered) -- but there was no such alternative to choose! Hence, go with one on the one question, and the other on the next...
I know that's why *I* answered in something like that fashion.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Wow. I thought this would be an open and shut thread. I thought this was an incredibly simple issue:
Well, you thought wrong.
AOL has deliberately and maliciously tampered with an internet communications protocol-
No; AOL has apparently unilaterally "tampered with" -- i.e, altered -- a proprietary AOL communications protocol, which is their right. AFAIK, there is no RFC for AIM.
-one which they have in fact open sourced before (remember the IM project which was briefly up at Mozilla?) (1),
"Have before"? So the current version is not 'open sourced'? Then you have no legal leg to stand on...
one which they have allowed other programs to interface with until now (Yahoo, etc.)--to disable a competing product. This isn't debatable, folks.
Sure it is -- whom they allow to interact with their servers is entirely at their discretion, and rightly so. No, BTW, you're right in one thing: This really isn't debatable -- you are obviously wrong in your main point.
Instant messaging is functionally analogous to email--or at least, that's the closest thing I can think of. Essentially this is the same as if AOL wouldn't allow non-AOL members to email in.
No, it's more like as if SomeISP.Inc wouldn't allow non-SomeISP customers to have email accounts on SomeISP.Inc's servers for free -- or worse, for a fee paid to AnotherISP.Inc! -- which, you might notice, most ISP's don't in fact allow.
Or if AT&T wouldn't let their phones communicate with phones manufactured by someone else. Or rather, if they stopped allowing it after they had for some time.
No, it's more like as if AT&T wouldn't let people using Captain PhonePhreak's phones use AT&T's telephone network without paying -- or worse, for a fee paid to some other phone company! -- which, you might notice, AT&T doesn't in fact allow. (Phone companies debit each other; I have seen no mention of MS offering AOL to pay for this service. Have you?)
And so what if MSNM has to query AOL's servers to function? This is like AOL making their members' homepages only display with Netscape.
Bullshit. It's more like AOL only giving access to proprietary AOL content to paying AOL customers -- something which, judging from the rest of your post, I don't assume you have any problems with?
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
OK, so as I understand this, what happened is that MS basically wrote their own Instant Messenger, that communicates with AOL's IM. [. ..] I have zero problem with it.
Well, duh -- that's only half the story!
What happened then is, AOL rewrote the protocol so MS's client wouldn't work any more. That is the moral issue here: Was it right, or was it wrong, to use a page out of Microsoft's own book?
Sheesh, moderators: What exactly was so "insightful" about getting half the story, but not the point?
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"I would like to see some comments as to why Delphi should be ported to Linux."
OK: Because it's so damn good, I *want* it!:-)
"Is the thinking that Delphi makes devloping apps easier/faster."
In a word: YES!!!
"Therefore, more/better apps for Linux will result from a Linux Delphi?"
And companies will be *able* (or at least, "less un-able") to migrate from Windows to Linux -- companies like the one where I work, companies with in-house applications developed in Delphi.
That's almost the main benefit, as I see it.
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Richard writes: "L. Ron Hubbard wrote one fabulous sci-fi book: Battlefield Earth."
He wrote another one -- I think it was another one, because the title "Battlefield Earth" doesn't sound like a relevant name for the one I'm thinking of. I can't recall the title of that one, because it was something like 25 years since I read it, but it was about interstellar traders, spaceship crewmen. The "McGuffin" was time dilation: Sure, a trip might take only a year or three to you, subjectively -- but you'd better think *damn* carefully about what goods you'll buy for resale at your target, because that'll be X-hundred years into the future, "objective" time.
Not "great", perhaps, but quite OK. Must have been before he went flaky and invented scientology. (If that even *was* the act of a "flake"; I suspect it was a damn clever scam from the get-go...)
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"Now I wonder what their current relationship with InterBase (Inprise?) is."
'borland.com' is a division of Inprise; even before they brought back the name in this *corporate* sense, the *products* still used the old brand. They were and are 'Borland Delphi (etc), from Inprise', only now with an inserted 'from borland.com, a division of'.
The middleware, Entera, Visibroker, and so on, is and was branded Inprise; they reserve the Borland name for the development tools.
And InterBase is, at it has been for years, owned by InterBase Corp. (or Inc, whatever), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inprise (formerly of Borland).
"As far as I know, InterBase grew out of an independent team of programmers long ago before Borland came to scene. Or am I wrong?"
Yes and no.
Borland acquired InterBase with its buy-up of Ashton-Tate; you know, the guys behind dBase? It was a Borland product for a while, but got spun out into its own subsidiary long (a year, two?) before the name change to Inprise.
So you're wrong, if you meant to imply that Borland bought out the independant gang *directly*; but you're right in that there *was* such a gang (ex-employees of something big -- DEC, perhaps?), that was bought up by Ashton-Tate. I remember a few years ago, when Borland dBase wasn't doing too well and everybody was saying how stupid it was of Borland to buy A-T, how some columnist (might have been John Dvorak, of all people) wrote that perhaps that didn't matter; that perhaps the secret crown jewel that Borland was *really* after was InterBase.
Anyway, InterBase has kind of come full circle, in that it now is a corporation of its own again. Except that it's a subsidiary, of course.
"This way or that way, Linux developers should really take a look into InterBase DBMS. BTW, they still offer (oldish) 4.0 for Linux free of charge."
Yup! See my URL above? Yes, I *did* change it a few months back -- because IB moved the download! Before that, it pointed to where IB4/Linux was *then*; I must have had it for over a year now, altogether.
"Combined with the open-sourced AOLserver (see previous Slashdot story) with AOLserver driver for InterBase, it can be helluva web/db application tool."
Don't forget to go to http://www.photo.net/wtr/ and check out the whole -- freely downloadable, Open Source? -- interactive web site system by Philip Greenspun!
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
An AC wrote: "You've missed some of the point. The article is probably a forgery (this may be the one that he is suing Demon over)."
Yeah, exactly my impression from the wording "the article in question".
But then, that was in response to "Can anyone provide proof of what a prick he's turned out to be otherwise?" (paraphrased), which makes me think that -- IFF such proof, genuine proof, existed -- maybe he shouldn't complain at all. I mean, what's the use crying "they're defaming me by trying to make me look like a prick who would say that!", if he really *is* a prick who *has* said other things like that? Then the alleged "libel" would be true, if not in specific, then in essence.
"A clue to this is that his name is spelt Laurence."
Well, then everything's OK then -- Demon can defend themselves very easily by pointing out that it wasn't the PLAINTIFF that was "defamed", but some OTHER guy, who spells his name "Lawrence"!:-)
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Re:Linux contributions to GNU
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'Buffy the Overflow Slayer' writes:
"BTW, when Linus started Linux, there were other free c compilers other than gcc, [...] Heck, he could have used the BSD tools instead."
Eh, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't BSD use... gcc?
Christian R. Conrad MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Slashdot Mirror
Keith Russell writes:
"To paraphrase Planet of the Apes, it appears some operating systems are more equal than others."
That's not Planet of the Apes you're paraphrasing, it's George Orwell's _Animal Farm_.
Unless it's even older, and *he* was paraphrasing someone else, too.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"Delphi uses Borland's VCL library which wraps up most of the important elements of the Windows API, but not all of it. That was a concious design decision -- not to try and wrap everything [ . . . ] Because of that, many existing Delphi and C++Builder programs have some Windows API calls sprinkled in with their VCL code. [ . . . ] it won't be as easy as a recompile [ . . . ] even if as much as 20% of the code needed to be tweaked"
Another issue is *where* that Win-API-calling code is located.
If it is in your project itself, then you have work to do -- but then you've bungled on re-use and all those OO benefits already...
If you isolate it in an IDE-installable component, you'll only have to port that once, and as long as the interface is the same, your project code is then freely movable.
For instance, I've bungled like this myself in one current project: I override the Create and CreateParams methods in some of my forms to make them appear as part of another form, the code is taken directly from Charlie Calvert's "RitcheyForm" in _Delphi 2 Unleashed_. But the new "Frames" in Delphi 5 seem to be exactly the same code wrapped up in a component/form type -- port those to Delphi/Linux (which no doubt Borland will do), and all I'd have to do was use those in stead of my own semi-kludge and I'd be done.
The issue of API code hindering portability will be a problem mainly for in-house and third-party *component* developers, not *application* developers, I think.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"I also hope they use the QT widget set, its object oriented and generally eaiser to program than GTK+"
That's irrelevant.
Whatever they implement Delphi on top of, that implementation *will* be the VCL [Delphi's class library, the Visual Component Library] "on top of" whatever it is.
That's the whole point -- Delphi more or less *is* the VCL; the compiler is just incidental, needed to translate your VCL-using code (and the VCL itself) into machine language.
So if QT is easy and GTK+ hard, or whatever, doesn't really matter to the *Delphi* coder -- Borland's people will get to wrestle with that, porting the VCL. (OK, that was an over-simplification, since one of the main points of Delphi is that you can also write your own components. But basically it's true.)
One possibility, though, is that it would in fact be easier for them (and us, and third-party component developers) to use GTK+ if it is *less* "advanced" than QT; it's one thing to build on top of a low-level API, that can be tedious enough -- but implementing a higher-level class library on top of *another* high-level class library that "goes against the grain" of the one you're trying to build looks like it could be a real struggle.
AFAICS, FWIW, etc.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
clawson (rhetorically) asks:
"If you use MS-based tech (COM/DCOM, MFC, ADO, etc.) in Windows Delphi apps, how can you expect this to port to an environment that doesn't have these things?"
Yup, that makes it hard.
That may be one partial reason why many Delphi developers use as little as possible of that kind of stuff.
Besides just in general wanting to do as little as possible to promote MS-proprietary "technologies", even on MS platforms, that is.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"If the Windows Share/Cripple-ware crowd thinks (which seems to be the case here) that this will somehow cause a demand for their crap to be ported over to linux, they are sadly mistaken."
So you think the license is built into the language; Delphi can only be used to build shareware?
My, what a fuckwit you must be.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"What Borland can do is simply write the delphi compiler that transforms Objective Pascal into C, which can then be compiled through the gcc backend."
Eh, 'simply'?!? What a horrible kludge!
"I believe AT&T did this with their C++ compiler, but I could be mistakened."
No, you're not mistaken; that's what they did.
You may have noticed, though, that it isn't what they (C++ compiler vendors; dunno if AT&T has one any more) do nowadays.
I think there is a reason for that.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
PigleT writes:
;-)
"Me, I hope that delphi becomes one way of doing gtk and qt stuff in pascal, rather than a *rival*."
Oh, I'm fairly sure that that's exactly what Borland wants to do. They'd be stupid to invent a whole new GUI widget set, wouldn't they? Then they'd just have one more headache, developing and maintaining that. No, *two* -- the other would be, developers might be reluctant to use something that didn't automatically give their applications the same "look and feel" as what end-users are using already.
"Would open source still be so cool if there were more that ran on windoze?"
Hell yes! In fact, at http://www.torry.ru/ you'll find some components (plug-in stuff ready to use in the RAD IDE) that are already LGPL'd. The Delphi community -- yes, I think there *is* such a thing -- is actually among the most "Open" you'll find on Windows.
(I think it's because using such a wonderful tool makes you much more happy, and happy people are much more likely to be sociable and generous. No wonder perhaps that Visual Basic code slaves, and the poor souls who have to wrestle with "Visual" [Ha!] C++ / The Abomination Known As MFC to give them their "components", are such grinches...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
First, I don't think KFK2's "Maybe I can get a deal with the Delphi 3 I have for Win9x" meant "Wow, maybe I can sell my Delphi / Windows CD to someone"; I think it meant "Maybe Borland will recognize it as a valid ground for quoting me an 'upgrade' price, not the full one, for Delphi / Linux".
Second, what "all the computer magazines" have you seen D3 CDs on? Danish ones?!? Here in Finland, I've only ever seen Delphi 2 -- repeatedly, actually -- on *British* magazine _PC Plus_.
(Yeah, D5 is officially out; the first official launch in Europe was here in Finland last Thursday, August 19.)
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
PimpBot writes:
/.ers who took the survey, most of whom OBVIOUSLY (judging from their comments in this and the other recent forum) wouldn't know Delphi from a hole in the ground, would -- *did*! -- just yell "if it isn't GPLd it's useless!" Sure, I'd love to see that too (and as soon as I have my Linux machine up and running again, I'll go to the Lazarus project and see if I can help out), but that's useless news to Borland -- they're a commercial company.
:-)
"I would never have expected Delphi to have *that* big of a demand...perhaps Borland rigged the survey?"
No they didn't.
It's just that there's a *LOT* of Delphi developers in the world, who really really like their tool, and would want to see it on Linux (I'm one of them; see my user profile). And the survey was publicised on... surprise, surprise: Web sites about *Delphi*!
Which is the logical thing to do, of course: Borland wanted to know if they could *sell* their tool. So the logical people to ask are those who already have proven they're willing to pay for it; existing Delphi developers. Come on, admit it: The
So did you expect all of us to scream louder for JBuilder or C++ Builder than Delphi, or what? Well, there are several reasons why we didn't. Reason #1: Delphi, Object Pascal-based Delphi, is Borland's greatest seller -- not C++, not Java. Reason #2: There are already a lot of C/C++ and Java-based tools available on Linux, but nothing for us OP fans. Reason #3: With C++ Builder's VCL being identical to Delphi's, we *know* that porting Delphi is the key -- do that, and C++ Builder is a good as ported, too.
There, hope your brain is "in whack" now; good luck with your classes, now that you are awake!
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
No, they still won't *officially* commit to Delphi on Linux. But they're not that far from it:
At the official launch of Delphi 5 here in Finland last Thursday (Aug 19), when talking about the *next* version... the presenter twice did the old "I'm not really talking about CoughDelphiForLinuxCough" trick. (OK, actually it wasn't so much a "cough" as holding his hand before his mouth and mumbling it; I think he must have squeezed a nostril shut with his thumb too, because it sounded really nasal -- but that definitely was what he said.)
I think they're pretty sure that this *IS* something they want to do.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"The real question, though, is why use Delphi when you could use Java? Native java compilers aren't much different from Delphi, other than having the more familiar C++ syntax."
Well, that's one very good reason to go with Delphi in stead of Java -- Java's C++ish syntax sucks, just like it does in C++ itself...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Snoochie Bootchie asks:
:-)
"I wonder what makes Delphi such a good RAD tool. I can't believe that the main reason is the use of Object Pascal."
Well, no -- in a word, it's the VCL (OK, that was an acronym, not a word).
"The tool's design and such must contribute significantly. I have nothing against Pascal--it was the first programming language I learned. However, it isn't very popular."
It is with us who *use* it... Does that count for anything, or do you subscribe to the Fly Diet Theory?
"I'd rather use a popular language and become an expert in that language since those skills would be useful anywhere."
OK, have fun in your new career as a Visual Basic programmer!
""How about a Delphi-like took based on Java?"
So what did you think Borland JBuilder is?!? Sheesh...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"This brings me to my next reason for prefering Qt; it has a very elegant design. Those guys at trolltech know how to execute an OO design in C++. Let the well trained OO designers handle writing elegant OO toolkits (like Qt); the masses (many of whom aren't nearly as well versed in good OO design) use the toolkit and its structure to lead them to a good design."
Yeah, exactly -- and that is what Delphi and C++ Builder are all about: An *extremely* elegant OO toolkit, the VCL, written by the *really* well trained OO designers at Borland. (I mean, what did you think it was -- the base language? C++B's language is just ordinary dime-a-dozen C++, except for one or two added keywords. And yes, dammit, they *were* necessary to enable a RAD IDE, even though they are a kludge. So what -- OP isn't, and C++ was one already anyway...)
And since all the OO elegance you need is in the VCL, you don't *need* that in the widget set it is implemented on top of; a simple API will do -- hey, these tools live on Win32, right?
Another factor was goodwill and "True Open-ness". Sure, QT's license has gotten better lately... But TrollTech *is* still a commercial entity, and as such their product is presumably less "Free" than GTK. But then, in order not to "diss" QT/Troll *too* much -- because it is still definitely the second-best alternative -- I suspect many of us answered like I did, "KDE", on the next question about desktop environments; those are after all a bit less fundamental than the widget set below them.
Now do you see where these percentages are coming from? Seems to me they're perfectly consistent with Delphi coders wanting their tool to come to Linux, *not* being naive or ill-informed but having thought the issues over rather thoroughly, and answering accordingly.
I know that's why *I* answered the way I did, and the overall results are (surprisingly, even to me) consistent with that thinking.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Your non-standard usage of terminology confuses the issues -- perhaps because you are confused about them?
... harder than doing it the Delphi way ... fighting the IDE..."
"Object-based" (as opposed to "Object-Oriented") is generally taken to mean "can use -- or fake using -- objects, but cannot create them"; that makes Delphi/Object Pascal OO, and VB Object-based.
"Hybrid" (as opposed to, for want of a better term, "totally OO") means the ability to do stuff the old-fashioned non-OO way *too*, in addition to OOishly. In that sense, the only "totally OO" languages I know of are Smalltalk and apparently Eiffel. Is that what you wanted Delphi to be?
Sorry, can't be done -- if it were, it wouldn't be Delphi any more.
Judging from phrases like:
1) "...go for languages with much better OO support, such as Java..."
2) "...I found it extremely difficult to understand the flow of the program..."
3) "...a bad idea is this whole aspect of building a GUI first, and then attaching bits and pieces of code..."
4) "...avoid this
5) "...I was somewhat disappointed when I actually got to see what it was..."
Make it seem to me as if you haven't really understood it -- "seen", perhaps, but *learned*?!?
Some attempted answers, in short:
1) So what's better with Java's OO support than Delphi's? Maybe you hadn't noticed that the "Beans" component model is pretty much a copy of OP's object model -- maybe you didn't know that Sun actually *bought* it from Borland?
2) Hmmm... Dunno if I can help here... How's this: Think "state", not "flow"? (Yeah, that leads to modal programs -- but hey, I can't say it better!)
3) Well, you shouldn't expect the IDE to give you *all* your code; write the real action in your own procedures (investigate Data Modules and Action Lists), then just call it from your event handlers.
4) Try using it intelligently in stead of "fighting" it. Sorry, but it had to be said...
5) Well, *learn* it in stead of just casting a quick glance.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
"(they are, after all, Delphi coders)"
What's that supposed to mean, asshole?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Well, one reason might be that people wanted to say "I'm equally interested in both of these environments" (and wanted to stress these two, collectively and more or less equally, over others, so they couldn't just leave the question unanswered) -- but there was no such alternative to choose! Hence, go with one on the one question, and the other on the next...
I know that's why *I* answered in something like that fashion.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Well, you thought wrong.
No; AOL has apparently unilaterally "tampered with" -- i.e, altered -- a proprietary AOL communications protocol, which is their right. AFAIK, there is no RFC for AIM.
"Have before"? So the current version is not 'open sourced'? Then you have no legal leg to stand on...
Sure it is -- whom they allow to interact with their servers is entirely at their discretion, and rightly so. No, BTW, you're right in one thing: This really isn't debatable -- you are obviously wrong in your main point.
No, it's more like as if SomeISP.Inc wouldn't allow non-SomeISP customers to have email accounts on SomeISP.Inc's servers for free -- or worse, for a fee paid to AnotherISP.Inc! -- which, you might notice, most ISP's don't in fact allow.
No, it's more like as if AT&T wouldn't let people using Captain PhonePhreak's phones use AT&T's telephone network without paying -- or worse, for a fee paid to some other phone company! -- which, you might notice, AT&T doesn't in fact allow. (Phone companies debit each other; I have seen no mention of MS offering AOL to pay for this service. Have you?)
Bullshit. It's more like AOL only giving access to proprietary AOL content to paying AOL customers -- something which, judging from the rest of your post, I don't assume you have any problems with?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Patman writes:
Well, duh -- that's only half the story!
What happened then is, AOL rewrote the protocol so MS's client wouldn't work any more. That is the moral issue here: Was it right, or was it wrong, to use a page out of Microsoft's own book?
Sheesh, moderators: What exactly was so "insightful" about getting half the story, but not the point?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Snoochie Bootchie writes:
:-)
"I would like to see some comments as to why Delphi should be ported to Linux."
OK: Because it's so damn good, I *want* it!
"Is the thinking that Delphi makes devloping apps easier/faster."
In a word: YES!!!
"Therefore, more/better apps for Linux will result from a Linux Delphi?"
And companies will be *able* (or at least, "less un-able") to migrate from Windows to Linux -- companies like the one where I work, companies with in-house applications developed in Delphi.
That's almost the main benefit, as I see it.
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Tank writes:
"YOU ARE ALL SHEEP!!!
Repent, Win2K is neigh!!!"
Don't be a horse's ass -- if we're all SHEEP, then WTF has *neighing* got to do with anything?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Richard writes:
"L. Ron Hubbard wrote one fabulous sci-fi book: Battlefield Earth."
He wrote another one -- I think it was another one, because the title "Battlefield Earth" doesn't sound like a relevant name for the one I'm thinking of. I can't recall the title of that one, because it was something like 25 years since I read it, but it was about interstellar traders, spaceship crewmen. The "McGuffin" was time dilation: Sure, a trip might take only a year or three to you, subjectively -- but you'd better think *damn* carefully about what goods you'll buy for resale at your target, because that'll be X-hundred years into the future, "objective" time.
Not "great", perhaps, but quite OK. Must have been before he went flaky and invented scientology. (If that even *was* the act of a "flake"; I suspect it was a damn clever scam from the get-go...)
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Seb writes:
"Now I wonder what their current relationship with InterBase (Inprise?) is."
'borland.com' is a division of Inprise; even before they brought back the name in this *corporate* sense, the *products* still used the old brand. They were and are 'Borland Delphi (etc), from Inprise', only now with an inserted 'from borland.com, a division of'.
The middleware, Entera, Visibroker, and so on, is and was branded Inprise; they reserve the Borland name for the development tools.
And InterBase is, at it has been for years, owned by InterBase Corp. (or Inc, whatever), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inprise (formerly of Borland).
"As far as I know, InterBase grew out of an independent team of programmers long ago before Borland came to scene. Or am I wrong?"
Yes and no.
Borland acquired InterBase with its buy-up of Ashton-Tate; you know, the guys behind dBase? It was a Borland product for a while, but got spun out into its own subsidiary long (a year, two?) before the name change to Inprise.
So you're wrong, if you meant to imply that Borland bought out the independant gang *directly*; but you're right in that there *was* such a gang (ex-employees of something big -- DEC, perhaps?), that was bought up by Ashton-Tate. I remember a few years ago, when Borland dBase wasn't doing too well and everybody was saying how stupid it was of Borland to buy A-T, how some columnist (might have been John Dvorak, of all people) wrote that perhaps that didn't matter; that perhaps the secret crown jewel that Borland was *really* after was InterBase.
Anyway, InterBase has kind of come full circle, in that it now is a corporation of its own again. Except that it's a subsidiary, of course.
"This way or that way, Linux developers should really take a look into InterBase DBMS. BTW, they still offer (oldish) 4.0 for Linux free of charge."
Yup! See my URL above? Yes, I *did* change it a few months back -- because IB moved the download! Before that, it pointed to where IB4/Linux was *then*; I must have had it for over a year now, altogether.
"Combined with the open-sourced AOLserver (see previous Slashdot story) with AOLserver driver for InterBase, it can be helluva web/db application tool."
Don't forget to go to http://www.photo.net/wtr/ and check out the whole -- freely downloadable, Open Source? -- interactive web site system by Philip Greenspun!
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Why do you ask?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
An AC wrote:
:-)
"You've missed some of the point. The article is probably a forgery (this may be the one that he is suing Demon over)."
Yeah, exactly my impression from the wording "the article in question".
But then, that was in response to "Can anyone provide proof of what a prick he's turned out to be otherwise?" (paraphrased), which makes me think that -- IFF such proof, genuine proof, existed -- maybe he shouldn't complain at all. I mean, what's the use crying "they're defaming me by trying to make me look like a prick who would say that!", if he really *is* a prick who *has* said other things like that? Then the alleged "libel" would be true, if not in specific, then in essence.
"A clue to this is that his name is spelt Laurence."
Well, then everything's OK then -- Demon can defend themselves very easily by pointing out that it wasn't the PLAINTIFF that was "defamed", but some OTHER guy, who spells his name "Lawrence"!
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
'Buffy the Overflow Slayer' writes:
"BTW, when Linus started Linux, there were other free c compilers other than gcc, [...] Heck, he could have used the BSD tools instead."
Eh, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't BSD use... gcc?
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.