Re: Chrome - competition for Borland?

From: Eric Grange (egrangeNO_at_SPAMglscene.org)
Date: 11/08/04 

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 14:23:58 +0100

> Oh, ok. So then you're talking about building the apps in 2 different
> languages? C++ for the native 64-bit windows, and some managed code
> language as well?

Ultimately the goal would be to have everything in a single language,
in a single IDE, and Chrome would be a stepping stone to that goal
if it's not much different from Delphi than Delphi.Net is.
Since no Borland native 64bits plans exist, the only purpose of using
Delphi would be for legacy, but for that task, there is already D7.

> I still don't see how Delphi is out of this equation,
> since you're still talking about purchasing two products to produce the
> applications: VS.NET and an add-in for it.

Well, actually VS.Net comes through subscription (but up to now, ain't used
except for the odd embedded VC projects), so that's not really two products
instead of one here, and I expect Chrome to be cheaper than Delphi
(wild guess, future will tell).
However, the monetary aspect isn't as important as the capability one.
Understand that with no native 64bits in sight, we are faced with the prospect
of moving our native codebase (and more "native" than "Win32") to something
different, both in performance and spirit, and if there is a lesson out of this,
it's that we want to avoid such prospects in the future (reason why C++ would
be among the contenders, even without C++/CLI).

Would Chrome be a long-term aim? No. It would be a tool to ease
the transition, by, hopefully, requiring a similar amount of porting
work that a Delphi.Net port would, and yet bring us to a platform (VS)
with broader architectural scope.
Will everything eventually be ported out of Delphi Native (7, 2005..)?
No, most of the existing code will certainly remain Win32 and native until
it withers away into obsolescence (hopefully, many years from now).
Will new projects be initiated on other platforms/languages, will key
libraries follow them? Yes, some sooner than others.

> C++BuilderX and Delphi would provide the same reach, but it would be
> two different IDEs, at least for the immediate future.

Yes, these would be two IDEs, and AFAIK, CPPBX lacks GUI design
(and the IDE is in Java, which just doesn't exhibit confidence
in the ability of the CPPBX designers to use C++ for cross-platform
GUI projects).
A CPPB+Delphi merger would have better chances, assuming the price
is right, and CLI+Win64 supported.

> But, concerns for 64-bit support aren't an immediate-future issue.

2005 isn't that far off, our decision point is about Whidbey release,
with product releases aimed at 2006, a fair 6-12 months after WinXP64
release, but we would certainly not rely on a just-announced Delphi64 then,
esp. for a new 64bits compiler target release.

We have now been slowly but surely cutting all dependencies to some
areas of VCL/RTL for half a year now, to keep our options open, still have
a big half dozen months left, so our main requirements are Object Pascal,
basic Windowing support and native compilation in some areas (latest batch
of such changes came courtesy of Unicode support in VCL Win32, the only
vanilla VCL components we use are now TForm & TPanel, most of the rest
are based on custom branches inheriting from TCustomControl).

That will still mean much pain, but provisions have to be made.

Eric

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