Re: Opportunity passed by

Because they're having to do a lot more with Delphi.NET. JBuilder
was an IDE with some extra class libraries that used Sun's tools and
ever-growing
foundation library for most of the donkey-work. Delphi for .NET on the
other
hand has its own compiler that has to be modified to use the latest things
MS
has folded into .NET, ditto for a special version of the VCL, and the IDE
and
associated tools which tie everything together.

That doesn't make sense :)

C#Builder is just an IDE with add-on libraries/tools using Microsoft
tools and ever-growing foundation library for most of the donkey work.
Their C++ toolchain has no .NET support whatsoever, Delphi and
C#Builder support a deprecated version of .NET. Do they not
realize that many people who use both Delphi and C# are actually
migrating from Delphi to C# for .NET development? What do they
offer developers moving to/using C# by showing them an IDE that is
subpar for .NET 2.0 development. I think *SharpDevelop* allows
you to target .NET 2.0 with C# (using the same tools as BDS2006).

Why can't I create a new VCL Forms application with BDS2006?

The reason why I say this is although it is called Borland Developer
*Studio*, the only integration it seems that these development environ-
ments offer is the fact that they are all under the same IDE, and some
share common tools (Together, ECO, etc.). I don't really see the
benefit of putting a tool like C++Builder (only useful for Win32 dev-
elopment) in an IDE that will not install unless you install .NET 1.1 SP1
and the J# redistributable. They share the same IDE, but their feature
sets are VERY fragmented. You don't see this in development environ-
ments like Visual Studio (apart from J#, which is more of a "port your
app to .NET" thing than anything else).

If they actually believe BDS is/was a viable alternative to Visual Studio
for .NET application, they should have delivered a C# 2.0 development
environment (perhaps with the ability to multi-target 1.1 and 2.0) while
working on, improving, and bringing their Delphi .NET compiler up to
snuff. They also should have molded equivalent VCL.NET support into
the C#Builder personality of the IDE (I've heard good things like VCL
..NET, like it being faster than WinForms, etc.) and at least implemented
Managed Extensions for C++Builder in an attempt to move towards
a mixxed-mode compiler on that end.

As it currently stands, however, C#Builder is useless to many/most
C# developers, as they want/have moved to .NET 2.0, and Delphi
doesn't really have much to offer on that front. They *could have*
offered a very good environment for C# developers, and kept many
customers from migrating to Visual Studio. Unfortunately they chose
to rush Developer Studio 2006 out like D8/D2005 and the result is
apparent. If they cannot keep up, they should not compete, but rather
maintain a strong hold in their niche market.

And I know there are now Turbo editions, but they were not there when
BDS2006 was released so many developers who use only one language
product had no choice but to upgrade to the more heavyweight version
of the IDE.

But it was the freedom both as in beer and availability of source code
that
contributed greatly to that flood of plug-ins. Many of them have
subsequently
been ported to NetBeans, often by the original authors, and for the same
reasons, but FOSS advocates aren't going to pay Borland a lot of money for
an
IDE just for the joy of porting their work to it.

There is a free version of JBuilder available, and it has been that way
since
version 4? That's the first Foundation version that I ordered a CD for
(although it was downloadable). They don't need to pay Borland for their
IDE. But Borland's OTA has always been poorly documented and marketed
to developers outside of enterprise users and ISVs/Partners who produced
JBuilder Add-Ins. The same is true for Delphi/C++Builder/BDS.

And the only partially VCL-compatible CLX framework didn't help to endear
said poorly-hacked and buggy item to Delphi developers, who'd been
expecting
a "bung your source on Linux, load it into Kylix, and recompile"
experience.

There were [poor] ways to make VCL code somewhat CLX-compatible,
but I think the point was to enable source:source compatibility of solutions
via CLX. What I means is that it was IMO foolish to think you could load
your VCL applications in Kylix and recompile them. If that was the case
then there wouldn't have been a CLX for Windows and the CLX on Linux
would have had classes/objects/types starting with the letter "T" to avoid
having to change them over via some rediculous conversion tool.

Perhaps Borland would be better off writing a modified version of GCC like
Apple
did. Going that route has allowed Apple's compiler to use C, C++,
Objective-C
and Objective-C++ while targeting PowerPC 32 and 64-bit, Intel 32 and
64-bit,
plus "fat binaries" that contain code for both CPU sets, without having to
do a
vast amount of work. OK, so Borland might end up having to give their
source for
implementing properties etc. back to the FOSS community, but IMO they
probably stand to gain more than they'd lose from this given the small
number
of users their now antiquated compiler has.

How about altering GCC to output OMF object files, different calling
conventions (things that may be there but work differently due to
implementation differences), etc. I think it's a vast amount of work that
would have to be done.

They've been falling behind for a number of years. it was pretty clear
when they
started shipping Intel's compiler with BC++ 5.X for production use while
recommending their own offering only be used during testing that they'd
pretty
much thrown in the towel insofar as optimisations, supporting the latest
CPU
features, etc. Now they're pretty much at the bottom of the heap, with
their
only advantage being an ability to work with the Object Pascal VCL, but
there
don't seem to be many C++ programmers who want to do that nowadays.

Yea, and the Intel compiler generated some faulty code on occasions, and
made compile times 50-150% longer.

Turning Borland C++ into C++Builder was probably the worst thing they could
have done with that product line, IMO.


.

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