Borland Kylix Released - Kinda

red_crayon writes: "Borland's kylix -- their port of Delphi (née Borland Pascal), and, coming later, Borland C++ Builder -- is out. See Borland's Kylix Web site for more details. This has been discussed on Slashdot in the past, but it is good to see that it is finally out. A kylix is an ancient Greek two-handled drinking cup. Hence, they keep the Greek theme started with Delphi. And the two handles are meant to be (???) some sort of symbolism WRT Win and Linux co-development." It's $999, and this round is actually "pre-order" rather than shipping -- but people have been waiting for this.

Re:$999 for cross-development?

$1k/license isn't that much if you can save developer time... the unanswered question is how much (if any) time is saved, whether or not it is buggy and if it is easy to interoperate with other elements of the system, like a database. And if you could do it in another way, like switching to python.

Having something like this around might be very useful for penetration on certain kinds of corporate desktops - those were you have people punching in or extracting data from custom applications.

Wait.... It's FREE!!!

The FREE version is scheduled for mid 2001. See this story on LinuxToday. [linuxtoday.com]

You forgot an important point, Hemos

Everyone is slamming the $999 price tag, but that's the version aimed at Windows developers who want to port their apps to Linux.

The "open edition" will cost $99 for a packaged version or be available as a free download. This version allows people to create only open-source software under the GPL.

FYI

Some random Kylix related info not mentioned in the summary or directly in the article:

- There will be a version called Open Kylix (or Kylix Open Edition) that will be a free download, or $99 for CD+manuals. This will be intended for use for developing Free/Open Source Software. This won't be available until mid-year though.

- On Borland's Kylix newsgroup, there are rumors that Kylix's IDE uses winelib. This was qualified by saying that the generated applications themselves won't rely on winelib (only the IDE itself will). This kinda scares me a little, but not too much without giving it a chance.

- As mentioned several months ago, CLX will be licensed under the GPL (and probably dual-licensed with another for commercial development). Borland also said that CLX widgets are not real/default Qt widgets, and that they basically are all custom (so a Kylix TButton is NOT a Qt+ button). This is actually good news, since it will make a Gtk+ layer more feasible.

Re:You forgot an important point, Hemos

You mean the four Windows developers using Delphi to produce shrinkwrapped software?

What's "shrinkwrapped" got to do with it? Just because it doesn't come in a box on the shelf at CompUSA, doesn't mean there isn't money to be made selling it or writing it.

Most Delphi apps tend to be either internal corporate/government apps (especially front ends for databases, since that's one of Delphi's main strengths), or vertical market apps that cater to various niches. The place where I work now is probably typical: about 20 Delphi programmers working on a dozen more different Windows apps. Some of those apps are things we sell. Others are internal utilities or support tools. None of them are sold shrink-wrap, but we make a fair chunk of moolah on them. And from the conversations I've had with the other programmers, their previous Delphi projects were similar.

The moment Kylix is available, we're buying it, primarily because our apps need to run on memory-starved systems like these [jvln.com] that will be much happier running Linux instead of Win2K, but we like programming in Delphi and don't want to have to give it up in order to write Linux apps.

open minds

it's extremely frustrating that the open-source community can be so open-minded and so close-minded at the same time. people trash kylix for the price tag because they are used to trusty ole vi/emacs/gcc which are free. they don't seem to understand what kylix is and what it offers. the current state of ide's under linux is ridiculous, in that there currently are *none* that i have found. and don't point me towards glade, kdevelop, etc. i am talking a *true* ide, where i can peace together the gui of my application, and in the same environment assign properties and methods to my components, full integrated debugging, etc. why should i have to hand write hundreds of lines of code just to create a gui for my application? i am in charge of programming several projects in my line of work using delphi, and have ached to be able to develop at home on my linux box, but i am spoiled by the things that delphi gives me. i know c and a little perl and c++, but any time i sit down to write a full blown app under linux, i get frustrated at the mundane things i am required to do just to give the application a face. i challenge any of you who say that kylix has nothing to offer the open-source community to code a full gui app in half the time it can be done under kylix/delphi. and as far as the pricing goes, look around at the prices on other full blown integrated development environments like visual studio, etc. comparing kylix to vi+gcc is just ignorant. kylix/delphi is a full solution for application development built around an unparalleled component environment. take a look at www.torry.net sometime, and show me another language with as many components freely available for download. try to be a little more open minded when a company gives the linux community something as powerfull as kylix. there's no reason to take offense to it's presence and price tag. kylix will usher in a new era of development for linux.

Actually, you're wrong.

g++ translates the input C++ code into FORTRAN and uses f77 to generate the actual assembly.

Close, though.

What happened!

What happened to /. ? There used to be smart "nerds" who had interesting/decent discussions. More and more everything turns into an off-topic war of mine vs. yours.

This Kylix thing for example; People are all over themselves with how I couda done this in this language, or Perl would solve World hunger (which it very well may -- but's that's besides the point).

Here are my points:
1) Read the article; there will be a free version for download.
2) Eyery language bigot I have ever met starts of with "What can your language do that mine can't?" If you have to ask, you are not worth talking to. Because, the answer is -- very little to nothing.
3)Perl, Python, C/C++ -- all of these do exist on the Windows platform. Yet, Delphi find a comfortable place among them. No, it's not the *most* popular language for Win dev, but so isn't Python. ( Sorry, but I had to say it).
4) It's not about having a language -- there are plenty. It's about having a industrial strength RAD environment on Linux.
5) It's about having a good enough platform that lets you switch from a productive RAD session to a performance tuned server app without managing 20 different code windows. And it's about being able to debug them both at the same time.
6) This is not about language wars.
7) This is not about language wars; stay home.
8) As a professional Windows software developer, who has been playing with Linux since the version 1.0 kernel, price isn't the issue to me. My company pays me 6 figure salaries not because how many languages I know. They pay me because I deliver. And if Lylix lets me deliver -- on Linux -- several times faster than I could before, I would pay the $2000 price without taking a "slashdor moment."

Now back to our regular programming...

everybody do your homework

Here are some important points for everybody that is complaining:

1) They are releasing a free version for download or to buy ($99 for cd and manual by mail). This will be equivalent to what the JBuilder 4 free download is to the JBuilder 4 professional edition.

2) Kylix does not use Wine in any way shape or form. Period.

3) CLX is GPL'ed. A damn smart move.

4) C++ builder will follow in around 6 months. So to all those people who (for some reason are another) are anti-object pascal, this is still a damn good thing.

The only thing I am worried about is compatibility with gcc. Otherwise this is the best thing to happen to linux in a long long time.

Can anybody give me reasons why they won't use it? Do people have a prejudice against IDEs or RADs?
Borland is doing a good thing, and paying attention to what people in the linux community are asking for.

Re:$999 for cross-development?

Two points in response:

1. There is a free download version. You can only write GPL'ed programs with it because it links in code released under the GPL - even though the Kylix platform is not all GPL. I have no problem with that, I applaud Borland for coming up with an interesting way to support free software development while still maintaining some intellectual property. I know I'll give the free version a try when it comes out.

2. Given that a good developer costs far more than $1000 a week in salary, then this software is worth getting even if it saves less than a week of development time. If I like the free version of this software and find a use for it, I'm sure my company will buy me a copy.


Torrey Hoffman (Azog)

I love Borland.

There will always be a place in my heart for Borland. The first real programming language I ever learned was Turbo Pascal. The Turbo Pascal 7.0 IDE was the best text mode IDE ever. (It could highlight my code with ease even on my 8088). At the height of MASM's (the Microsoft Macro Assembler) popularity, Turbo Assembler could not only assemble its own syntax (called Ideal Mode), but it could also assemble MASM syntax faster than MASM could itself. TASM even went so far as to emulate all the bugs in all the different versions of MASM! Just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye. Borland, to me, was the Mount Olympus of the Programming Gods. Why has Borland never dominated over Microsoft in the PC compiler market? Two things: Microsoft (of course) leveraged their OS monopoly; and Borland had some shitty management.

We'll probably buy it...

We deploy web applications that answer to a PostgreSQL back end. Assuming that it is possible to write PostgreSQL applications (not just MySQL), then this will be a terrific boost. While the core applications are web based, all the administrative stuff is a pain to do web based. Writing all the error checking in Javascript is irratating, and sometimes gets skimped on.

I'm a former VB Programmer (as well as general NT guy who used Linux as a hobby for a few years), and VB was always irritating to do anything useful. C++ Builder was irratating (I'm not a huge C++ fan), by Delphi was interesting to say the least.

Developing quick database applications is gold. Doing them all web based is irratating, and the UI isn't so hot. The ability to let your administrative tools be written as a desktop applications is awesome. While the Windows only version would be adequate, Linux support makes our life easier. Our development environment in Linux, so while we all have Windows computers as well, it's more convenient to have everything in one place.

This, in a work, rocks.

Re:$999 for cross-development?

It's not just portability you are paying for--it's super-portability. If my understanding is correct, Kylix allows you to develop applications that will automatically run natively using the widgets of the platform whether it be Windows, Gnome/GTK+ or KDE/QT. I don't know how many people would pay $999 for personal use, but I can definitely see software companies being attracted.
----

Black Adder

Another cross platform RAD tool for Linux and Windows is Black Adder [thekompany.com] - It uses Qt and Python. At a third of the price for borland's kylix and using python (i'll take python over Pascal or C++ any day) it should be extremly interesting to see. The beta version is still missing a couple of things (writing python w/o autointenting sucks) but i can't think of any faster enviroment to develop in than Qt and Python. Both are extremly easy to learn, and does mostly what you expect it to do..

While Kylix is very interesting for Delphi users wishing to migrate from legacy OSes i think Black Adder is a better choice for the unix crowd. (It's not OSS tho - but i can understand that theKompany needs to make a living too. They've released tons of Free software, so i don't mind "sponsoring" their Free work with buying other non-Free software)

Not to mention that Black Adder is a much cooler name than Kylix :)

-henrik

Some random notes about Borland/Inprise

According to eweek (printed version, hence no link), the promise of releasing Kylix has boosted their stock by 35% (Symbol will change to BORL).
Also, they are promising three different versions. A 'server' version, a 'desktop' version, and a free version, that will include GPL'ed versions of the libraries, therby forcing you to write GPL'ed software with it. Sounds pretty decent to me.
(For more information, check out this editorial [linuxtoday.com] on the subject at Linux Today.)