Borland Software has legions of software coders to thank for its sometimes improbable survival over the past two decades. Once again the company is trying to change its colors, but this time executives promise not to forget their roots. Read the article at ADTMag.
Can Borland Ride the Life Cycle?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I started with turbo pascal! loved that IDE!! loved the integrated debugger (emacs my arse! 😉
And more, to this day i still copy/paste using crtl+insert / shift+insert.
All VB 6 developers throw away their code when they move to .net, because it’s not OOP, and vb.net is not backwards compatible with vb6.
However, we can save our hundreds of thousands of lines of Delphi code when we move to .net because it’s backwards compatible.
Those legions of software coders have their reasons to support Borland. Above is one of mine. You can trust them on their development tools.
I wish Anders Heilberg didn’t leave for MS.
This will never fly.
On one side they have to compete with Microsoft’s own Visual Studio .NET. They will never be allowed to market a superior alternative, MS will change .NET, the OS or the legal landscape to prevent this.
On the other they have NetBeans and Eclipse to compete with. They have a fighting chance here with JBuilder.
Kylix, i hear, is a good product. Not one I can think of any reason to use, but there are abviously quite a few Delphi people out there. They have a product with no obvious alternative in the market here.
This news is about Borland restructuring around .NET development, and they are just lining up to get slaughtered (again) by Microsoft.
It’s going to put the brakes on development and marketing of both JBuilder and Kylix in the short term.
Kylix will disappear, with Borland doing the work to create K# (Kylix for .NET), at which point MS will make Vis. Studio .NET the only useful way to develop with K#, by making Borland’s IDE too slow, refusing to license important Longhorn APIs or shutting them down with patent suits.
JBuilder will have become an inferior, expensive alternative to Eclipse/NetBeans, and will no longer be generating any kind of profits or market/mindshare for Borland.
Hence, Borland will be screwed again, with Microsoft taking their Kylix customers, and their Java customers switching to Open Source.
Its pretty sad really, but I guess that is the state of the software industry today.
The interesting thing about the article is that only something minute is mentioned about C++ Builder.
Expect C++ Builder users to migrate to VC.Net in droves. C++Builder will soon drop of Borland’s road map!
Read their newsgroup for more info:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=b…
Kylix is ….. hmmm. Delphi is great. A lot was lost in the port unfortunately.
If I wanted to make money with a kickass IDE for Linux (well, i would rather write it as free software or whatever) I’d add proper IDE style features to emacs.
Forget about borland and kylix use open source alternatives
Netbeans,Eclipse as java ide
http://lazarus.freepascal.org as Kylix alternative
Having been involved with FPC for years, I had a real laugh at your comment about using Lazarus 😉
That would be like me using the second public beta of Kylix to do development 😉 Free Pascal is totally unprepared for doing anything like what Kylix can already achieve. We’re not speaking of IDE’s here. We’re speaking of language features. Even at FPC 1.1, which is still nowhere near release quality yet, (there will be a number of 1.0.x releases still), they do not support all of the features that Kylix’s Object Pascal does. Sad really, but FPC have too many projects and not enough manpower.
I could translate large projects written in Delphi with VCL that I’ve worked on to Kylix with CLX in a few weeks, I would *never* be able to do so with FPC and LCL/FCL.
Having been involved with FPC for years, I had a real laugh at your comment about using Lazarus 😉
That would be like me using the second public beta of Kylix to do development 😉 Free Pascal is totally unprepared for doing anything like what Kylix can already achieve. We’re not speaking of IDE’s here. We’re speaking of language features. Even at FPC 1.1, which is still nowhere near release quality yet, (there will be a number of 1.0.x releases still), they do not support all of the features that Kylix’s Object Pascal does. Sad really, but FPC have too many projects and not enough manpower.
I could translate large projects written in Delphi with VCL that I’ve worked on to Kylix with CLX in a few weeks, I would *never* be able to do so with FPC and LCL/FCL.
JBuilder is nice, but we’ve recently moved to NetBeans due to the outrageous pricing of JBuilder. NetBeans does everything JBuilder does and some even better!
Borland needs to look at their pricing system a little better…they make nice software, but if many can’t afford it…then they have a problem!
PD
Back in the day, IBM paid Borland a lot of money to do an OS/2 port of Borland C++. Well, Borland did the port, got their piddly coin, and lost the entire Windows market because they took their eye off of what was truly important.
Now Microsoft comes along with $200M of dirty gold and gets Borland to take their eye off the ball again. Instead of focusing on a very interesting growth market (Linux/FreeBSD), Borland is focusing on a market that Microsoft owns and controls. Borland basically signed up to be a Microsoft foot soldier instead of being the captain of their own destiny.
If not forgetting their roots means making the same giant glaring management mistakes they did in the past, it doesn’t bode well for Borland.
Perhaps someone in management should research Microsoft and their history of faustian bargains:
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1013311.html
And perhaps someone in management should research Borland’s foolish habit of making foolish acquisitions.
CheckBook Tracker for LINUX
http://tony.maro.net/mod.php?mod=userpage&menu=9&page_id=4
some screenshots
http://tony.maro.net/mod.php?mod=userpage&menu=904&page_id=20
this confirms that we can actualy code in lazarus and we
don’t need the clx bloat (lcl is enough for me).
there are even db components like Tibquery,Dbgrid ..etc
come and join us
Borland Turbo C++ 3.0 for DOS was the first thing I had ever seriously coded in (I used Metrowerks for a few weeks). I’ll never forget the IDE. Infact, I like Sarges said, use ctrl/shift insert for copy and paste (except when in emacs =).
I learned to code in Assembley in TASM, not NASM. I learned the TASM syntax because it was that or a M$’s MASM.
Needless to say, I’d be willing to support Borland with their fine products. I most recently was excited when they began to give away BCC++ 5 for free. I was trhilled!
This tool totally rocks. It makes ooa/d so much easier and dare I say a little bit of fun. When I changed employers a few years back, I downloaded a trial copy to reverse engineer UML from their source library and wow! Within 2-3 days I had enough of an overview that I understood what was going on within their code and could get to work refactoring/coding/etc. The reverse engineering part took maybe 0.5 day. With Rational it likely could have taken a week (I have reverse engineered UML with rational on several occasions with different projects).
I see many people who have passion for the old products. The ones that were lean, mean, and affordable. Borland doesn’t make too many products like that anymore. There is no real “Turbo” culture left at Borland.
It would be very interesting if Borland took all their new enterprise bloatware and distilled them to “Turbo” versions. And ported the Turbo code to Linux and FreeBSD.
I saw two screenshots of C#Builder and got the feeling of an unfinished product, what I disliked most was Borland trying to make the IDE as VS.Net-alike as possible. I personaly prefered the top-tabed control pallete a la Delphi than the bunch of controls a la VB. Concerning JBuilder and Java programming for that mather, I have used it and though it’s a good IDE, I would give a chance to eclipse (if the finally get a decent looking RAD plugin) or NetBeans which has the mix a like: the syntax of Java and the look and feel of delphi without the non-standard controls from Borland in JBuilder.
I think I purchased my last development tool from them when I got Delphi 6 and Kylix 2. They are great, don’t get me wrong, it’s just I hate their registration scheme.
I realize there are folks out there who will pass around copies of software, especially development tools, but the two-tiered registration scheme introduced with Delphi 6, and subsequently ported over to Kylix (and probably C++ Builder) really ticks me off. I tend to rebuild my computers quite frequently, and I dislike having to either send my info to them, or to call their customer service to register the software each time I install the tools.
My advise to Borland on this matter:
You aren’t really stopping the piracy. All you’re doing is pissing-off your “legions” of loyal customers.
I think the big thing that hurt Borland a few years ago was when they drastically changed the price points of their products (doubled the cost in some cases), and at the same time removed all of the useful items from their entry level products.
This effectively left a lot of small independants and hobbiest level developers out in the cold. They could no longer afford to buy the next version of the product they needed to continue with.
I could justify a $350 upgrade price, but couldn’t justify a $700 upgrade price for what really equated to a big fix release.
What I like with Microsoft and Borland compilers (as opposed to GCC) is the nice C++ extansions like properties and closure pointers. I’m sooo used to those that moving to GCC is becoming a pain …
Only thing I hate at Borland is their attitudes about privileging Pascal over C++. Enough already with Pascal ! This language should die so they can concentrate on C++ only. But there’s a tradition many people don’t want to loose. And I can, sadly, understand that …
CheckBook Tracker for LINUX
this confirms that we can actualy code in lazarus and we
don’t need the clx bloat (lcl is enough for me).
Of course, I’m sure you could’ve coded it in assembly also, so what’s your point? Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean it is to be done.
This is just one more attempt by an open source zealot to try and pass off a half-assed open source ‘alternative’ to a clearly superior commercial apps.
And no, I’m not saying that the commercial apps are always better. But when they are, they are.
Get Microsoft to give them Visual J++ and use that as the foundation of “Turbo Java”.
If Borland were to include a standard compiler in “Turbo Java” and price it as a “Turbo” product, it would be a runaway smash for entry level Java.
It would be great to see a version of Java that is hacked down to building killer client apps versus all the giant enterprise bloatware Javas you find these days.
Why bother?
Just grab Gel ( http://www.gexperts.com ) and the JDK for Windows, and you have a rock solid base to start working with Java.
I think the big thing that hurt Borland a few years ago was when they drastically changed the price points of their products
I completely agree with you. I loved programming in Delphi, and liked C++Builder even more (I don’t care for Pascal’s syntax), but the new price schedule is way too high and I’ve moved on to other tools.
Won’t run on a brand new dell server, Still some bugs to work out I guess.
Wrong click there. Page just moved up a notch.
“What I like with Microsoft and Borland compilers (as opposed to GCC) is the nice C++ extansions like properties and closure pointers. ”
IMHO the in-house C++ extensions are not too good idea.
“Only thing I hate at Borland is their attitudes about privileging Pascal over C++. Enough already with Pascal ! This language should die so they can concentrate on C++ only. ”
C++ is very good for games or RDBMS servers but not for RAD related things. If you want C-like language in RAD environment use C#. It is a very good language with the best things from C++, Java, and Object Pascal.
There was also that Inprise name debacle. Since then, I’ve never really had any confidence in the company. Maybe things have changed over there, but this decision hints at the same lack of awareness of the real world…
That topic reminded me of RIDE THE LIGHTNING the second best Metallica Album ever. Too bad they dont put out good albums anymore:(
Too bad Metallica went on a rampage against their fans vis-a-vis P2P and Napster.
Too bad Metallica didn’t put out any of their live material or rarities that the fans wanted.
Too bad Metallica was feeding their giant egos recording elevator-mixes of their songs with symphonies.
Too bad Metallica stuck to extremely high CD prices, locking out huge numbers of their fans.
And it’s just too bad that no one cares about Metallica anymore.
BTW whatever happened to the site that sprung up a few years ago to collect credit card donations from Napster users so they could “pay Lars [drummer]”? That site was hilarious, the message board was filled with posts variously bashing and defending the band, Napster, and the record industry, intermixed with discussions of the band’s music.