Board index » delphi » Why Delphi Win32 is important

2006-09-14 01:15:09 AM
delphi23
Delphi Win32 is important because of Linux.
Right now it is one of the best options for cross-platform development.
Kylix is dead (correct me if I am wrong); Lazarus is not ready yet (but
it's on the way); Mono is not good enough yet (and is doomed to play
catch with Microsoft .NET). Other portable options (GTK/QT/etc) don't
have a nice RAD environment like Delphi.
On the other hand, WINE has evolved (in the last years) enough to run
most Win32 applications written in Delphi 7 or less. If the developer
avoids certain problematic components, it runs 100% fine. Faster than
Java, more complete than Mono, easier to code than GTK/QT/whatever.
Been there, done that.
Many software solutions these days are web applications -
cross-platform by design. For the few cases where you can not run in a
browser, a Delphi Win32 application running under Wine is a excellent
solution.
Alexsander
 

XXXX@XXXXX.COM writes:
 

and Unix.
Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs.
Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free
alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100%
non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs
if they are available. Wine provides both a development toolkit for
porting Windows source code to Unix as well as a program loader,
allowing many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86-based Unixes,
including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Solaris."
You can run some of your Win32 applications on Linux, under Wine. If
they are carefully written (i.e. use only "standard"
components/widgets), there's more probability of working 100% on Linux.
There's a list of "compatible" applications on the website.
Alex
Irakli writes: