Board index » cppbuilder » OK, I'm off to Redmond again!

2003-09-18 01:12:02 PM
cppbuilder60
I'm a lowly VB developer (dare I say MCSD??) and just came across this
newsgroup.
With the release of the .NET framework, I was getting a little fed up with
MS. I was more than a little miffed that all the years of my VB learning was
basically shot away by MS with this release.
As I figured that they're forcing me to learn a new language anyway, and I
wanted to get lower level instead of yet another wrapper away from the API,
I started looking at other tools. Came across C++ Builder 6, downloaded the
trial and have something like 23 days left before it expires. First off, I
was REALLY impressed with Builder and the VCL. Good IDE, if a little
unpolished. Love the VCL and the feeling that you're no longer doing "black
box" programming as in VB. Trouble is, I have found it completely impossible
to find reasonable help, code samples and decent books on the subject. I
have struggled my way through for some weeks now, at times completely
guessing how to do stuff, (Man those help files are vague!), have spent
countless hours doing internet searches, and even resorted to delphi sites
to glean something from their examples with the VCL. Despite this, I have
been able to create some workable apps in Builder. It was beginning to feel
like C++ Builder was a very well kept secret!
Now, having read through all the comments on this group, I'm going to give
it up and move on to VC7.
I'd really rather not, from my little experience with C++ development, I was
able to see that Builder was far superior and easier to use. But if all you
seasoned guys are this disgruntled by the upcoming change, support from
Borland and customer loyalty issues, seems like I should jump ship before I
get settled down.
Please feel free to ignore my prattling. Just thought you (and Borland) may
be interested to know my experience.
Alan.
 

Let me say one thing here. What is the primary use of these
newsgroups? It's to get help with a problem. So, by definition,
the people who come here most have the most problems.
When was the last time you subscribed to a newsgroup
because everything was working right, and you wanted to
post a message that says: "Hi everybody! The software just
did what I expected it to! Isn't that great?" The point is,
the good majority of BCB users don't post here, because
BCB meets their needs, and they don't have any pressing
problems to solve. You aren't going to hear jack squat
from those people. But if you could, they would say:
"Sure, BCB has some quirks, like any software, but
overall, it does what I need it to."
So where does that leave you? It leaves you with the
people who have the most problems, and noplace to vent
their frustration. Count the number of complainers here,
and guesstimate the number of BCB users. Naturally,
it's a small minority which are the most vocal whiners.
Now, some of them have legitimate gripes, and many
of them have understandable concerns. But this cycle
of whining is as predictable as the solar eclipse, and
the fact that you hear from the same people each time
proves that they didn't find something else in the market
that was compellingly better since the last cycle of
whining.
Am I saying that BCB is without it's problems, or that
Borland has done everything right? Absolutely not. I
make no apologies for either one. But if you look at
the signal-to-noise ratio, you'll see that the current
channel contains a lot of redundancy. Whether you
consider that signal or noise is up to you. But do
perform a quick Fourier transform on the input before
deciding that it all spells the downfall of BCB.
Like you said, there are plenty of things to like about
BCB. It is a one-of-a-kind product, despite being at
version 6, with many years for others to play catch-up.
The problem is that it does what it does so well, those
who have invested heavily in it take what it does for
granted. If it didn't work so well, people wouldn't be
here complaining about the hundreds of forms and
thousands of lines of code they wrote with it. Keep
that in mind.
For the small developer (which includes me!), your
primary toolset is like your wife. You are married to
it, you love it, you hate it, but you can't live without it.
You don't want to see it die. So if it looks like it's in
danger, it doesn't matter if it is or not. You're gonna
start with whoopin and hollerin and raisin a ruckus,
because something near and dear to you appears to
be threatened. It's like trying to go near a bear cub
with its mother nearby. Come back in a month. The
furor will have died down, some semblance of sanity
will return, and you'll get the regular old stream of
low-level whining that you get with any product.
Dave
 

"Savannah_Alan" wrote:
vcl.components.using. There you will find all the help you need. And there
is always your friend GOOGLE groups.google.com/
Peter
 

{smallsort}

Many answers can be found here.
www.tamaracka.com You can even specify to search cppbuilder
newsgroups only.
I am one of the silent majority. I don't know what the future of C++Builder
is beyond the little that has been seen to date. I'll wait until I know the
facts before I render the the judgments that many have passed here.
Meanwhile, I'll continue with Builder6
-Michael
"Savannah_Alan" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message

In article <3f6a1e63$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM >, Savannah_Alan wrote:
even better with Delphi because that's what the VCL is written in. The
change in language from Basic to Objectpascal may be smoother than
Basic to C++.
Regards,
Steve Tyrakowski
www.sct-associates.com
 

Hello!
I have used Borland products since the early Pascal compilers and I really
like C++Builder. I think however that there should be some books like
Calverts Unleashed for C++Builder 6,0. The books by Hollingworth, Swart and
others are good but of another kind than Calvert's. If you start from
scratch with C++Builder it's no fun to have to start with a book for version
3 or 4. How does Borland catch newbeginners?mvh hans
"Michael Gillen" <mgillen@gillenconsultinggroup~removeme~.com>skrev i
meddelandet news:3f69b78f$ XXXX@XXXXX.COM ...

Alan,
I really like BCB and VCL. I'm not alone in this and that is why
so many of us are worried about whether BCBX will support VCL
form designing. We don't know the answer yet but possibly will
in a week or two. If Borland keeps supporting VCL in BCBX then
I'll keep upgrading.
As for your problems learning: yes, the on-line help is really
deficient. But the folks in the news groups are very very
helpful. Plus, for most answers you can find them in
groups.google.com from the archives as others have
suggested.
There are BCB books as well. Since you are a beginner I can tell
you that even a book written for a previous version of BCB will
teach you most of what you want to know. You could probably find some of them used. Others here can tell you which books are best for what purposes if you just ask.
As for the alternatives: yes, I just hate how much both VB and
Access forms designers hide stuff from you. I've gotten in
situations where some form's hidden design data got messed up
and the form started doing weird things I couldn't fix. I've
literally had to re-layout a completely new form to get it
working again. Plus, with so much hidden you just can't achieve
the same level of control that you can in BCB.
As for bugs in BCB: As others have indicated, those who have
problems are most likely to complain. BCB works pretty well for
me the vast bulk of the time. It has gotten into weird behaviors occasionally but nothing I couldn't work around and get
productive again. Their service paks have fixed the biggest
problems I have had. Ditto for those problems encountered by a
guy I collaborate with.
One other note: for a graphics library I use with VCL a developer at the vendor told me that I could use it as a VCL control or an ActiveX control but that the overhead of ActiveX controls was much higher and that I'd find the VCL version was faster. Well, I hate having to deal with ActiveX registration in the first place and I really like for purposes of ease of distribution to be able to link controls into the main exe. You avoid the phone calls about what version of this or that is in this or that directory and what else they've installed and all that. So I think VCL makes customer support easier.
"Savannah_Alan" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote:

Thanks for all the replies guys. I feel quite sad that it seems C++ builder
seems a no-go for me.
As I said, I am REALLY impressed with it. Because of my connections with
Microsoft, I get Visual Studio .Net for nothing, but I was so impressed with
Builder that I would have gladly paid for it instead.
As for the learning resources: maybe it was just my bad luck, but I have
posted 5 questions on borland.public.cppbuilder.students in the last week
and not had a single reply! I have purchased C++ builder 6 developers guide
(Hollingworth, Sward, Cashman and Gustavson), and C++ Builder 6 Developers
guide (Kolachina). The first is quite useful, but I needed more of a
beginners guide, the other is quite good for beginners, but leaves huge
holes. As far as I could find out, that was about it on the books front. As
one poster states, it's a shame that beginners would have to troll through
the books for old versions, to glean the necessary information.
I would have thought it would have been in Borland's interest to make sure
there was adequate learning resources available. I think they have a really
great product in C++ Builder, but surely it shouldn't be so hard for a
beginner to get started with it. I like to think I'd find it easier than
many to get up to speed, given my 20 years of programming experience. What
must it be like for a complete novice to programming! I even went on to the
Borland site yesterday to find out about available courses and got missing
links/page errors!
I'd like to open the question up to you guys. What would you do in my
position? I'm really not that happy with the .NET business. I guess there
will be no real way to avoid it in the long term, but it really feels like
they're trying to make a VB out of VC++. My options it seems are:
1. Continue struggling with C++ Builder and worry about what is going to
happen to the VCL, and it seems there will be a time when it's the .NET
framework for Windows or nothing.
2. Get stuck into C++ .NET. I've had years of "managed" code and struggling
with implementing API calls in VB to get to the real heart of the system.
One of the great drives for this change for me was to get more (total) power
over the system and to feel more like a programmer than an implementor. One
of the first lines I read in a C++ .NET book this afternoon at the bookstore
was: "You can create unmanaged and MFC applications in C++ .NET, but this
should rarely be necessary...". Not really what I wanted to hear. That
Intermediate language idea leaves a bad taste in my mouth. "Great, back to
VB P" code I thought. Doesn't seem that much difference between interpreted
VB and JIT compiling in .NET. Maybe I'm burying my head in the sand, but I
never again want to have to say to anyone: "Well, you can't really do that
in X language...". That's what attracts me to C++.
3. Give in and just do VB .NET. That would definitely be the easiest option
for me, but I really wanted to go to a lower level, not even higher.
Love to hear your opinions on what you would do in my position...
Alan.
 

of the question. The newsgroups are peer assistance and those familiar with
a subject are more likely to be found in a newsgroup related to that
subject.
. Ed

Alan,
I never read .students. Suggest you post your questions in the
group title that most precisely matches what you are asking
about. For me that usually that is .ide for anything
build/project/visual design/project settings related and the
using group for VCL controls and writing event code for VCL.
The .ide group seems to be the most general one to guess to post
in if you don't know where to post in. Take another stab at
getting answers in those groups. I think you will get better
responses.
Basic: I'm sick of it. I want to work in a more powerfully
expressive language. C++ seems like a real non-training-wheels
language for real men. If I want to program in a more heavily
typed language than C++ then Java is a lot more esthetically
pleasing and is more portable if you need that.
I can see the arguments for the p-codes. But they never seem to
be as fast and the p-code apps take longer to JIT compile when
starting up. Also, a lot of the p-codes impose various
restrictions. If you need to write emhedded real-time (which I
sometimes do) then they are not going to be suitable. Any
language that does garbage collection has a lot of advantages in
some domains. But that gives you less control over when things
run.
As for .NET: As an entrepreneur it really doesn't offer me any
advantages for what I do. I know what my customers want added to
my apps. I don't see how .NET will make it easier to add those
things. But someone looking for a job in the job market might
find knowing .NET to be more advantageous.
If you care about job skills then Basic is probably something to
steer away from. I think there is a bias against Basic
programmers. They are not considered to know as much and I think
their salaries reflect it. C++ experience is a signal to
managers that you can program without training wheels. A manager
is going to think they can turn a C++ programmer into a C# or
Basic or Java programmer but will have doubts about how far a
Basic programmer can go in taking on other kinds of work.
 

In article < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >, Savannah_Alan wrote:
other tools think it's broken. I've been using the language since Delphi 1
when we needed to replace Clipper. I've come across nothing that it has not
been able to handle. About the only things I've heard others say they would
need C++ for is writing device drivers or some highly specialized math
software. Certainly, any applications you could write in VB can be written
with Delphi.
Regards,
Steve Tyrakowski
www.sct-associates.com
 

Yes, I have considered that. I think you're right, the language change would
probably be easier, although I've already invested quite a bit of time in
brushing up my C++.
How powerful is Delphi? I've always heard that it's pretty good, but haven't
come across many Delphi projects or programmers. Probably because I've been
a Microsoft queen for so long though ;-)
Thanks for the suggestion Steve. I'll give it a look.
Alan.
"Steve Tyrakowski" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message

I took "borland.public.cppbuilder.students " to mean students of CPPBuilder.
I thought I was in the right place. Oh well...
Alan.
"Ed Mulroy [TeamB]" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message

"Savannah_Alan" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
According to Borland's official description:
"borland.public.cppbuilder.students - Discussions on issues of interest
to students."
Gambit
 

"Randall Parker" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
wants people to ask where they are supposed to be asking questions in (not
the questions themselves, just the where).
Gambit