Board index » cppbuilder » Re: C++ Builder alternatives

2003-09-29 01:28:47 AM
cppbuilder104
"Peter Agricola" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in
unchallenged!
MS are in no way dropping C++. The change of attitude in Redmond to
standard-compatibility issues is clear, and the speed they have turned
around the non-standard dog that was VC6 to ISO-friendly-but-still-not-
there-yet VC7.1 is astounding (given the time they decided to upgrade, not
from VC6 launch!)
MS are actively involved in the ongoing ISO C++ work, I'm still not clear
of Borland's commitment here yet (although they did put up a
Propeties/Methods and Events proposal recently)
Managed C++ seems to have originated in parallel with the new commitment to
ISO, and I think we will see much of it deprecated in favour of a cleaner
mixing of managed/unmanaged .NET code in the future. I dare say it will
still feel like an ugly hack, but hopefully nothing as abhorrent as MC++
today <g>
When MS moved from VB6 to B.NET they signed it well in advance, spent a
fortune on PR brainwashing the user community that the transition would not
be too hard, was definitely in their best interests, and provided migration
tools to solve most of the problems. We have not seen anything like this
w.r.t. VCL support on CBuilderX, a product which is already on sale!
And you might argue that MS never supported Java, as J++ did not get Sun's
seal of approval for a Java implementation. In fact, MS did not so much
drop J++ as Sun forced them to discontinue it.
Nevertheless, if you want coffee in your .NET they now ship another Java-
like product, J#, in Visual studio. I have no idea what the difference
between C and J is, but the choice is there.
MS do a lot of things that are worthy of beating them up for without
spreading our own FUD as well <g>
AlisdairM
 

Edward Diener wrote:
now?
they don't provide RAD either, just like CBX doesn't, at the moment.
I don't think that Borland is unaware of this.
--
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
"If you need more than five lines to prove something, then you are on the
wrong track" -- Edgser W. Dijkstra's mother [ibid, p. 55]
 

Edward Diener wrote:
What I meant was: the alternatives don't offer the RAD you seem to miss
in CBX, either, so in what respect are they better?
IOW, if RAD is not important to you anyway, why make a fuss about the
missing VCL, and if it is important, what alternatives are there for you?
--
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
"I don't even butter my bread; I consider that cooking."
- Katherine Cebrian
 

{smallsort}

Rudy,
I think you'd be a whole lot less complacent right now if Borland had
come out with a new IDE for OP that didn't include VCL support and if
Borland was simply telling you to wait to find out whether it would get
VCL support.
But of course you don't have to worry about that and you come over and
tell BCB uses that tehy shouldn't worry. That's easy for you to do.
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB) wrote:

Randall Parker wrote:
though I would miss RAD, I could very well live without it. I still have
Delphi 7 with a VCL, and if I needed more, I could either write my own,
or use Delphi for .NET and WinForms, or, if Delphi was dumped, C# and
WinForms. I'm flexible.
people trying to jump ship so soon, while there is currently nothing
comparable to jump to. Oh, there are many beautiful C++ compilers, and
lovely IDEs, but they won't bring back the VCL either.
So if people want to jump, that is their prerogative. But don't say it is
because of the missing VCL, since you won't have it elsewhere either. The
biggest chance of getting a VCL still comes from Borland, don't you think?
--
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure
is an inconvenience rightly considered."
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
 

"AlisdairM" wrote:
platform. MS has put all their money on .NET. It seems we agree more on this
point then you think. I don't understand the effort for standard compliance,
but uncle Bill will suprise us again I think.
a conversion tool. I said nothing about the PR of Borland. We just don't
know about the need of conversion from VCL yet.
Sun sued him of course. When he couldn't own Java he dropped it and made his
own runtime environment and called it .NET. I don't know either about the
coffee in .NET today but it seems a marketing trick to me. On paper you can
add a huge userbase to your .NET platform when Java code can be compiled to
MSIL. I don't think it can compile for JRE, nor is the code transportable
because of the different frameworks.
Peter
 

Rudy Velthuis (TeamB) wrote:
support for fixing bugs and putting out a C++ implementation which is well
supported. Please read my posts rather than reading only what you want to
see.
You don't have to defend Borland to me. In some areas they have done an
excellent job and in other areas they have been, quite frankly, lousy.
Supporting a product by actually fixing bugs in the latest release is
definitely one of the latter. They know, and I believe you know, that this
area has been pitiful. You have only to look on QC to realize that, but even
without QC it is apparent if you use BCB and run into the numerous problems
which impede development.
 

Rudy Velthuis (TeamB) wrote:
using the VCL, they at least offer an environment in which the product is
being improved. Borland's solution is to put out a release and then let
programmers deal with all the bugs until they are ready to put out another
release. Their patches fix very, very little of the problems and although
they are quite aware of some of the serious problems of any release, they
will stonewall many fixes until they can put out another release and make
money from fixing bugs. Whether a RAD environment is "better" than the VCL
matters less to me than if the company supports the product. Borland's
support of C++ Builder quite frankly stinks. That doesn't mean that they
don't do good things with it when they issue a new release. It just means
that they gladly forget about it until a new release comes out and they can
gear up their PR machine to make money from it.
Take a look at the BDN page. Tell me how many items you see about C++
Builder at any one time compared to their support and trumpeting of Delphi,
JBuilder, and now C#Builder. Get the idea.
support behind a development environment. It doesn't take a genius to see
that Borland's support for C++ Builder is lacking.
As for a decision, I am waiting to see what Borland does with C++BuilderX.
Right now it is a glorified IDE cross-platform compiler-linker. That's what
Borland has in mind for their new product at $1000 and $2500 a pop ? They
have got to be kidding or they have got to be loony ! So I am waiting, like
many others, to see where it goes and what it does and I hope for the best.
But dropping the VCL for C++ Builder programmers without even announcing and
supporting a path to move VCL and RAD programming from C++ Builder to
C++BuilderX would be one of the dumbest moves I have ever seen. I am hoping
that Borland doesn't follow such a path and continues to support the VCL
under the next iteration of C++BuilderX at least until C++BuilderX
programmers can move to and program with an alternative that is equally as
efficient and easy.
 

Edward Diener wrote:
seen enough on these groups to know what you mean.
--
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get
its pants on."
-- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
 

Edward Diener wrote:
C++ real C++, and unmanaged C++ seems to be deprecated by MS. Or did you
mean other C++ implementations?
--
Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)
"I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need."
-- Francois-Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make
his remarkable statues
 

"Edward Diener" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in
commitment to CBuilderX 2 years ago (as has been suggested) then any work
fixing BCB6 in the meantime is an unproductive distraction. [Even if the
existing customers are going crazy without it] Hence QC collects all these
bugs and we keep hearing excuses as to why they cannot be fixed now but
wait for the next release. Now for language bugs that is fair comment as
they will (hopefully) be addressed by the new compiler. IDE bugs are
leaving us with a tool that never really lived up to its full potential
though, in some cases unworkably so (although luckily those don't affect
me)
We should judge QC by how well it progresses through CBuilderX, as that
product will definitely be under active development, and judging by
JBuilder Borland will be looking at an aggressive release schedule of 6 - 9
months (although I guess we will see what the market will bear, we can't
afford to upgrade on those timescales)
Of course BCB6 did see 3 supported patches, a record as far as BCB support
goes. I reserve comment on whether I feel the scope of these patches was
'adequate' though... [Certainly there are some easy IDE fixes would have
been greatly appreciated.]
AlisdairM
 

"Rudy Velthuis (TeamB)" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
way that the VCL's OP interface must be used for properties and events but
that code can call into pure C++ code or libraries. Is Borland's
implementation easier to program ? Yes, it is still. But that doesn't mean
that managed C++ is that far behind.
I do see room for a pure RAD C++ environment and maybe C++BuilderX will be
it or someone else will do it. Boost's bind, function, and signals library
has shown that a rich set of callbacks and events can be programmed in pure
C++ and if it is not as easy as C++ Builder's __closures, it is more
flexible and richer in possibilities. As an example, the Boost signals
library has built-in support for multi-casting ( multiple event handlers
called for a single event ). I don't doubt that C++ Builder-like __property
can be done in pure C++ with templates.
The wxWindows implementation is not RAD and uses much older C++ idioms
bordering essentially on C language programming. I had suggested once on the
Boost NG, when some developers were contemplating a cross-platform GUI
implementation for Boost that instead the Boost programmers try talking to
the wxWindows folks to see if they can move wxWindows into modern C++. But I
think wxWindows commitment to support so many older, non-conformant
compilers precludes that. The DevCpp free IDE supports cross-platform
development using gcc with wxWindows being the favored cross-platform GUI.
But wxWindows is not only not modern C++, it is not even C++ of five years
ago when the standard was ratified and accepted.
Leaving C++Builder VCL programmers with no roadmap for the future other than
to stay with what already exists is not the right move by Borland, both
customer-wise and financially. Not fixing the many bugs in BCB is also not
right, not that I think Borland cares about the latter at all. In general
the anger at Borland is not so much pursuing a pure C++ cross-platform
environment as it is leaving so many C++ Builder developers behind with
buggy implementations and not providing a roadmap for future RAD/GUI
development. I work on components, and a number of things I have been
working on privately is C++ Builder components for C++ Builder developers. I
am sure there are many C++ Builder developers like me. To pull out of the
VCL for C++ Builder will waste much of my time and effort. It also destroys
for the future all those company projects based on C++ Builder and VCL RAD
programming.
I really don't believe a mere cross-platform C++ development IDE is the
right path for Borland. To give up all the fine work that they have done
with RAD, components, and ease of programming and telling the C++ community
that it is not for them is tantamount to giving up on C++ as far as Borland
is concerned. If that is the case, they might as well come out and say it.
If not, then Borland needs to take up C++ seriously again and devote their
time and efforts on gaining C++ programmers.
There is just no reason, other than pure unwillingness and lack of time and
commitment, that Borland could not have "fixed" C++ Builder and made it a
premier development IDE. Furthermore, if they had truly wanted to do it,
they could have created a situation where Delphi/C++Builder VCL components
could have been used equally on either side and that C++ and OP code could
have been freely mixed together. It would have created a much stronger VCL
environment with equal contributions from both side and the opportunity to
use one's favorite language interchangably in a common environment of their
own. But they simply did not have the will to do so. Their fear of MS and
their fear of losing Delphi programmers to C++ is so great that they have
hurt their own chances for success by the narrowness of their vision.
 

the major bugs many of
us wouldn't mind waiting to see what comes next. I agree with Edward in
this thread. Borland's
support seems to consist of releasing the next version and charging big
bucks for it. There are
some extremely irritating problems with BCB6 that don't seem very difficult
to fix.
 

"Edward Diener" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in
CBuilder + VCL did. After all, it IS C++ and not a hybrid, exactly what we
have been asking for (nay demanding!) all these years.
My problem is the way they old customer base is being ignored in the
process. We feel discarded. The new product is out on sale and STILL we
don't know what status of VCL is. All those IDE bugs reported over the
last few years are NOT going to be fixed, as we no longer have a supported
product to apply fixes to.
I am holding off on the doom-saying that VCL is dead until we get the
promised statements, but clearly from the way we are currently being
treated new customers are far more important than old ones.
Maybe they figure that if we held true through the last few years, they are
stuck with us no matter what?!
AlisdairM
 

"Duane Hebert" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in
available with the bugs fixed, even for big bucks :?(
I am looking forward to seeing what CBuilderX can do, but I really wish
there had been one final 'sunset' release of the CBuilder/VCL product to
just iron out all those silly bugs that niggle daily. That would make life
so much easier for those of us who will be supporting BCB-based products we
have developed for the next few years to come, and make migration much less
painful.
[Heck, we have a department here still supporting a product written in BCB1
as there has never been time to make the upgrade. BCB6 products will be
active for a long time to come]
AlisdairM