“It is not as if I am new to Kylix. I am a Delphi programmer since version 1, and I always keep my C++ skills up. So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to the release of Borland’s Kylix 3, the Rapid Application Development environment for Linux that includes both Delphi language and C++ IDE’s (integrated development environment). The code produced with Kylix can be recompiled with minimal changes under Microsoft Windows using either Delphi for Windows version 6 or greater, or C++ Builder version 6 or greater.” Read the review at NewsForge.
Review: Kylix 3 has Plenty of Programming Power
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I found the GUI of Kylix 3 for Linux quite disappointing. No wheel mouse support. And cut&paste sometimes works, but most of the time not (I think thats because Qt2 did had some cut&past problems which got fixed not before Qt3). Both little things, but they are enough to make the whole expierience an annoying one. Also the help browser is not quite state of the art too.
I always wondered, why they didn’t upgrade to Qt3 when releasing Kylix3.
With Qt3, Qt-apps look a lot more integrated in KDE than Qt2 apps do.
For those of you that use Kylix …
1) How cross-compatible is the code? For stuff in Delphi that requires access to the Win32 API, how does this convert over to Kylix, or does it (and vice versa)?
2) Does Kylix work like Delphi where you can distribute your code as a single executable (binary)? Does QT2 have to be installed on the user’s system in order for your apps to run?
Lastly, this is sort of a general question for you Delphi/Kylix programmers that only program in Pascal. If Borland ever decides to pull the plug on Delphi and the Pascal part of Kylix (or if Borland goes belly-up), what then becomes of your Pascal programming skills? Are there any other usable, professional cross-platform programming enviroments for Pascal programmers? I’ve been thinking of picking up Delphi, but this sort of bothers me, and is the same reason why I am shying away from VS.NET, as the languages are sort of proprietary to their respective IDEs it seems. I mean, I am sure there are other Pascal solutions out there, but are they anywhere near as powerful/workable as what Borland has to offer?
Is total bullshit. They’ve been lying with their marketing material for years. It’s stupid and shameful, IMHO. Infact, Borland’s BC++ is now pretty much the worst of the pack compared to GCC, ICC and MSVC++ in terms of correctness. I hope they get their shit together and do something smart like gut their whole shitty C++ frontend and replace it with something like EDG’s for their next major release.
As for their enterprise edition being “reasonably priced for the corporate market,” that one is a huge laugh. VS.NET can be had for a fraction of that which offers more docs, examples, and language support than Delphi/C++ by a long shot. I don’t see any compelling reason to buy it now unless there is some precedent to support existing code with it.
“As for their enterprise edition being “reasonably priced for the corporate market,” that one is a huge laugh. VS.NET can be had for a fraction of that…”
From MS’s website:
Full Packaged Product $1,799 US Not available Not available
Version Upgrade $1,079 US
For the Enterprise version of VS.net. I find those two prices very similar.
And Borland has fallen a bit, but last I heard with BCB6 compiler, Borland’s C++ compiler was bad on the most recent independent standards test. They had one off-handed compliment though: “At least it did better than MS’s compiler!” This was before VS.net compiler so I don’t know how MS did but I know compliance was not on of their targets (I believe it is for their next release, however).
1) The WinAPI code must be re-written for Kylix. The part that is cross-platform is all of the Standard components (Forms, Edit boxes, Labels, Radio Buttons, etc.) when used with the CLX forms available in Delphi/Win 5, 6 and 7.
2) Yes you do end up with a single executable, but I believe the QT library is required on the machines your application is installed on. I also think that most Linux distributions include it.
Pascal is available on the Mac platform supported by Metrowerks. Their version is standards compliant Pascal while Borland has made some changes to the general syntax in order to make it more object oriented. Borland is currently very strong financially with a couple of positive quarters in the last year. They have recently purchased several other software companies both in the US and abroad.
Diclaimer: I am self taught Delphi programmer for 7 years and I have only used the free version of Kylix a couple of times.
Geez, that sounds as though Borland has fallen a lot, if they’re even close to the basement in which Microsoft constantly lives.
I would imagine that Microsoft’s dismal showing even had optimising turned off as they don’t know how to generate optimised code which actually runs correctly.
I’m glad to see that Borland is still going further. Kylix looks good and I’d like to see it on Mac OS X.
Btw James, (Object) Pascal is no longer available on Mac OS.
My bad, I must have been thinking of the Pro version which is something like $400 or so afaik. Enterprise is even more prohibitive for small time developers. MS has better rebates for upgrading the last time I checked too.
Really a shame, back in the day when I first started programming with Turbo C++3, Borland tools were practically a de facto standard.
FreePascal is an implementation of ObjectPascal which intends to be compatible with Delphi. It compiles to win32 and Linux (x86 and another plataform I don´t remember). Lazarus is an IDE that imits Delphi (It also replicates the Delphi libraries) and it´s based on Gtk and it runs on Linux and Windows
Kylix 3 is free….
>I found the GUI of Kylix 3 for Linux quite disappointing.
>No wheel mouse support.
Kylix 3 has mouse wheel support, maybe you don’t have enabled it on your X, but it works
>And cut&paste sometimes works, but most of the time not
>(I think thats because Qt2 did had some cut&past problems
>which got fixed not before Qt3).
I don’t have problems with cut&paste at all
>Both little things, but they are enough to make the whole
>expierience an annoying one.
K1 and K2 IDE could be a bit of what you say, but K3 is stable enough to be used, both for developping and debugging.
>Also the help browser is not quite state of the art too.
It’s not the best, but it’s just as useful as the windows on.
>1) How cross-compatible is the code?
>For stuff in Delphi that requires access to the Win32 API,
>how does this convert over to Kylix, or does it (and vice versa)?
The code you create using CLX is full cross-compatible windows-linux, if you want to port Delphi code which uses Win32 API, you must change it to use Qt, but this is not too much work in most software projects.
>2) Does Kylix work like Delphi where you can distribute your code as a single executable (binary)?
>Does QT2 have to be installed on the user’s system in order for your apps to run?
You need to install the Qt library on the user computer, a single so you can reuse in your apps.
>Lastly, this is sort of a general question for you Delphi/Kylix programmers that only program in Pascal.
>If Borland ever decides to pull the plug on Delphi and the Pascal part of Kylix (or if Borland goes belly-up),
>what then becomes of your Pascal programming skills?
You can use Kylix C++, you don’t need to know Pascal to use Kylix, and respect Pascal programming skills I consider them just another tool on my toolbox, nothing more, I started developing with C++/ASM, and currently I use PHP in my work and Kylix in my spare time, if Kylix/Delphi/Borland dissapear, there is no problem to use another tool. In fact, I don’t think Kylix/Delphi lasts 40 years 😉
>ANSI/ISO C++ compliant compiler
>Is total bullshit. They’ve been lying with their marketing material for years. It’s stupid and shameful…
By this comments it seems you don’t know what ANSI/ISO C++ means, have you developed a full project with *just* ANSI/ISO C++??, if it’s the case, I congratulate you, for me was impossible.
>FreePascal is an implementation of ObjectPascal which intends to be compatible with Delphi.
>It compiles to win32 and Linux (x86 and another plataform I don?t remember).
>Lazarus is an IDE that imits Delphi (It also replicates the Delphi libraries) and it?s based
>on Gtk and it runs on Linux and Windows
Lazarus is a good *project*, yes, a *project* which is not ready yet for production and personally I won’t use it to create software for my customers because:
-Is not finished
-I don’t know if the libraries are powerful enough to my needs
-Lack of components
-I don’t know the performance and stability of the produced code
Regards.
I use Delphi since version 1 and I have used Kylix since version 1 (which was really buggy). Kylix 3 is the best Linux development tool, is fast, reliable, extensible, and saves you a lot of time.
VS.NET can be had for a fraction of that which offers more docs, examples, and language support than Delphi/C++ by a long shot. I don’t see any compelling reason to buy it now unless there is some precedent to support existing code with it.
Kylix has one BIG advantage over VS.NET and that is cross platform compiling. Being able to write your code once and compile it for both Windows and Linux is something Microsoft will never support and something that is becoming more and more of an issure for a lot of companies.
>ANSI/ISO C++ compliant compiler
>Is total bullshit. They’ve been lying with their marketing material for years. It’s stupid and shameful…
By this comments it seems you don’t know what ANSI/ISO C++ means, have you developed a full project with *just* ANSI/ISO C++??, if it’s the case, I congratulate you, for me was impossible.
seems like _you_ don’t know what compliance means.
try to compile code with partial template specialization with the borland tools…
FC++ fails
Boost.Lambda fails
I think libsigc++ may fail, and maybe Boost.Bind too
Just a little FYI, I have successfully compiled and used libsigc++ on the windows version of kylix: Borland C++ Builder.
If you’re gonna bash something, the least you could do is try to be correct.
that’s why I said may… signal/slot libs do a lot of templating, and in many cases have to work around compiler deficiencies, like boost.bind having a ton of extra code because MSVC has issues with void returns.
regardless, neither VC 7 nor C++ Builder are anywhere near full compliance