THE END - Borland C++ Builder, Delphi, J Builder?

Anyone who thinks Borland's IDE products have a future should read this:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/0...ts_ide_market/

or this:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/0...real_software/

or:

http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/0...and-seque-ide/


As a long time C++ Builder user, I have been confused as to it's future. First there was all the hype about dropping VCL for Kylix. Thankfully I never got around to porting any of my code. Then C++ Builder was left to languish for years on version 6. Talk was of a new version of Delphi, but no mention of C++ Builder. That was until recently when Delphi 2006 was announced...

Only to be followed by news that Borland is dumping the Delphi, C++ Builder and J Builder products. While it is possible that a new buyer may bring some hope, I can't see it myself.

I am sorry to see this happen. I have been a loyal Borland user for many years--sometimes to my own detriment. By shunning more popular products because I thought they were technically inferior, I've been stuck in a Borland niche for a long time.

Spectrum BASIC was my main programming experience until I discovered Borland Turbo Pascal in 1990. This was the start of a love affair with Borland that would last 16 years. Later I moved onto Borland's Turbo C compiler, but became hooked on Delphi in 1994. Finally, C++ Builder gave me what I wanted -- Delphi with C++. However, the C++ version always lagged behind the Pascal product and I always thought Borland had things back to front.

Thank you Borland for helping me to program back in 1990! However, for the last few years I've been keeping my eye open for something I could use to replace C++ Builder for my own product development... and I think I've found something.

So for any dissaffected C++ Builder users out there:

Take a look at: http://www.wxWidgets.org

This gives you a C++ open source cross platform framework not unlike VCL.

You can use most compilers with it (including VC++ or BCB), but my preference is for:

http://www.codeblocks.org

alternatively, you could opt for Bloodshed Dev-C, here:

http://www.bloodshed.net/

Both of the above use the MinGW compiler back-end.

Finally, for users who want to build applications by dragging components onto forms in the IDE, there is a version of Dev-C under development with a design time interface for wxWidgets. Here:

http://wxdsgn.sourceforge.net/

I have recently built my first wxWidget application using the MinGW compiler. I have released it as GPL and documented my source code. If you would like an example wxWidget application to play with, you could download my "Celesteroids" game from www.bigangrydog.com

Good bye Borland and thanks for all the Fish!

If they are dropping the products, maybe they will release them as free or even open source.

I heard they're dumping JBuilding to persue and eclipse based java IDE. Maybe they'll move all their IDE features to the eclipse platform.

edit: ROFL, i meant JBuilder

JBuilder was dumped a year ago to make place for selling Eclipse.

What's happening now is "strategic reallignment" with the complete scrapping of the entire line of development tools from the Borland portfolio (ironically, their core product line for the last 25 years or so).
They're planning to sell the division to another party, officially of course "carefully selecting a buyer who has the best interest of our customer base in mind" (a promise meaning nothing of course).

This will leave only a single serious player in the software development field for Windows, Microsoft Visual Studio.

Which is nothing new since it nearly took a miracle of divine intervention to get Borland to work with most Microsoft APIs.

oh? Never had a problem.
DX took a bit of work simply because the lib files were created specifically for VC6 which as everyone knows isn't very standards compliant (given today's standards), and BC 5.0 (which I used at the time) missed some other parts of the standard, but apart from that it's no problem really.

Not surprising too as there's a lot of cross pollination between the Borland and Microsoft IDE teams (Delphi and C# for example are the brainchildren of the same person).