Comments for Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

2007-02-01T19:25:08-08:00

I do think that Borland should simply try to make up this ugly spot. First I was deceived sometimes ago when they abandoned dbase. After about 5 years using it, I had to close everything up and take a 100 rad curve! Now with CBX and again I am on the road side. There is nothing I can do about that. It is just like, ok, we bought a trash and huu! look, just forget about and buy something else! Well!!!. See I think YOU MUST GIVE those who bought CBX and registered their product, a pass to c++ Builder 2006!

VCL for BuilderX??

2004-11-18T11:06:56-08:00

Is there any new on VCL for BuilderX?Following the procedure suggested by Borland, we compiled a simple BCB6-VCL application with BuilderX, with success; but we couldn't see the form inside BuilderX, nor modify it... Is this the compatibility announced by Borland? Will we have to modify the form in BCB6 and then "use" it from BuilderX, is this the new RAD environment for VCL???Is there anybody in Borland, answering this (and similar) comment to the open letter??

Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

2004-07-08T12:43:07-07:00

Hi everybody,I read all the comments and I'd like to say that I agree 100% with the most of them.I must sadly say that this is my farewell to Borland, having used BCB from its first release (1.0) to the last (6.0).1) BCB-X is SHIT.2) I'll never code with Java unless I'll be dying for hunger and so forced to.3) while .NET might be the next technology and M$ is desperately trying to force everybody to use it, I can't bear the loss of efficiency and the lack of OS low level control access which M$ is slowly but constantly forcing the developers to accept coding with .NET and exposing newer OS API in that way.4) I cannot accept that C++ (and C) are almost treated like assembly nowadays and cursed to become so in the very near future.5) I'm tired of re-learning a new, incomplete, slower, powerless and to a certain extent more limitated way to do(??? or desperatly and frustrating attempt to do) *exactly* the same things.6) Bored to trash over a dozen years of deep knowledge and porting once again my applications to a new(!?) coding paradigm.7) VCL is real elegant OOP, MFC is counter-nature. 8) The only defect of VCL is to be coded in Object Pascal with a bunch of bugs which could usually be overcome with a reasonable effort.9) What I was expecting from BCB-X was it to be the next version of BCB6.0 but with a new VCL-like framework written in pure ansi C++, with some new features for easy porting/bridging with the old VCL code, for which, by the way, I wrote several dozens custom controls for the most different kind of apps.10) I'll stick to BCB6 untill possible, looking for, in the meanwhile, a free C++ solution compiler/framework, trying to find/write at least a decent RAD designer somehow.Borland, I honestly think that you have silently been bribed by M$, and wouldn't surprise me if one day you would be officially acquired by the latter.Perhaps anti-trust issues are keeping M$ by doing that?Being an electronics engineer and having designed hw devices for the most diverse kinds of needs, ranging from simple controllers to real time audio, video, biomedical data signal acquisition, computing and logging (but this is generally true for any kind of electrical signal)to microwave devices, I had to cope with the design and code of drivers, 2d/3d primitive drawing libraries, 2d/3d custom editors for different needs, a highly optimized MPEG4 codec, commercial DB apps, shell extensions and namespaces, lots of COM/ActiveX libraries, objects and controls.Not to mention the many other things i liked to design, code and sometimes even sell (out of my ordinary developer workplace).So fuck JAVA, .NET and the like, i want/need/claim the freedom to write highly otimized code (assembly/c/c++ or even object pascal), and use .NET only for the crappy commercial (mostly) DB applications Fuck u Borland, it has been nice til' it lasted but now it's over.

Some advise from a long time Borland developer...

2004-05-31T20:17:51-07:00

I've been writing code since Borland Pascal in dos and I have always preferred to use Borland Pascal/Delphi and C++BuilderX since they offered a truly RAD IDE better than MS with the same relative easy of use you might expect from VB, except you could actually create compiled executables rather than using a pseudo code interpreter like VB had (similar to the new .NET and Java). Now it seems since MS invested a large chunk of cash in Borland .NET has become the main focus...This is I think the issue the majority of developers have with Borland, we expected Borland would continue to offer a compiled exe compiler and just add .NET as an add-on at most but I think Borland has lost sight of what they had to offer that was unique to them. If we all wanted to write .NET applications we could just use C# or VB, .NET is so windows-centric using Delphi almost seems silly.C++BuilderX is ok and a Java IDE is no issue for me but where's the RAD IDE? Perhaps I'm missing something but isn't this thing just a simple compiler? What was the point of releasing CBX with no RAD support?A lot of people, including myself, have put a lot of time and effort into VCL components, I have written a few hundred in my day and think it's a great way to write apps. CLX is a good idea too but now it's just dropped off the planet???What about all the companies out there that sell VCL controls? There's only a few hundred of them, what are they to do now?I remember filling out a questionnaire some time back about what I'd like to see in the future from Borland but I have to wonder why Borland didn't ask it's users what it should do before it decided to go all out with .NET and drop VCL/CLX completely?We want the option to compile binary exes not .NET applications, if we are force to use .NET what do we need Borland for?Borland finally got things right in D7 I thought with the addition of DataSnap yet still had support for the old BDE. And just offered a preview of a .NET compiler.If Borland wants to make CBX into something worth using add support for VCL and CLX components before you release version 2 and make sure the IDE has all the features CB6 had.And for Delphi 9 bring back compiled exes, VCL and CLX support with .NET as just another project type and do so soon!People like myself do not want to just discard years of VCL code they have written and I don't feel we should have to, you should make tools WE want to use not tools you think we should use. Please add support for compiled exes, VCL and CLX ASAP before everyone jumps ship to MS.

Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

2004-05-26T15:30:36-07:00

Velko IltchevLecturer on “Compiler Construction” and “Object-oriented Programming”Department of Computer Systems, Technical University PlovdivSt. Petersburg blvd. 61a, 4002 Plovdiv, Bulgaria, EuropeTel.: 00359-32-627544, Fax: 00359-32-629018, Mobile: 0898-410233Email: iltchev@tu-plovdiv.bg or v.iltchev@ieee.org =====================================================TO:Borland Developer Networkemail: cpp_open_letter@borland.comSUBJECT: Open letter and other "good" newsPlovdiv, 27.05.2004Dear Colleagues,I am deeply disgusted from the news I receive in the last time from Borland.I begin to ask myself: "Is that Borland anymore OR is that a branch of MicroSoft?"I write on Borland products since 1987. In this year Borland released Turbo C ver. 1.0.I began to write on C much earlier, but I did NOT like the Microsoft C compiler for MS-DOS.I invested much time and money to go in depth into Borland C++ Builder and VCL.I show this product to my students as the best example of object-oriented and component style of programming.I recommend Borland products to my students and encourage them to use Borland products in their future work as young specialists.BUT:What I saw as Borland C++ BuilderX (at a first glance) was a text editor, which was able to call compilers written by other companies.MOREOVER:In your open letter from October 29, 2003 you wrote:"2. Windows C++ Applications. If you are committed to building and deploying C++ applications for the Microsoft Windows platform only, Borland will recommend and encourage developers to build for the .NET framework using Managed C++. Borland is committed to supporting this path by providing a C++ compiler with Managed Extensions and integrating support for VCL for the .NET framework, which should provide an straightforward route for current C++Builder 6 developers using VCL to migrate their applications to the .NET platform with less effort."HOW SHOULD I UNDERSTAND THIS?My questions:1. Why should I continue to invest time and money in Borland products? Who else can give me the guarantee that Borland will NOT change its "Long Term Product Line Strategy" again?2. How long will Borland exists as an independent company?3. Should I continue to pledge my name as university professor, recommending Borland products to my students?With best regards:V. Iltchev

re: Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

2004-04-25T12:52:37-07:00

What do you expect to hear:)?They screwed up and got nothing to say.>Fire your strategy folks borland, they will drown you.

re: Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

2004-04-25T12:10:23-07:00

re: Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

2004-04-17T14:51:19-07:00

Oh, my friend.I'm at your side, from the times of OWL.Borland fall INTO THE DARK SIDEAGAIN !!!, AGAIN !!!, AGAIN !!!What can we do ? My users are asking about supporting .NET and colaborations in the future, I don´t know what to say.Can we suing them ?

re: Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

2004-04-17T14:31:38-07:00

My full company are in crossroad now.C++ Builder X is terrible slow, even in our dual processor computers, PIV 3200 MHZ, 2 GB of RAM.The IDE are very UGGLY.What's the point about compiling my code in four diferent compilers ? Does borland realize that their own compiler is a crap ?What's the point about making linux, unix, mac apps ? Does this uggly things exist today ? I didn't see any of my neigbors installing linux because stability :-)Who care about the IDE is written in Java or Delphi or Visual Basic, the problems will persist because the programmers at borland continue to being mediocre. Remember "You wont be clever if you speak Latin"Borland is wasting its time, they dont sell Kylix, because is utopia, C++BuilderX and wxWidgets is utopia too, another kind of communism, the communism of computer software.Borland's consummers are tired of bugs, borland programmers cant do anithing about it, they simply switch to Java sort of things because is well PAID, money move the world and programmers from borland seem to shift to microsoft or get its salary increase programming in Java.Do you really think that they make any application using C++Builder, Kylix or Delphi ? I can't count how many COMERCIAL applications are and will be written using MFC and visual C++ just because is a solid product, and the guys at microsoft know what they want (money of course but I mean at this point "what they want in the future for this product"), but things are changing at microsoft too, A GREAT SHADOW IS EXTENDING AT MSFT (like the lord of rings) one lead programmer very fustrated about its Java implementation, suddenly come up with .NET C# and so on, a slow versions of a crap in which everybody can apply a part of his knowledge of every language and a new fresh API, this guy are really mad and we too because someday we will be writing thousands of line for this plataform in C# builder or microsoft .NET, so we are at THE END OF DAYS of fast tools and programmings, I will wait for a Windows Versions made in C#, a crap that need 10 GHZ machine and 10 GB of memory, but its a matter of time, C++ native compilers will become like ASSEMBLY language in our days, and our childrens will say "Are daddy mad ? why he is still programming in C++ ?". jajajaja. If we want to be productive we must switch to C# and .NET is pretty slow like java or so, but who care of that ? does anybody ask you why dont you write your programs in assembly for faster operations ?Does any product comes with a banner like "compiled with Inter Compiler" or so ? Software its about money !!! (Hello linux comunity, are you alive cause microsoft donations or something ?) It's like living in the soviet union.Money can do anything and we must trust in the microsoft vision, Bill Gates can foresee the future I´m absolutely sure !!!, he can crash anytime nevertheless he has money and can fix things :-)What to do next ?

Open Letter to the Borland C++ Developer Community

2004-03-01T03:07:40-08:00

I'm no longer continuing with Borland products, C++ Builder 6 is the end of the line for me. This sudden and radical shift from Borland is most unwelcome, Borland has been on the decline ever since their "Inprise" nonsense. They have lost their direction as a company. I'm changing over to Intel C++, there are other choices, Borland had great products for awhile, but getting locked into the VCL or the old OWL libraries that end up in nothing is a big mistake, and the now X.Good luck Borland, you need it!!!