Opinions on KYLIX 3 (Delphi 4 Linux)
Caleb Hattingh
caleb1 at telkomsa.net
Mon Jul 18 16:07:45 EDT 2005
Hi Doug
Not only was Kylix a letdown, there is talk also of it being
discontinued. To be fair though, it is easy to see the difficulty for
Borland to deploy a Linux IDE of the same quality as Delphi when so much
in different Linux distributions is variable, the widget set being a prime
example: CLX just never caught on, amongst the myriad of more mature and
more open toolsets.
I am assuming that you have experience with pascal, or ObjectPascal as the
Delphi manuals call it (if not, why Kylix?). If so, may I suggest you
look into
a) fpc (Free Pascal Compiler, http://www.freepascal.org)
b) Lazarus (An fpc IDE, aims to be an open-source Delphi clone, supports
multiple widget sets [Win32 native on Windows!], can't remember the URL)
Though python is probably my favourite language for general purpose
hacking, there is a lot to be said for a native compiled language
(sometimes speed _is_ an issue), and in particular there is a lot to be
said for fpc:
- Something like 99% Turbo Pascal compliant
- Very nearly Delphi compliant (object-pascal)
- (IMHO) Much cleaner language than C, still natively compiled
- Supports operator overloading & inlining
- Can be used to develop python extensions
- Supports nearly effortless cross-compiling
There are some problems with Lazarus at the moment, here is the biggie:
It creates binaries of around 5MB for a minimal app, and this is because,
at the moment it seems like it compiles the component library into the
executable. This is somewhat of a problem for me but I expect this will
change within a release or two.
Lazarus is _very_ much like Delphi, and works on Windows, Linux, and
possibly several other platforms.
cya
Caleb
> and net for info about Borlands KYLIX 3 and have found little technical
> info about it. Their screen shots are very impressive, similar to Visual
> Basic. I have sent several emails to Borlands Sales and Pre-Sales
> departments. Pre-Sales bounces and Sales won't answer. I'm sitting here
> with money in hand ready to buy but not from a company that won't give me
> the time of day.
>
> Does anyone of you have experiance with KYLIX 3 and do you think I should
> consider buying it? Thank You, I'll go oil my keyboard now.
>
> Doug
>
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