So where is the new Borland?
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All this talk of MS dev tool lack of quality has me a bit nostalgic for the days when developing for MS technologies wasn't a monopoly. For those of you who haven't studied your IT history, there was once an upstart company named Borland who, back in the days of Pascal and C, developed a killer compiler and IDE, long before MS came along with Visual C++. It was fast. It was full featured. And it was really inexpensive. Turbo Pascal and Turbo C sold for around $89 when the comparable command line MS C compiler was going for $450. Borland made a lot of sales. Takes money to make money, you say? Not so. Philippe Khan, who started this little party, negotiated a full page ad in PC Magazine, around $5k, on 30 day terms when the norm was cash up front. This bought him enough time to make sales, cover his advertising, and hopefully live to fight another day. And he didn't even have the web to help him. Borland made a lot of money. Sure, you can do web development in any language / environment, but there's a huge market out there with MS skills. The same could be said for Windows development. Given the consistently crappy quality in MS tools, release after release, and a huge market of people who would doubtless pay for something better, especially if it was less expensive, my question is this: Where is the new Borland? Back in the day, it was considered a fool's errand to compete with Microsoft but Borland did it successfully using the oldest trick in the book. They offered superior value for less money. Am I really to believe that no one has the talent to write a .NET IDE that could kick Visual Studio's bug ridden posterior? If so, then it's a sad day for the programmer community, to be sure. There's money to be made here. If I wasn't headed for the exits, I might have a go at it myself. But I'd certainly cheer from the sidelines anyone with the talent and the guts to do what's successfully been done before - challenge the MS monopoly on dev tools and in the process not only make a ton of money, but force MS to get back into competing on quality as Borland once did. With no competition, they have no incentive to give us other than the flaky tools we get.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
What about a CP IDE? Who better to rewrite, improve and replace the MS IDE than the code project members themselves. Not even Microsoft have 6 million brains at their disposal and nobody knows the problems better than you guys (I'm assuming, since you whinge on about them day in day out) Get yourselves together and start a joint project - the finished product could be issued free to existing members!
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Yes. I am always surprised that people don't know about these special programs for ISVs.
Next to none-existent advertising, at least in this part of the world. Here, in Jordan, people have got so used to the fact that promotion X is not available in the Middle East, so people stopped bothering. Then I found out about bizspark the other day. Complete lack of advertising.
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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What about a CP IDE? Who better to rewrite, improve and replace the MS IDE than the code project members themselves. Not even Microsoft have 6 million brains at their disposal and nobody knows the problems better than you guys (I'm assuming, since you whinge on about them day in day out) Get yourselves together and start a joint project - the finished product could be issued free to existing members!
The reality of it is that no where near 6 mil members would get in on this. Don't forget, you need to register to post a question on the forums, so a sizeable portion of that 6 mil are the plz codez urgentz types. But still, there would be a few thousand solid coders available if something like this saw the light. I'd join in for sure.
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Expensive?? When it comes to giving away software at low price for developers and ISVs Microsoft ranks first. 1. Microsoft BizSpark for startups -> only $100 for 3 years and you get lot of goodies. 2. Empower for ISV ->5 licenses of MSDN for only $375 for 3 years. 3. Microsoft Partner program (Certified level) -> $1450 for 5 licenses of MSDN and 25 licenses of all major products (not for test and development but for actual production use). 4. Microsoft Partner program (Gold Certified level) -> $1450 for 25 licenses of MSDN and 100 licenses of all major products (not for test and development but for actual production use). All the developers/ISVs should know about these options. So when it comes to helping startup companies/ISVs: Microsoft is the best unless you want to launch something on MacOSX or on Java. The tools which came free on those platforms probably made MS provide all these special incentives. As a developer who has developed real life code in VS 2008, XCode, Eclipse, JDeveloper/SQL Developer, IntelliJ idea and NetBeans. I must say that the tools market is very competitive. Microsoft has to compete up with all these other products btw. If .Net development becomes difficult because of tools developers will shift to other platforms. Of course now the IDEs for Java got lot better some even better than VS and VS is trying to catch up. So if you broaden your scope you will see competition in the tools market and all the tools are improving. You can not simply compare the Borland C/Turbo C/Turbo Pascal of yesteryears with the modern IDEs and also not ignore other platforms (esp Java) when looking at the IDE competition.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
2. Empower for ISV ->5 licenses of MSDN for only $375 for 3 years.
Only two years..
Rocky <>< Recent Blog Post: Playing with Kubuntu Linux.. Thinking about Silverlight? www.SilverlightCity.com
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All this talk of MS dev tool lack of quality has me a bit nostalgic for the days when developing for MS technologies wasn't a monopoly. For those of you who haven't studied your IT history, there was once an upstart company named Borland who, back in the days of Pascal and C, developed a killer compiler and IDE, long before MS came along with Visual C++. It was fast. It was full featured. And it was really inexpensive. Turbo Pascal and Turbo C sold for around $89 when the comparable command line MS C compiler was going for $450. Borland made a lot of sales. Takes money to make money, you say? Not so. Philippe Khan, who started this little party, negotiated a full page ad in PC Magazine, around $5k, on 30 day terms when the norm was cash up front. This bought him enough time to make sales, cover his advertising, and hopefully live to fight another day. And he didn't even have the web to help him. Borland made a lot of money. Sure, you can do web development in any language / environment, but there's a huge market out there with MS skills. The same could be said for Windows development. Given the consistently crappy quality in MS tools, release after release, and a huge market of people who would doubtless pay for something better, especially if it was less expensive, my question is this: Where is the new Borland? Back in the day, it was considered a fool's errand to compete with Microsoft but Borland did it successfully using the oldest trick in the book. They offered superior value for less money. Am I really to believe that no one has the talent to write a .NET IDE that could kick Visual Studio's bug ridden posterior? If so, then it's a sad day for the programmer community, to be sure. There's money to be made here. If I wasn't headed for the exits, I might have a go at it myself. But I'd certainly cheer from the sidelines anyone with the talent and the guts to do what's successfully been done before - challenge the MS monopoly on dev tools and in the process not only make a ton of money, but force MS to get back into competing on quality as Borland once did. With no competition, they have no incentive to give us other than the flaky tools we get.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
Ah, Borland. I started on Turbo Pascal & Later Turbo C back in the late '80s / early '90s. Not only was the Borland compiler fast, it was much more up-to-date supporting the latest language features of the time (e.g. structured exception handling & templates - and a built-in inline assembler - wahey!). The IDE was the best by a mile. Of course, Microsoft isn't one to miss a trick. Didn't they lure over the best 'n' brightest from Borland? Enter one Mr. Anders Hejlsberg, creator of Turbo Pascal & Delphi, later to be principal designer of the C# language. No wonder it's such a bloody good language - there's decades of experience behind it. Call me a madman, but I really like VS2008. Since the express editions are basically given away for free, I can't see anything competing with it, or we'd all be using Eclipse. That said, I'd kill for a decent permissively licenced IDE for the awesome D language (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/index.html) or Common Lisp & Scheme.
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The reality of it is that no where near 6 mil members would get in on this. Don't forget, you need to register to post a question on the forums, so a sizeable portion of that 6 mil are the plz codez urgentz types. But still, there would be a few thousand solid coders available if something like this saw the light. I'd join in for sure.
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
I imagined more of a central core of 2-3 dozen working on the main project with sub-projects being put to the members, the best suggestions getting the job perhaps. It would be interesting to know the breakdown of those 6 million members, MVPs, article writers, forum 'helpers', occasional users, suppliers of witty (witless) remarks, plz helps, one time posters and multiple redundant memberships.
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I imagined more of a central core of 2-3 dozen working on the main project with sub-projects being put to the members, the best suggestions getting the job perhaps. It would be interesting to know the breakdown of those 6 million members, MVPs, article writers, forum 'helpers', occasional users, suppliers of witty (witless) remarks, plz helps, one time posters and multiple redundant memberships.
Caslen wrote:
I imagined more of a central core of 2-3 dozen working on the main project with sub-projects being put to the members, the best suggestions getting the job perhaps.
That could certainly work, assuming the participating members have the time :)
Caslen wrote:
It would be interesting to know the breakdown of those 6 million members, MVPs, article writers, forum 'helpers', occasional users, suppliers of witty (witless) remarks, plz helps, one time posters and multiple redundant memberships.
For that, you would either need Maunder's voice from the empyrean. Or you could bribe one of the hamsters ;)
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Caslen wrote:
I imagined more of a central core of 2-3 dozen working on the main project with sub-projects being put to the members, the best suggestions getting the job perhaps.
That could certainly work, assuming the participating members have the time :)
Caslen wrote:
It would be interesting to know the breakdown of those 6 million members, MVPs, article writers, forum 'helpers', occasional users, suppliers of witty (witless) remarks, plz helps, one time posters and multiple redundant memberships.
For that, you would either need Maunder's voice from the empyrean. Or you could bribe one of the hamsters ;)
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
and the best way to bribe a hamster is? Peanuts perhaps or sunflower seeds or the promise of untold riches, gold plated cage, Ferrari exercise wheel and all the lady hamsters you can handle! How are you doing with Foundations Edge by the way - its a long time since I read it, probably 25 years since I read the first Foundation book its probably about time I read the series again.
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Agreed. Unlike C++, .Net is essentially Microsoft's toy. You'd be competing with them on their terms. Would one create a separate implementation of .Net or use the one from Microsoft, assuming that's legally possible? The latter option creates an even higher reliance on Microsoft, and the former... well, the implementation of .Net is a massive and difficult undertaking as seen from the Mono project. And frankly software like Visual Studio has gotten so big and complex that it would take a lot of resources to create something that's competitive with it, and that creates a huge risk.
You've hit the nail on the head. Especially when a potential developer has so many alternative open frameworks to choose from. In any case Microsoft would not be worried, I doubt VS is considered one of their cash cows, it's more a suporting technology to guide people towards the rest of the Microsoft stack.
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Kent Sharkey wrote:
At my last employer, touching it was pretty much equivalent with getting fired (that whole LGPL thing)
What's with that strange (L)GPL aversion? Sure, you're not allowed to copy/paste SharpDevelop's source code into your apps. But you're also not allowed to ship Visual Studio assemblies (e.g. the Microsoft.VisualStudio.*.dll) with your app. I don't really see where the difference between GPL open-source and commercial code is in this regard - thanks to Reflector, programmers could also try to steal code snippets from the latter. With SharpDevelop, it's actually fine to copy libraries like ICSharpCode.TextEditor into your app, as long as you keep them in separate assemblies. The LGPL only forces you to publish code modifications to the library itself - it's not viral like the GPL. Though we've thought about relicensing SharpDevelop to BSD - the LGPL seems to be frequently misunderstood in the Windows world.
Kent Sharkey wrote:
I always associated it with desktop dev.
That's still true - there are no web development features in SharpDevelop. It can compile Web Application projects, but that's about it - no Web Site projects, no code completion in .aspx files, no IIS debugging (though it's possible to debug ASP.NET applications using Cassini). For us, the primary usage of SharpDevelop is to code the next version SharpDevelop. And that's not a web app. But the main reason we don't have 'web development' support yet is that we don't have a clear feature list for it. Everyone interested in it seems to focus on the ASP.NET designer - the most complex and least important web dev feature they could choose. And then we usually don't hear anything again from them - they probably figured out that an ASP.NET designer is way over their heads.
Daniel Grunwald wrote:
Though we've thought about relicensing SharpDevelop to BSD - the LGPL seems to be frequently misunderstood in the Windows world.
That would make a good article *wink*
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and the best way to bribe a hamster is? Peanuts perhaps or sunflower seeds or the promise of untold riches, gold plated cage, Ferrari exercise wheel and all the lady hamsters you can handle! How are you doing with Foundations Edge by the way - its a long time since I read it, probably 25 years since I read the first Foundation book its probably about time I read the series again.
Caslen wrote:
Peanuts perhaps or sunflower seeds or the promise of untold riches, gold plated cage, Ferrari exercise wheel and all the lady hamsters you can handle!
That's about it. Some of the younger ones are addicted to the adrenaline rush they get when Maunder pulls out the hamster whip and gives them a go, so you might want to consider that as well.
Caslen wrote:
How are you doing with Foundations Edge by the way - its a long time since I read it, probably 25 years since I read the first Foundation book its probably about time I read the series again.
I finished it this morning :) I should update my signature because I'm reading The Gods Themselves now. I'm having a nostalgic phase and I'm reading all the older, better, books. They don't write'em like they used to! After TGT, either I'll start on the End of Eternity, also Asimov, or move onto Piers Anthony's Xanth series.
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Caslen wrote:
Peanuts perhaps or sunflower seeds or the promise of untold riches, gold plated cage, Ferrari exercise wheel and all the lady hamsters you can handle!
That's about it. Some of the younger ones are addicted to the adrenaline rush they get when Maunder pulls out the hamster whip and gives them a go, so you might want to consider that as well.
Caslen wrote:
How are you doing with Foundations Edge by the way - its a long time since I read it, probably 25 years since I read the first Foundation book its probably about time I read the series again.
I finished it this morning :) I should update my signature because I'm reading The Gods Themselves now. I'm having a nostalgic phase and I'm reading all the older, better, books. They don't write'em like they used to! After TGT, either I'll start on the End of Eternity, also Asimov, or move onto Piers Anthony's Xanth series.
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Must have read TGT a dozen times or more, they don't write them like they used to! Recemtly read Clarkes Rama series - always thought that would make a good game...
Asimov simply rocks. Clarke? as in Iain Clarke? I keep getting mixed messages about his work, some praise it, others consider it long winded for absolutely no reason. I can vouch ro Trudi Canavan's incredible ability for writing toilet paper drivel. She is without a doubt the worst writer I have encountered in a while. How the hell did she manage to get a few best sellers is beyond me, but bribery must have been involved at the highest levels of government. I'll give Clarke a go, any specific book to start off with?
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
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Asimov simply rocks. Clarke? as in Iain Clarke? I keep getting mixed messages about his work, some praise it, others consider it long winded for absolutely no reason. I can vouch ro Trudi Canavan's incredible ability for writing toilet paper drivel. She is without a doubt the worst writer I have encountered in a while. How the hell did she manage to get a few best sellers is beyond me, but bribery must have been involved at the highest levels of government. I'll give Clarke a go, any specific book to start off with?
If the post was helpful, please vote! Current activities: Book: The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
Iain Clarke? I keep getting mixed messages about his work, some praise it, others consider it long winded for absolutely no reason
??? Clarke as in Arthur C, not Clarke, Iain MVP! Having just read them I'd start with the Rama series, Rendezvous, Rama II, Garden and the other one... ...Rama Revealed thats the one!
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All this talk of MS dev tool lack of quality has me a bit nostalgic for the days when developing for MS technologies wasn't a monopoly. For those of you who haven't studied your IT history, there was once an upstart company named Borland who, back in the days of Pascal and C, developed a killer compiler and IDE, long before MS came along with Visual C++. It was fast. It was full featured. And it was really inexpensive. Turbo Pascal and Turbo C sold for around $89 when the comparable command line MS C compiler was going for $450. Borland made a lot of sales. Takes money to make money, you say? Not so. Philippe Khan, who started this little party, negotiated a full page ad in PC Magazine, around $5k, on 30 day terms when the norm was cash up front. This bought him enough time to make sales, cover his advertising, and hopefully live to fight another day. And he didn't even have the web to help him. Borland made a lot of money. Sure, you can do web development in any language / environment, but there's a huge market out there with MS skills. The same could be said for Windows development. Given the consistently crappy quality in MS tools, release after release, and a huge market of people who would doubtless pay for something better, especially if it was less expensive, my question is this: Where is the new Borland? Back in the day, it was considered a fool's errand to compete with Microsoft but Borland did it successfully using the oldest trick in the book. They offered superior value for less money. Am I really to believe that no one has the talent to write a .NET IDE that could kick Visual Studio's bug ridden posterior? If so, then it's a sad day for the programmer community, to be sure. There's money to be made here. If I wasn't headed for the exits, I might have a go at it myself. But I'd certainly cheer from the sidelines anyone with the talent and the guts to do what's successfully been done before - challenge the MS monopoly on dev tools and in the process not only make a ton of money, but force MS to get back into competing on quality as Borland once did. With no competition, they have no incentive to give us other than the flaky tools we get.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes
How about MonoDevelop[^]? They aren't charging from it, but it seems like it's gathering steam. And it's backed by Mono[^], which can run on Mac, *nix, and Windows. I'm not saying it is what you're looking for (haven't played with it), but it just might be. From what I gather, they're more or less taking Microsoft's game and stepping it up a few notches (not only cross-platform deployment, but cross-platform development as well).
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Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
"I told you so!"
Moms are always right :doh: If we all turn out what our mom wants us to be then .... :sigh: seriously though, I get in trouble with my family for not having "strong feeling" as to what my kids should study. I tell them, I don't care what they want/choose as long as they work hard and excel in what they want to be. I'll be there to support and guide them but not choose for them.
Yusuf May I help you?
I'll say it for your kids then. THANK YOU! Lol. My parents never really even seemed to ask where I was headed or anything, just pretty much let me do what I wanted, but I know if I'd have asked, they'd have helped.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
There's no free product comparable to VS
http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/[^] I don't know how it compares, and the few times I tried I always thought it was pretty flaky, but it's out there. Plus Microsoft now gives away the Express editions.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! Personal 3D projects Just Say No to Web 2 Point Oh
And don't forget, MS gives a LOT of stuff away to Students. Tertiary Students have been able to get VS Pro since 2003 (and most other apps, except Office; which would be really useful!) and now the program has been expanded to include High School and etc... You also get it for free once you join IEEE... Yeah, it seems MS really does give away a LOT of software to ppl learning the stuff; you only really have to pay once you start making commercial stuff with the apps...
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Don't rush me, Christopher! I've been working on this for years now. Unfortunately, all I've got are these crappy Microsoft tools to work with, so it's been slow going. Patience, grasshopper...
"A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"
I've got a couple of extra chisels and stone tablets you can borrow if it'll speed the progress. :)
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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And don't forget, MS gives a LOT of stuff away to Students. Tertiary Students have been able to get VS Pro since 2003 (and most other apps, except Office; which would be really useful!) and now the program has been expanded to include High School and etc... You also get it for free once you join IEEE... Yeah, it seems MS really does give away a LOT of software to ppl learning the stuff; you only really have to pay once you start making commercial stuff with the apps...
MrZaggy wrote:
You also get it for free once you join IEEE...
Free to anyone, or just to IEEE student members?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
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All this talk of MS dev tool lack of quality has me a bit nostalgic for the days when developing for MS technologies wasn't a monopoly. For those of you who haven't studied your IT history, there was once an upstart company named Borland who, back in the days of Pascal and C, developed a killer compiler and IDE, long before MS came along with Visual C++. It was fast. It was full featured. And it was really inexpensive. Turbo Pascal and Turbo C sold for around $89 when the comparable command line MS C compiler was going for $450. Borland made a lot of sales. Takes money to make money, you say? Not so. Philippe Khan, who started this little party, negotiated a full page ad in PC Magazine, around $5k, on 30 day terms when the norm was cash up front. This bought him enough time to make sales, cover his advertising, and hopefully live to fight another day. And he didn't even have the web to help him. Borland made a lot of money. Sure, you can do web development in any language / environment, but there's a huge market out there with MS skills. The same could be said for Windows development. Given the consistently crappy quality in MS tools, release after release, and a huge market of people who would doubtless pay for something better, especially if it was less expensive, my question is this: Where is the new Borland? Back in the day, it was considered a fool's errand to compete with Microsoft but Borland did it successfully using the oldest trick in the book. They offered superior value for less money. Am I really to believe that no one has the talent to write a .NET IDE that could kick Visual Studio's bug ridden posterior? If so, then it's a sad day for the programmer community, to be sure. There's money to be made here. If I wasn't headed for the exits, I might have a go at it myself. But I'd certainly cheer from the sidelines anyone with the talent and the guts to do what's successfully been done before - challenge the MS monopoly on dev tools and in the process not only make a ton of money, but force MS to get back into competing on quality as Borland once did. With no competition, they have no incentive to give us other than the flaky tools we get.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes