So where is the new Borland?
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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
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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
http://www.codegear.com/products/delphi/prism[^] I used to love some of the older Borland dev tools. I hope the reorganization as Codegear will get them back on track. I will have to find time to try out there latest offerings.
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How is that working out? I've played around with Python, no GUI stuff, but nothing prodcution worthy or even remotely approaching that. Do you use it for web or windows applications? Having been released from the confines of windows, do you use other platforms like *nix? What IDE do you use? Is there a particular framework that you prefer? Man, you should write an article comparing the benefits! :-D
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[^]?
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
How is that working out?
Better than I ever dreamed. We use it primarily for simulations and tool development for the simulation/video game industry. But, we've thrown up a few web pages for a few clients as wells deployed a few business apps.
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
Having been released from the confines of windows, do you use other platforms like *nix?
Sure. My primary workstation is an ArchLinux box running the awesome window manager (it is in fact, quite awesome). But, we test and deploy for *nix, windows, qnx &, OS X.
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
What IDE do you use?
VIM. No need for an IDE. Some of my contractors prefer eclipse and komodo, one likes TextMate for OS X and another uses WingWare. I don't care as long as we aren't stepping on each others toes with exotic formatting.
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
Is there a particular framework that you prefer?
The python user community is unlike anything I've seen in MS land. There are tons of mature frameworks for just about anything you can think of. For web stuff we use django. For gui work there are are a ridiculous number of well designed frameworks (pyQT, pyGTK, wx to just name a few).
Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:
Man, you should write an article comparing the benefits!
I am not much of an article writer, it just doesn't get me excited.
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell
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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
I used Delphi for 5 years, and the Borland IDE also had its share of bugs just line VS does. The real strengths of Delphi were simplicity and an extreme flexibility (there were so many components provided with the IDE out of the box!). It was a framework already, allowing for the best RAD possible... until the raise of the .Net framework. Unfortunately, Borland has been killed by Microsoft a long time ago by doing the following: 1) Hire Anders Hejlsberg in 1996, the inventor of Delphi, and the architect of the .NET framework! 2) Acquire a share of Borland in 1999. Check this article: http://delphi.about.com/od/delphifornet/a/conspiracydnet\_2.htm So, Borland is certainly not in a position to compete with Microsoft anymore. An alternative is the Mono project, but I don't really know the current state of it. Did anyone try this out?
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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
Most people in this forum seem to write software for a living. I'm an engineer and since the 80s I've been able to jump in and write something to solve a problem. Started with DOS BASIC and carried on up to VB6. But VB.NET is a step too far - I either get some training and then use it full time so I don't forget, stay with VB6 or find something else. It's not all results - I miss the satisfaction of the work and the outcomes of the old days.
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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
1. It isn't about the money. Software Should be Free[^] 2. Doesn't Eclipse support .NET?
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1. It isn't about the money. Software Should be Free[^] 2. Doesn't Eclipse support .NET?
Oh, and for my money's worth, I always preferred Watcom to Borland and Microsoft.
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dan neely wrote:
Free to anyone, or just to IEEE student members?
I don't know; IEEE Student Members for sure, but as for full members, I don't know... Do we have any Full IEEE members here?
Yes, the Ruff is a full IEEE member coz' him do the Electronics. In response to your question: Students only. The rest of us have to pay the big bucks. That's why I'm still in VS2005 land. Chris
Do we weigh less at high tide?
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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
Momeries... Borland Turbo Pascal... (old favorite) IDE was basic but compiler was blazing fast. Runtime was amazing fast for the time. Programs runned fast and could compete with code made from Microsoft C. Had a nice framework called Turbo Vision. Turbo C got it after. Used Turbo Power tools for database and all. Turbo C. IDE and compiler was fast too. But code was less optimized compared to Microsoft C. If I recall, MFC became the Microsoft response to Borland C++ with OWL right? I think Borland did the first Windows 3.x framework. Was quite good. And then came my favorite... Delphi. Felt the power of native code with the ease of rapid window designer of VB inside a excelent IDE. I really hope that www.CodeGear.com bring Delphi back to full force. Didn't tried Delphi 2009 (I'm waiting for a Delphi 32/64bit) but I think they are getting there. IMO, old Borland lost it when they aquired DBase and Word Perfect. They should have stayed with Paradox. They putted alot of their money on acquiring Dbase and to see that the code was a mess. They had to pour alot more money to make something good of DBase. Same for Word Perfect. Would Borland still be the real competitor to Microsoft if they didn't get DBase and Word Perfect? Maybe, maybe not. But at least maybe the progs at Microsoft would still say "Man... did you see what Borland added to their ? How do they do that to add so many good features?" Martin P.
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Oh, and for my money's worth, I always preferred Watcom to Borland and Microsoft.
Watcom did best Microsoft C on optimized code. Sad that Microsoft made their life hard on the Windows front. Martin P.
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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