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Borland/Inprise Linux Survey Results 157

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Ronin Developer writes "Borland has just released the results of their Linux survey. The results are somewhat interesting. Check it out for yourself at: Borland Linux Survey " There's a lot of stuff there about what Linux users say they want (in general, and from Borland)
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Borland/Inprise Linux Survey Results More

Borland/Inprise Linux Survey Results

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  • What surprises me is that 26.8% of the respondants have never heard of GTK+, Qt, Motif, or Swing, or they don't even know what toolkit they want to use.

    Who the heck is responding to this poll?
  • You could answer multiple choices on those questions..
  • Seems most are interested in developing for Linux using RAD.. The prefered RAD tool tends to be Delphi for those responding.. 'nough said.. ;-P

  • The only people I've found that truly dislike Delphi are VB programmers, they know it's better, it's actually object oriented (vs Object Based), more flexible, and the compiled programs run faster.

    Well, I've never had to program in VB, and I can't say that I truly dislike Delphi, but at least to me, it is still Object Based, and not Object Oriented environment.


    When I look at Object Pascal, I see many of the same mistakes in the language that are present in C++, and which I think in some cases break the OO paradigm and add unnecessary work, or bookkeeping, to the shoulders of a over-stressed programmer. In my book, Object Pascal is a hybrid language, or Object Based, as you put it, and in the same category with C++. Unfortunately, I think hybrid languages have little use. If I need to do quick and dirty, efficient code, I'd rather use C, if I need to add to the abstraction level, I rather go for languages with much better OO support, such as Java, or Smalltalk.


    Another thing that bothers me with Delphi is the way the whole project is tied to its IDE. My first experiences with Delphi was about 6 months ago, when a project was handed to me which uses Delphi to build its GUI (the layers underneath are pure C). I found it extremely difficult to understand the flow of the program, when I constantly had to switch between looking at the code editor and the object inspector to figure out what the heck was going on with the program flow. Very frustrating. Another thing I think is a bad idea is this whole aspect of building a GUI first, and then attaching bits and pieces of code scattered around the GUI components to do the work. It's ok for quick prototyping but ends to lead to a bad design if used to build the entire project. You can avoid this, of course, to an extent, but the Delphi IDE is build in a way that makes this harder than doing it the Delphi way, which means most programmers just won't bother fighting the IDE for this.


    Anyway, there are alot of loyal, and quite vocal supporters of Delphi, and I listened to them and had high expectations when I first had the chance to start learning it, but I was somewhat disappointed when I actually got to see what it was.


    Oh well, that's life I guess..

  • OP is an EXCELLENT language. Don't discount it.


    Excellent language for doing what? To me, Object Pascal looks like a copy of C++, with most of the same mistakes in it. It still breaks the encapsulation of OO, at least on logical level, as C++ does. It's a hybrid language, trying to be both procedural and OO at the same time, as C++ does.


    Since Delphi seems to be the only environment where Object Pascal is used, why not make it a truly Object Oriented programming language, and loose the procedural stuff in it, thus gaining the benefits that OO paradigm promises to deliver.

  • Contact Halycon

    http://www.halycon.com

  • Think about the people who use Delphi and want to move to Linux... They're that 95% (or is it 90?)
    Well, I'm one of them. But I don't need it at any cost, neither quantitative, nor qualitative. They want a simple way to develop software quickly, and that means RAD tools and big libraries.
    Yup, I've been there too. 'We need it yesterday, man! Move!' Usually it ends up in fighting fires the last night before deadline and of course it doesn't help and finally the teams needs two more months to fix it.
  • Object Pascal by far more suited to RAD than C/C++.

    Pascal has strong type checking, and the structure of the language basically FORCES you to write good code. C/C++ is a good choice for professional/sem-professional developers that need a good, robust language.

    But for a one-man programming project, particularly when RAD methods are to be used, Delphi and Object Pascal puts C++ to waste.

    Most Linux programmers, OTOH, are experienced hackers that think that definition of "Languages of Choice" certainly does not include Pascal. In hacker-style coding, C++ is certainly preferable, but for mission-critical code that must be developed in a hurry, one certainly cannot beat Delphi. The only other choice for RAD is Visual Basic, and we certainly won't see Linux programmers flocking to that any time soon, for obvious reasons. :-)

  • If they just could do the same and also bring a commercial compiler to the linuxppc communities and other supported processor by Mot/Metro (ie Coldfire 68000) and also the ARM.
    Gcc is prety cool but I know commercial compiler are better in code generation than gcc is ....
  • If you want a taste of the old days, they DID open up the old Turbo C up to version 3.0 for FREE.. ;-P
  • The answers here don't suprise me. If you've decided to use a widget set and not a whole complex environment, the odds are you've decided to make things more lightweight. Well, GTK is just plain C under the hood, and Qt is C++ under the hood. I don't think many people would disagree with the assertion that GTK is more lightweight than Qt. If you've decided to use a whole environment, you're more likely to be doing really complicated things in C++. Given that, there's less reason to select GNOME instead of KDE. Also, I can easily believe that there are people interested in using GTK without GNOME, but fewer people interested in using Qt without KDE. So, the results seem perfectly consistent to me.
  • I don't know how much this poll can be trusted since it was linked off of one of KDE's pages and they encouraged everyone to go there and fill it out. That's how I found the survey anyway.
  • I originally found this poll linked on one of KDE's pages. Unfortunately, I don't think the results of the KDE/Qt vs GTK+/GNOME polls can be considered accurate because of this.
  • What does being from Europe have to do with using Delphi? I'm from Europe, and even I was surprised by the results that Delphi got. Of all the programmers I know (quote a lot) only very few use Delphi.
  • Another thing I noticed was that more people were interested in GTK+ than Qt, but more people wanted to develop for KDE than for GNOME... Seemed a little strange.

    Well, I noticed it too. Strange, but there can be only one conclusion from this, GTK+ must be ported to KDE!

    TeeJay
  • yes, indeed... what do they do now anyway? I just remember them doing the old turbo c/c++/pascal thing.. (I remember /. posting a link to their site where they gave it away for free now) but I'm wondering what their purpose really is.

    hmmmm...

    perhaps i should check out their page.
  • A few people have already pointed out some of the oddities in the poll. Examples are questions 10 and 11 which ask what desktop environment the developer is using to which the answer is KDE. However, when asked what UI toolkit the developer is interested in (Question 9), GTK+ gets a higher count than Qt. Of course, what wasn't mentioned was that "Don't know, I'm not familiar with these toolkits" had a slightly higher lead than GTK+.

    What is the most telling question, though, is number 22 - "Currently, the main platform I develop for is...". Windows far out-paces even Linux (which is the closest at only 25% compared to almost 60%). The answers are quickly explained by the fact that they come primarily from Windows developers.

    OK. Let's not begin a flame-fest on Winows.

    The point here is that many of the Windows developers come from a completely different environment than what spawned Linux. This shouldn't be shocking news. But I do think its being overlooked.

    My take on this, which isn't even backed up by an unscientific poll, is that Windows developers are just now looking at Linux. All the market news, conventions, and even Borland's poll has gotten their attention. But they haven't actually looked too deeply into the subject. Linux is unfamiliar waters. Windows developers are not familiar with Linux, its environment, its tools... and most likely, its culture.

    What's even more facinating is some of the other questions. Questions involving licensing, source code, development environments, choice of distribution. Many of the answers further show ignorance of the Linux (and Open Source, for that matter) environment... or a very stereotypical "Corporate" view.

    There's been talk before on how this attitude would affect the Linux community. Here's an indication that it does, in fact, exist. And it's very likely to interject itself into the Linux world. Is Linux ready? Will Linux change? Or will Linux change the attitudes of developers?

  • Not strange at all - it just means that people like KDE, but would prefer to develop stuff for it using GTK+.

    Personally, I prefer GNOME anyway, but as long as Borland port Delphi to *some* system I'll probably use it. Linux desperately needs something like Delphi.
  • Well, one reason might be that people wanted to say "I'm equally interested in both of these environments" (and wanted to stress these two, collectively and more or less equally, over others, so they couldn't just leave the question unanswered) -- but there was no such alternative to choose! Hence, go with one on the one question, and the other on the next...

    I know that's why *I* answered in something like that fashion.

    Christian R. Conrad
    MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
  • "(they are, after all, Delphi coders)"

    What's that supposed to mean, asshole?

    Christian R. Conrad
    MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
  • From what I've seen of Delphi, it looks nice, a couple of developers up here swear by it. I guess I'm just not a fan of Object Pascal. I would rather see something like C++ Builder. But then again, that was what the poll was for eh?
  • Your non-standard usage of terminology confuses the issues -- perhaps because you are confused about them?

    "Object-based" (as opposed to "Object-Oriented") is generally taken to mean "can use -- or fake using -- objects, but cannot create them"; that makes Delphi/Object Pascal OO, and VB Object-based.

    "Hybrid" (as opposed to, for want of a better term, "totally OO") means the ability to do stuff the old-fashioned non-OO way *too*, in addition to OOishly. In that sense, the only "totally OO" languages I know of are Smalltalk and apparently Eiffel. Is that what you wanted Delphi to be?

    Sorry, can't be done -- if it were, it wouldn't be Delphi any more.

    Judging from phrases like:

    1) "...go for languages with much better OO support, such as Java..."

    2) "...I found it extremely difficult to understand the flow of the program..."

    3) "...a bad idea is this whole aspect of building a GUI first, and then attaching bits and pieces of code..."

    4) "...avoid this ... harder than doing it the Delphi way ... fighting the IDE..."

    5) "...I was somewhat disappointed when I actually got to see what it was..."

    Make it seem to me as if you haven't really understood it -- "seen", perhaps, but *learned*?!?

    Some attempted answers, in short:

    1) So what's better with Java's OO support than Delphi's? Maybe you hadn't noticed that the "Beans" component model is pretty much a copy of OP's object model -- maybe you didn't know that Sun actually *bought* it from Borland?

    2) Hmmm... Dunno if I can help here... How's this: Think "state", not "flow"? (Yeah, that leads to modal programs -- but hey, I can't say it better!)

    3) Well, you shouldn't expect the IDE to give you *all* your code; write the real action in your own procedures (investigate Data Modules and Action Lists), then just call it from your event handlers.

    4) Try using it intelligently in stead of "fighting" it. Sorry, but it had to be said...

    5) Well, *learn* it in stead of just casting a quick glance.

    Christian R. Conrad
    MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
  • "This brings me to my next reason for prefering Qt; it has a very elegant design. Those guys at trolltech know how to execute an OO design in C++. Let the well trained OO designers handle writing elegant OO toolkits (like Qt); the masses (many of whom aren't nearly as well versed in good OO design) use the toolkit and its structure to lead them to a good design."

    Yeah, exactly -- and that is what Delphi and C++ Builder are all about: An *extremely* elegant OO toolkit, the VCL, written by the *really* well trained OO designers at Borland. (I mean, what did you think it was -- the base language? C++B's language is just ordinary dime-a-dozen C++, except for one or two added keywords. And yes, dammit, they *were* necessary to enable a RAD IDE, even though they are a kludge. So what -- OP isn't, and C++ was one already anyway...)

    And since all the OO elegance you need is in the VCL, you don't *need* that in the widget set it is implemented on top of; a simple API will do -- hey, these tools live on Win32, right?

    Another factor was goodwill and "True Open-ness". Sure, QT's license has gotten better lately... But TrollTech *is* still a commercial entity, and as such their product is presumably less "Free" than GTK. But then, in order not to "diss" QT/Troll *too* much -- because it is still definitely the second-best alternative -- I suspect many of us answered like I did, "KDE", on the next question about desktop environments; those are after all a bit less fundamental than the widget set below them.

    Now do you see where these percentages are coming from? Seems to me they're perfectly consistent with Delphi coders wanting their tool to come to Linux, *not* being naive or ill-informed but having thought the issues over rather thoroughly, and answering accordingly.

    I know that's why *I* answered the way I did, and the overall results are (surprisingly, even to me) consistent with that thinking.



    Christian R. Conrad
    MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.

  • Delphi (Score:1)

    by larien ( 5608 )
    Surprising just how popular Delphi is. My guess is that a lot of the respondants are Windows users who currently develop with Delphi. The linux users probably skewed the C/C++ a bit more.

    Another thing I noticed was that more people were interested in GTK+ than Qt, but more people wanted to develop for KDE than for GNOME... Seemed a little strange.
    --

  • Snoochie Bootchie asks:

    "I wonder what makes Delphi such a good RAD tool. I can't believe that the main reason is the use of Object Pascal."

    Well, no -- in a word, it's the VCL (OK, that was an acronym, not a word).


    "The tool's design and such must contribute significantly. I have nothing against Pascal--it was the first programming language I learned. However, it isn't very popular."

    It is with us who *use* it... Does that count for anything, or do you subscribe to the Fly Diet Theory?


    "I'd rather use a popular language and become an expert in that language since those skills would be useful anywhere."

    OK, have fun in your new career as a Visual Basic programmer! :-)


    ""How about a Delphi-like took based on Java?"

    So what did you think Borland JBuilder is?!? Sheesh...


    Christian R. Conrad
    MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
  • It looks to me as thought the majority of the people replying to the survey were existing Delphi users, admittedly with a linux bent.

    Not that I'm saying this is a problem, but I would have preferred seeing a similar represenative survey that was responded to by the community at large.

    I mean, development language of choice Object Pascal ? . Note I'm not complaining about OP , in fact I've never used it, I know many people that speak highly of Delphi as a RAD language. I think that its indicative that the majority of resposnse to this survey must have been from existing Delphi / Borland Customers. Mind you they all seem to be slashdot readers as well.

    Anyway, I hope they port. seems like there's quite a lot of unhappy windows developers eager to defect.

  • "The real question, though, is why use Delphi when you could use Java? Native java compilers aren't much different from Delphi, other than having the more familiar C++ syntax."

    Well, that's one very good reason to go with Delphi in stead of Java -- Java's C++ish syntax sucks, just like it does in C++ itself...


    Christian R. Conrad
    MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
  • Question 6: Which Internet technologies are you interested in on Linux?

    Their percentages don't add up to 100% (32.6% + 7.7% + 43.1% + 45.6% + 38.1% + 6.2% + 24.1% + 22.1% + 3.5% = 233%)

    Question 5 and 7 are the same way.

    I don't understand there numbering system...
  • Your non-standard usage of terminology confuses the issues -- perhaps because you are confused about them?

    For that I apologize. If you have pointers for standardized definitions of both object-oriented and object-based, I'd love to see them. I've yet to find one.

    "Object-based" (as opposed to "Object-Oriented") is generally taken to mean "can use -- or fake using -- objects, but cannot create them"; that makes Delphi/Object Pascal OO, and VB Object-based.

    Using that definition, yes it would. But what I was after here, is that I've found that Object Pascal, and C++, both break the OO model, at least at the logical level, by breaking encapsulation. Therefore I do not count Object Pascal as being a true OO language. I used OO-based instead, cause that was closest I could come up with. But Object Pascal (and C++) do have far superior object models compared to VB (which I wouldn't call Object based at all, more like structured language). *shrug* Still need to find a way to define these things so that we both know what we're talking about.

    Hybrid" (as opposed to, for want of a better term, "totally OO") means the ability to do stuff the old-fashioned non-OO way *too*, in addition to OOishly.

    Yes, that's the meaning I have for hybrids too.

    In that sense, the only "totally OO" languages I know of are Smalltalk and apparently Eiffel. Is that what you wanted Delphi to be?

    Yep, although I'm not rigid about the requirement of being totally pure OO. Just something better than C++ has. I find Java's level of OO adequate, although the primitive types do bug me from time to time.

    Sorry, can't be done -- if it were, it wouldn't be Delphi any more.

    Why can't it be done? Like I asked in another post, to my knowledge, Delphi is the only environment that uses Object Pascal, and Borland is the entity that defines their version of it. Maybe there are reasons coming from the need of backwards compatibility support that dictate this can't be done? Other than that, I can't think of a reason why not.

    1) So what's better with Java's OO support than Delphi's? Maybe you hadn't noticed that the "Beans" component model is pretty much a copy of OP's object model -- maybe you didn't know that Sun actually *bought* it from Borland?

    I'm actually very aware of this fact. So much so, than whenever someone spreads the FUD that Sun is the only one that makes decisions about Java and they never listen to anyone else's opinion, I point out that JAvaBeans mainly came from Borland, EJB from IBM, Swing and JFC from Netscape, etc.

    What I was referring to was not the component models (which I again must disagree term-wise, to me component model differs from object model). The fact that Object Pascal breaks the encapsulation, being a hybrid language, turns me down. I just don't like it. In that sense, I find Java's (or Smalltalk's or Eiffel's) OO support better.

    2) Hmmm... Dunno if I can help here... How's this: Think "state", not "flow"? (Yeah, that leads to modal programs -- but hey, I can't say it better!)

    Simple really.. all that GUI stuff that's supposed to be there to help me, just adds alot of noise, and quite frankly, is more confusing to me. I just like to keep looking at my code in a good editor and work there. The fact that I have to look around (for the Object Inspector for instance) to find what the caption of some lable is, or if a button is disable or not, is distracting to me. Maybe not the most popular opinion, knowing how many people absolutely love these types of IDE's and wouldn't work in an environment without them, but that's how I feel. I know that Delphi does not strictly force you to use all the graphical bells and whistles (or should we call them tools?) but it very heavily encourages you to, actually even tells that its the superior way of doing it. I'd like to make that kind of decision myself. Delphi really doesn't give me that chance. Either you like their way, or you better not use it at all. Not good. And a problem with alot of IDE's.

    3) Well, you shouldn't expect the IDE to give you *all* your code; write the real action in your own procedures (investigate Data Modules and Action Lists), then just call it from your event handlers.

    I'm not expecting that. Actually I'd like it alot more if it'd write little less of it. And your point of ActionLists is a very good one, I've used those myself. The problem here is, my only project with Delphi has been one that was written on the course of 2 years before I got into it, and frankly, I don't like their style of building software. The code is hanging off of the GUI components like ugly warts, making it really hard to follow.

    4) Try using it intelligently in stead of "fighting" it. Sorry, but it had to be said...

    No problem. I do try. But sometimes the IDE just isn't build the way I find most natural for myself. Which means, like it or not, I end up fighting it.

    5) Well, *learn* it in stead of just casting a quick glance.

    Well, like I said, I just got into Delphi six months ago when this project was given to me. I am trying to learn it, and I by no means did not mean to give the impression that I was some kind of a Delphi expert. But, as it is, I don't like it that much that I'd choose it for the next project, if given the opportunity to pick a tool. Unless the only other alternative was VB.

    I didn't mean to be to harsh on Delphi. I don't think it totally sucks. For Windows environment, if the choice is VB (and that's what Delphi gets compared to most often) it is the better solution, IMHO. I just don't agree with the view that it's perfect, flawless etc., which is the impression you very easily get when listening to Delphi advocates (the bad ones).



  • The answers to questions 9 and 11 are a bit puzzling to me; In 9, GTK+ wins out over Qt by 6.7% (boooo), yet in question 11 developing for KDE wins out over developing for GNOME by about 12.7% (yeah). It makes me wonder how informed some of the respondents were if they didn't know that developing for KDE usually means developing using Qt and developing for GNOME usually means developing using GTK+. And yes, I know, this isn't necessarily the case.

    It looks like the Delphi devotees came out in pretty good force; I really didn't expect there to be that many Delphi-heads interested in Linux (or vice versa). I expected C++ Builder to be the Borland tool everyone wanted.
  • I found it interesting that when asked what desktop they were using, 50% replied KDE, while only 27% replied GNOME.

    Look at the demographics:

    3. The particular development tool I would most like to see for Linux is


    #1 Delphi (44.5%)


    12. The Component / Class framework I use should be based on?


    #1 Object Pascal (!) (31.2%)


    22. Currently, the main platform I develop for is...


    #1 Windows (!) (59.8%)

    All other UNIXes combined don't make up 5%!


    28. The primary development tool I/we currently use is...


    #1 Delphi (39.9%)


    29. All the development tools I/we currently use are...


    #1 Delphi (50.9%)


    Conclusion: The vast majority of respondents are Windows users who currently develop with Delphi and want to see it ported to (x86) Linux. It makes sense then that they would use the most Windows-like desktop: KDE.

    This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.

  • What do you think? Is it just numbers, or is there something to this? Why are so many KDE users (almost half in THIS survey) not interested in developing for Qt?

    Several populations are showing up here:

    RAD coders: "If I have to think about what toolkt I'm using, you're slowing me down." A good visual GUI builder means never having to care about the widget's code.

    Desktop agnostics: People who don't care or even dislike the idea of tight coupling between desktop and apps. I fall into this group myself, unless I wan't some specific feature of the desktop, I'll use whatever widget set it easiest. For me, that means Qt for a C++ project, GTK for C, Tk for perl.

    Cross-platform cheapskates: Notice that 60% wanted to develop for both Windows and Linux, with source code compatibility being quite popular. Qt for Windows costs money.

    X Newbies: They're still learning the ropes, and don't quite know what's going on yet. Toolkit choice is hardly a big part of Windows programming... They're using KDE or GNOME because their distribution starts it by default.

    I'd say this is most of them. Anybody see a group I missed?
  • How much of the "pro-Delphi" feel is due to the current lack of popularity of developing in pascal at all on linux, and the relative lack of means to write in it? (Let alone any OO pascal derivatives...)

    Why should KDE/gnome and Qt/GTK be regarded as incompatible? I think this poll hasn't helped the polarity there... given you can happily run Qt apps under gnome & gtk stuff under KDE...

    ~Tim
    --
  • The survey was available to ANYONE who wanted to take it (it was mentioned on /.). So, I wouldn't necessarily say it was an "Inprise survey". But, the predominant respondents appear to be Windows developers. I would have preferred that a more statistical analysis be done on the data to see what it is that people really want. The repondents were, for the most part, Windows developers. I would have liked to see the data adjust to compenstate for this fact.

    What is little known is that Delphi is THE #1 selling RAD development tool for Windows (or so I've read and told). Fact is that Delphi does enable developers to build applications at a rate generally higher than C++. And, it is inherently more robust than VB. The popularity of Linux among Windows developers is growing because Linux is a) stable and b) free c) it's not M$ and finally d) it's a new market to explore for both commercial and open source or GPL's apps.

    It's only natural that these same developers want their tools on Linux. And, it's no suprise that these same developers have no clue what toolkits are used by KDE & Gnome. Finally, I am suprised at the number of KDE users since Red Hat makes it so easy to install Gnome.
  • Have you ever done development in Windows as opposed to Linux/Unix? I've never been too keen on Borlands tools, personally (preferring MSVS6 - sorry and all that :-/ ) but even using VC++ or whatever, it's still horrible; it creates half of the code for you in its own bizarre style. The documentation isn't too hot and there seems to be little reference material about. Linux/Unix development is much cleaner, and you can generally say you understand pretty much all of what is going on.

    This would probably explain why people want to develop under linux rather than windows. The Windows desktop gets horribly crowded with millions of toolbars, menus, dialogs etc when developing. Under Linux, I have three windows - Emacs, shell and the application I'm running. That's it. Much cleaner, much nicer.

    I'm currently working on some development in IRIX using Motif/Xt, which is so much easier (and infinitely faster) than under Windows. Personally, I find a lot of IDEs counterproductive anyway, and prefer to write and manage my own makefiles etc.

    On the subject of widget sets, I've only ever used GTK+, not looked at Qt. AFAICT, however it looks fairly 6 and two 3s between them; what would be cool is an interface layer for Qt->GTK+ or vice versa, but as I don't know much about the architecture of Qt, I can't comment on whether this is possible.

    I've rambled, sorry...

  • Interesting that most users are happy to pay for a development environment. Money well spent in my opinion.

    The thing with closed-source dev tools, though, it that you can't fix them, and with dev tools you have a very high percentage of users who could fix problems. I'd be happy to pay for tool improvement (for example, I want diff tools that will only highlight the words that change on a line if it's very similar to the line in the file compared to), but I want the resulting tools open. Figuring out a way to do that practically (and in a way the suits will trust) may be a problem. Open source isn't necessary, but available source (and the right to distribute at least small patches) is.

    One possibility might be just that. A tool that uses gcc as the compiler, uses makefiles and the autoconf system and just provides an easy-to-use wrapper for the less Linux-savvy could be quite popular.

    Clearly the people who took the survey, a self-selected bunch who are interested in Borland stuff, want Delphi for Linux. I would be stunned, then, if this isn't their main product. Or even better would be a base IDE that can work with gcc-based development and has an optional Delphi "plug-in." I know I'd buy it.

    It is nice to see that the main interest is people currently doing mainly Windows stuff that want to do Linux stuff. It's a sign that the growth curve for Linux will continue its steep upwards slope.
  • Thats probably why the "Traditional IDE" did poorly against the RAD IDE, that could use traditional tools.

    Note that command line tools did terribly
  • There actually is a company that has an ASP implementation for Linux. I think they advertise on Slashdot occasionally.

    D

    ----
  • Now, give me a native code compiler for Java on Linux (or NT, or Solaris) and I could sink my teeth into that.

    Have you seen the Cygnus stuff ?

  • They want to develop for KDE because it's the most pervasive Linux windowing environment. Heck, I'm using it right now.

    They probably want to develop using GTK because it doesn't require C++. I know that's my position - I'm much more comfortable with regular C.

    D

    ----
  • Agh! And I payed $50 for it less than a year ago!
    I agree, it's a great IDE and editor.
  • I was surprised too. When I answered the question I thought back to the good old days (1992) when I was using Borland C++ v2.0

    I had some code like this:

    float foo;

    foo = 4.0
    foo += 2.0

    After running this code the value of foo was 4.0. I called Borland and asked for help and they blew me off. Then I dumped out the assembler and discovered that the compiler had a bug in it. Then I called Borland back and they admitted their bug.

    So, never again Borland! Open source only, thank you very much. I don't give companies that treat me like that a second chance. If you release as open source I don't *have* to trust you.

  • The original survey had several questions of the "Pick all that apply" type. From a UI standpoint, they used checkboxes, not radio buttons. Thus, the answers reflect what percentage of people are interested in each specific thing, not which thing is the most popuplar. I find that to be a more useful statistic, anyway. Anyone who focuses on just *one* thing and one thing only is asking for trouble. :-)
  • If you read the questions closely, especially those concerning porting, you see that the majority wants to develop under Linux and port to Windows. This tells us two things:

    1) Most developers, even Windows developers, would prefer to develop under Linux.

    2) Most developers expect Windows to be more important, in terms of PHB requirements, for the foreseeable future.

    This shouldn't surprise anyone. Linux is the ultimate hacker's OS, so of course us hackers like it. It is, on the other hand, scary to all those PHB's, who don't know a bit from a baud.

  • Consider a 20% productivity improvement when using Delphi over open-source tools. If I paid $500 for Delphi and you were using open-source and we each make $30 per hour then you would be loosing $250 per week in productivity after two weeks (the pay-back time for my investment). That adds up in a hurry!

    Consider that both your compiler and the other guy's compiler have a serious bug that causes your program to fail mysteriously. You wait a month for Borland to fix your bug and lose $4800, while the guy using the free compiler fixes the bug himself in under a day, losing only $240.

  • There is something fishy about this survey. I think lots of people who have no clue about development showed up. How else do you explain that they would like to use GTK to develop on KDE...
    hmm
  • I got notice from Watcom - Watcom C++ is no more ...
    They stop any development with this product.

    How about asking them to release the source code ?

  • About 25% said GTK+, and a matching 25% said GNOME. Those people know what they want, where as although 50% said KDE, only 18% said QT. I imagine this is because of all the windows developers who have seen KDE but don't really know much about it (they are, after all, Delphi coders)
  • A lot of people seem to be expressing surprise that Object Pascal (OP) got the high votes that it did. And while yes, some of that is due to the fact that Borland's flagship product is Delphi (which is an OP IDE), there is more to it then that.

    OP, for those that do not know, is Borland's own version of Pascal, extended to support OOP and a number of other things. Unlike MS's Visual Basic, however, it actually comes with a full language grammar spec, and it neatly separates the core language from the RTL (like C and C++ do).

    I can speak from experience that OP is *NOT* like ISO ("Standard") Pascal. ISO Pascal has a number of enforced brain damages that make it nearly unusable for real-world development. OP does not.

    OP is actually very like C++, once you get past the language grammar layer. Indeed, the back-end optimizer and translator for C++Builder and Delphi are the same. There are a few things OP does not support that C++ does. The biggest are multiple inheritance and templates. Multiple inheritance is useful but relatively uncommon; I don't miss it. The lack of templates really sucks at times, but OP at least gives all objects a root ancestor (TObject), so you can fake some of it. (I sure hope the next OP rev will have templates, though!)

    Personally, I find the language design and syntax of OP much, much cleaner and easier to read then C++. C++ sometimes seems like a collection of "const" and the ampersand; the code can look like line noise if you're not very careful. OP looks much neater, even if you're several levels deep in an expression. Part of this is because it uses spelled words instead of symbols for most things, which I agree with. (So does C++, apparently, as the newest spec gives you "or" and "and" operators instead of || and &&).

    OP even has some features that C++ does not: Named constructors, properties, and closures, just to name a few. Properties are awesome: They allow you to declare a class member that functions like a variable to class users, but can call class methods when read or assigned. It is much cleaner and more intuitive then Get/Set methods; I miss it whenever I write pure C++ code.

    Delphi's exception handling architecture is *much* cleaner then C++. For one, it gives a pre-existing class hierarchy for standard exceptions, and it uses them in a consistent manner. Half the things in C++ throw exceptions on error, half return NULL, and half do some other thing. (Yes, I know that adds up to 1.5 -- I'm making a point!)

    Delphi also lets you selectively enable/disable runtime checks for range, bounds, NULL dereference, and the like. This is *great* during development, as it can uncover stupid mistakes and assumptions as they happen. Then you can turn it off for release, and get performance very near that of "bare metal" C/C++.

    As for the Visual Component Library (VCL), OP's runtime library and application framework, I love it. It is very elegantly designed, easily extensible, and flawlessly supported by the IDE. It gives the "drag-and-drop" ease-of-use of Visual Basic, but without all the brain damage. I pity the people stuck using MFC -- VCL is *infinitely* better.

    The design of the VCL's RAD support is particularly neat. You can create VCL GUIs using the IDE or code or both: They mix seamlessly. (Try *that* with VB!) The IDE can even note changes you make in code and back-update the IDE, and vice-versa. Any VCL component that is persistent (i.e., can be used in the RAD IDE) does so by providing standard methods to read and write its properties to an I/O stream. That stream is saved to a file (.DFM - Delphi Form) for design, and embedded in the .EXE for runtime. All an IDE form is, is a component that the IDE automatically feeds an embedded I/O stream to at construction. Very smooth!

    (For those that just refuse to use Pascal, the VCL is also used in C++Builder. The same library, just with C++ bindings.)

    Anyway, I hope this little tirade of mine makes the point that OP is not just a VB clone, or another implementation of broken ISO Pascal. I'm not saying C++ is better or worse, just that OP has its advantages too, and is quite usable for real-world development. :-)

    </SOAPBOX>

  • Many of you wonder why Delphi came on top instead of C/C++. It was not a surpise for me. If Microsoft would run a similar poll, Visual Basic would be on top. To understand why, you have to look at things from the other side of the fence.

    If you're a Windows-user, you have several tools to choose from. You can use Visual Basic, Delphi or C/C++, for example. If you use C and want to write for Linux too, there is GCC, a lot of toolkits and everything you need. You can even use winelib if you want. You'll be productive pretty fast.

    But imagine what would happen if you don't do C. What if you have done pascal for 10 years and never touched C? Then there's not any good tools to use. There is Free Pascal [kuleuven.ac.be], but you can't use it to do X11-programming yet. There is Lazarus [miraclec.com] but it's not even alpha.

    So you're stuck in the Windows-world with all those tens of thousands of lines of VB- or Delphi-code. And you're hating it and praying every day that Linux will get a decent development environment for Pascal or Basic.

  • Though I find Object Pascal to be quite powerful. I've been a C/C++ programmer for 10 years, and in the late 80's I also wrote a *lot* of Turbo Pascal code.

    Pascal seems to have gotten a bad rap, but it's an excellent language for the kind of mindset that RAD requires.

    The thing about Delphi (I just started using it last year, and *live* by it for Windows development - it is a far better tool for Win32 development, imho, than VisualC++) is that it's a very, very friendly and productive environment.

    Want to get a basic dialog-based app built? Just design it, double click on the GUI elements, add the necessary code to validate each, double click on your "Ok" button, add the final code, and oila - its done.

    There is no messing about with Message Apps, no crufty code that doesn't seem to be applicable to anything (as is the case with the stuff generated by the MSVC++ AppWizards), and everything is accessible.

    Plus, the Delphi VCL really is an excellent toolkit. When I first discovered it after a long hiatus from writing Pascal code, I experienced the same sort of "gee, programming is fun again!" vibe that I got the first time I studied the BeOS API's... it just makes a lot of sense, and most of the time you can *guess* API function names, sensibly.

    Which is not something you can say for MFC or any of the other shitty API's/SDK's you get from Those Folks In Richmond.

    So I suppose that the Delphi-cult could best be described as being driven by the fact that Delphi makes Windows programming fun again, something that is sorely missing on the Windows platform courtesy of MS.

  • mainly since GTK apps work on KDE anyway with the libraries installed and you can code with the GTK in C (which is probably still the preferred language of coders).
  • Consider that I've hit bugs in GCC but don't know jack about compiler design, and I'm in the same boat either way. :-)

    Seriously, while I prefer open source tools, I've found Borland C++Builder (V4) and Delphi (V4) to be solid tools that perform very well. Borland was very responsive to bug reports in C++Builder V4. As some have said, if the tool is good and reasonably priced, open source may not be the deciding vote. I'm sure RMS would disagree, but as I said, it often does not matter.

    All IMNSHO, of course. :-)
  • Choosing to only do Delphi for Linux would be a mistake. Doing both Delphi and C++ Builder would capture major mindshare and reestablish Borland as the tool provider of choice for many people.

  • Based on the poll results, it looks like they'll do a Red Hat distro and any needed changes to get a S.u.S.e. distro. But unlikely they'll do any other distro without support from them. Debian might squeak by for that reason.

  • Actually, I'm one of those. No, I'm not clueless-- I just prefer GTK for development but would like it to provide KDE integration (e.g. drag and drop between GTK apps and KDE apps).

    Warren E. Downs
  • I agree with you about C over C++. Was C++ designed with the intention of being hard to read? Or does Stroustrup just have some of the most counterintuitive notions of any programmer I've encountered?

    I like strong typing. I have casts to override when I want to add chars and integers. I detest automatic type conversion and "promotion". Give me no surprises.

    Sometimes when I am parsing text I wish I were using C, but the most recent changes in Object Pascal have made that less an issue than it once was.

    Almost anything written in VC++ could serve as an example of how not to write. (Let the flames begin.) Why does little or nothing from MS conform to the principles espoused in McConnell's excellent books?

    I have no comment on Linux source style, as I have not yet delved into it.

    Each time I am bitten by unexpected behaviors (rarely when in Delphi) I crave the good old days of assembly level programming.

    I'm not a Basic programmer, and never have been. (See the comment above on automatic type conversion .)

    I'm only welded to Delphi by virtue of production ease and speed. Give me an alternative which doesn't reduce my productivity, and I will use it.
  • Not meaning to appear crass or condecending, but Delphi is a native code compiler. Also Delphi's Object Pascal has significant features not found in earlier versions of Borland/Object Pascal. The only people I've found that truly dislike Delphi are VB programmers, they know it's better, it's actually object oriented (vs Object Based), more flexible, and the compiled programs run faster. Oh and by the way, it has better integration with C/C++ the VB does. (Not that it has perfect integration, just a lot better than VB).

    VB users tend to be scared of Delphi they way they are scared of C++.

    Of course the above is a general statement based on lots of VB programmers I know. I'm sure there are those who effortlessly and seamlessly jump between VB, Delphi and C++. To those that can, my hat goes off to you.
  • The results you point to aren't all that weird. My take on these responses is that there are a lot of VB developers who'd like to code for Linux, and they'd like to use their current skills. (I remember seeing a tool a while back that did a VB-to-Java translation, allowing VB programmers to shake off the chains and develop cross-platform apps.) BASIC language support in a Borland VIDE might allow a lot of these folks' skills to be portable.

    You can run ASP on Linux. ChiliSoft's ChiliASP, I think. And Apache::ASP with modperl.

    MS SQL Server needs all the help it can get, so a port to Linux might actually be in MS's favor. (!)

    I too find it very encouraging that despite the obvious windows-developer slant, there's a strong interest in releasing free software. There's hope yet.

  • Thank you! At least someone gets what I'm trying to say. This is exactly what happened to me. When the SunPro compiler broke we had over 3 weeks of downtime waiting for them to fix it before giving up and going with gcc. I'll guarantee that I could find someone prepared to fix gcc quicker that at a total cost less than the downtime for the SunPro compiler.
  • Your post ably demonstrates your ignorance of Delphi. In the Windows environment, there is little you cannot do with Delphi, apart from writing a Windows device driver (and most would rather avoid that horror, anyway.)

    I avoided Windows for years because coding for Windows was 90% about building the UI and only 10% about solving the application problem. Delphi makes the UI part a breeze, and frees me to focus on solving the problem.

    Also, I can often spot apps which have been developed in Delphi by the clean UI. It's so easy in Delphi that we often spend more time on it than others seem to when using VC++.

    Also, C++ Builder provides the same ease of UI design, while supporting all the complexities of C++. It also finds bugs which VC++ does not.

    As to corporate acceptance, if you look at the case studies on the Borland site, you will find some fairly impressive names there.

    Acquaint yourself with the facts first, then you may have something useful to offer.
  • So many Linux sympathizers developing on the RAD level with Pascal... who woulda thunk?

    I must admit, though, that some form of RAD would be excellent on Linux. I haven't used Pascal since high school (UCSD Pascal on the Apple IIe). I think some C/C++ would fit in better, but I wouldn't complain about Delphi.

    'Course, you can't go wrong with Perl. PerlBuilder, by Borland. Yeah.
  • I suspect that we will see a JBuilder for Linux before Delphi, as I understand that JBuilder 3 is written in Java.

    I am sure we will see Delphi for Linux, and I suspect that CBuilder will follow. One open question is whether they will port their compiler or use gcc. Either one would work as well for me, but I suspect that the latter case would draw more interest from existing Linux coders.

    As to synchronization of product releases, it would be incredibly difficult. Moreover, CBuilder has all of the C++ complexity and compliance issues to manage, whereas OP is Borland's own lanmguage. Finally, I think each benefits from the other -- they one-up each other over time, so each new release raises the bar for the other product.

    Also, for any who don't know, the compiler back end is the same for Delphi and CBuilder. And CBuilder can compile Delphi source (subject to a few restrictions).

    Ultimately, the issue of which products migrate to Linux will depend on how many units are sold. If the Linux market snubs tools with pricetags, then they won't get commercial tools. And as should be apparent, Borland will have to go by stages, testing the waters. Anything else would verge on malfeasance.

    I hope very much to see Delphi and CBuilder for Linux, and the sooner the better. I also hope to see Delphi for BeOS. Mostly, I hope that this will show Borland the merits of stepping into multi-platform.

    For those who may be unaware, Borland has twice before developed tools for other platforms, and both times they lost money on the deal. The first was TP for Mac, and the second was C++ for OS/2. Let's show them that Linux is a good place to be.
  • 6. Which Internet technologies are you interested in on Linux?

    Cold Fusion showed up, but iHTML didn't! Damn Marketing!
  • Consider this: by supporting Object Pascal under CBuilder, they made it possible to use the majority of the already 3rd party components without change. It had less to do with converting the core VCL, I suspect, than with acquiring that very large, and growing, collection of components.

    In addition, these components become more truly components when they may be used in two different languages.
  • Borland still has a large market share. In C++, they have roughly one in three, and the Delphi base is only slightly smaller.

    Delphi programmers are loyal and vocal, but often go unnoticed, as they spend more time shipping code that works than yammering about language issues.

    Many of us are ready to jump ship from Windows, but are unwilling to suffer the setback of shifting language, OS, and UI tools, all at the same time. We're not all in it for fun, after all, and continuing productivity is a deciding factor when your paycheck hinges on it.

    Linux is pretty nice, in spite of some pretty horrible documentation problems (rivaling even those of M$). It isn't God's gift to OSes, in spite of some of the fawning commentary I've read, but it is certainly a worthy alternative to Windows. Frankly, I'd rather have BeOS. But if Borland produces Delphi for Linux, then I'm there, as I know I will have a tool I can trust, and which will spare me from the immediate loss of productivity which comes with switching UI toolkits.

    If you think Delphi isn't particularly popular, you've been reading in the wrong places. It's true that Pascal is largely dead apart from Borland's version, but that is largely because other versions were never capable of enough real-world activities. ISO Pascal doesn't even have I/O, after all. Borland has done for Pascal, and now Object Pascal, what a committee eventually did for C++: made it useful, and controlled its form.

    Unfortunately, the ANSI C++ standard, overwhelming though it is, fails miserably in some areas, such as in failing to define standards for name mangling, and so portability across tools is still poor.

    If C++ were the only tool for programming Linux, I would pass it by. I'm sure there are many others who feel the same. Asking me to bet on Linux for my livelihood, and to abandon a highly productive tool, as well as a UI I understand (even if I don't much like it) is asking me to sacrifice too much.

    Linux ain't a cause -- it's a tool. It needs to ba a sharp tool, else why move from the rusty Windows tool which currently pays the rent?

    Linux people want to see more people using Linux and programming for Linux, yet also seem to want to force us all to adopt their methods and tools. Oddly enough, that's the M$ philosophy, too. Assimilation. Forget it.

    I live with the warts on Windows, and I can live with the warts on Linux, but I will do so only when I have highly productive tools.

    Borland, bring on Delphi for Linux! I'm ready.
  • Uh, and why wouldn't an application of XML be a good tool to define GUIs?

    Instead of trying to make a GUI that caters to both newbies and hackers why not seperate everything from the back end. Define the GUI with a XML application and write the glue code.

    /mill
  • You're right. Most of tend to range from ambivalence to animosity in our attitudes towards MS. Many of us are/were simply looking for a superior alternative to VB without making the jump to C++. Many of us are basically application developers, not OS kernal writers. In many ways we are the same target market for tool writers as VB is. The difference being, Delphi gives us the opportunity to write our own tools(DLLs, Plug-ins, ActiveX controls) if we want to.Give us our favorite app development system for Linux, and we will come.
  • Many of us may have responded as we did because the licensing of Qt could be a complication. I know that was the deciding factor for me.

    As to Gnome vs. KDE, I have used both, and Gnome just ain't ready for prime time yet. KDE has a polished feel, and into the bargain, will be less of a surprise to users already familiar with Windows. That makes my life simpler when I ship a product.

    RAD is more than an interest: it's a necessity. Not having RAD means either outrageous prices for application software, or a failing company. The only way a small company can compete today is through RAD.
  • This definately makes sense to me. But still there are options for everyone. I'll speak for myself.


    But imagine what would happen if you don't do C. What if you have done pascal for 10 years
    and never touched C?


    This is what exactly hapened to me. I installed Linux and didn't heared anything about Pascal compilers for Linux at that time. And I said to myself "C'mon Ed, you claim to be a professional, millions of programmers do it in C, are you any worse?" Uhhh, I couldn't swallow my pride :)

    In general, nothing matters except of one's will to study.

    There is Free Pascal, but you
    can't use it to do X11-programming yet.


    Hmmm, I have it isntalled and it has interface units to X libraries, so I doubt it's completely impossible. Main problem is that programming interfaces in Linux (ditto Muzzdie) are C-oriented and purist Pascal coder, as I am, has no chance for success. Either you need assembly, or you must rely upon frameworks or intarface units. This especially takes C pointer operations (functions with variable count of arguments, pointer 'lists' etc).

    However it is, most of one's Windoze code is completely useless on Linux- different OS design, paradigms etc. Coder experience is the only thing you can take along to the paradise :)
  • Actually, I prefer Mandrake and Caldera, so far. I want KDE, not Gnome, and Caldera has the only good installation process I have seen.

    Shipping PC based boxes means adapting to change in the environment, and that means using the install tool, not just cloning drives. All of the other installation tools (other than Caldera) just suck. Especially if you select a custom installation.

    I don't care whether Linux is open source. I'm not on a crusade. I do care about a viable alternative to Windows, though. And it has to be viable as the foundation for commercial products.

    I'm sure that many of us who are programming for Windows share these concerns. This isn't a hobby, or a labor of love. It's a search for a better, cleaner OS that isn't strangling under legacy support and code bloat.
  • 10% isn't control, and I know people at Borland, and they aren't into being M$ windup toys, either.

    Look around. M$ has a 10% stake in a lot of companies. Often, as much as anything, it is to help assure the continued existence of at least the appearance of competition. The troubles they have with the DOJ now are as nothing to what would happen if they wiped out Borland and others.
  • Just for the record. Delphi is type safe (ie a strongly typed language). Delphi/Object Pacal has made significant improvements in power and functionality since Borland Pascal and even since Delphi 1. It also supports in-line assembler if you really really want to go that route.

    While the IDE is primarily RAD/Visually oriented. You can write non visual source code that has absolutely no VCLs in it. It's up to the developer.

    As far as the STL, yes that is a great toolkit for C++. There are several commercial and freeware libraries that add much of the STL functionality to Delphi. All written in Delphi or Delphi/Assembler.
  • In reading through the survey it became very apparent there are two specific (and somewhat overlapping) groups that responded: 40% are slashdotters (question 33) and at least 76% are already strong Borland/Inprise customers (question 29, Delphi & C++ Builder users). Thus we can't draw any conclusions about whether Delphi is as popular as it would appear on this survey. And there was a non-negligible number of respondents who either weren't answering seriously or did not understand it. (question 20, "what on earth are you talking about?")

    I don't know how to account for the number of open source developers (questions 8 and 17). I would count myself among them, but I don't think there were so many. Probably mostly slashdotters again. The most puzzling result was "Object Pascal" in question 12, which did not appear elsewhere on the survey.

    The meaningful, relatively unbiased results are: 1) It looks as though everyone wants a RAD solution these days (questions 4 and 2) and 2) most developers who say they want to develop RAD on Linux (most of the respondents) are still using Windows (questions 22-26). This is a clear message to Borland/Inprise to simply continue to improve their Windows tools while making a Linux port.
  • Delphi and Object Pascal seem to be most widely used by those who responded.. even taking into account the unscientific nature of such a survey, I am surprised that Delphi dominates without all the hype. And again, C++ can be more powerful but OP seems to be just enough for most.


    Development time vs. compiled code speed seems to be interesting. I tend to believe that time spent programming is more expensive than computing time nowadays. Delphi generates fast code, however!


    Hmm, why there was so little about Visual Basic? Oh yes, that was Inprise's survey. Or perhaps VB is in fact a non-hyped dominant language? :-]

  • Don't forget, folks:

    1. This is a poll. As such, its statistical validity is very questionable.
    2. The sample draws from the population of Borland users. As such, it is not at all representative of general attitudes.

    That being said, I think that there is some useful conclusions to be drawn. For example, I seriously doubt that the Linux distro distribution is in any way correlated with this sample's non-representative origin -- although of course it is possible that Borland users tend to prefer RedHat more than the general Linux population.

    --

  • If I'm interested in Perl, CGI's and Java, I would have been able to select multiple options. The answers aren't mutually exclusive. On average, each respondant would have been interested in 2.33 technologies.
    --
  • Hello! The answers for those questions weren't mutually exclusive; respondents could check multiple answers to those questions. Just because you're interested in, for example, device driver development, that doesn't preclude you from also being interested in application development.
  • I was very surprised as to how many people would be prepared to put up with a closed source compiler. It's the one component of your development system that's absolutely critical, and I couldn't justify going the closed source route. I've already been bitten by that one since Sun didn't fix a bug in their SunPro compiler many years ago. We were forced to switch to gcc just to get the code to compile, and haven't looked back since.

    I might consider it if the source was held in escrow, but the conditions for source code release to me would have to be very favourable. It's worth noting that I personally don't have the compiler expertise to be able to fix most problems that are likely to occur anyway. However, if I have the source, I can at least pay someone else that does have the expertise to do it for me.

    BTW, it's nice to see that a company like Borland/Inprise still has a sense of humour (re: question 35).

  • i downloaded a program and installed it. when i typed ./configure i dont remember checking for gdelphi .... ok those results seemed real weird. i must have been out of town when the survey was posted. i didn't realize delphi dev was that big of a deal. i also agree with the gtk/qt gnome/kde conundrum. i guess alot of people in europe use delphi?
  • Delphi tends to be on top. I would've thought that C++ builder would've been more popular with Linux users/coders. Cuz you get C++ code out, not the odd delphi stuff. But even more interesting is some of the other numbers...
    ~500 people want VB on Linux
    ~4250 people want ASP for Linux
    ~3820 people want Microsoft SQL Server on Linux
    Ahh the telling point
    Which toolkits will you use?
    ~6250 Don't know what these toolkits are.
    ~14000 primary develop Windows
    9332 deleop primary in Delphi

    Good to see that
    ~5700 will release software free

    But it is interesting to see that this list is mainly from windows developers not from Linux developers which kinda explains the other results.
    -cpd
  • The question is which internet technolog_ies_. That's plural. You can have more than one intrest - hence the greater than 100% return.

  • Anyway, I hope they port. seems like there's quite a lot of unhappy windows developers eager to defect

    It seems, to me at least, as is evident from this survey and my own personal experience, that if there were more commercially supported development tools, Linux could take off real fast.

    I've never done any development in X, much less a specific WM, but I would surely start if, say, C++ Builder were released for Linux. I only hope they follow code warrior's model and release a free- as well as commercial-version (as I'm an individual, and wouldn't be able to easily pay for expensive development tools).

    But alas, since I have no experience with development in X, I can't really comment much further without potentially sounding stupid.

    Life may be worth living eventually,

  • "development language of choice Object Pascal"

    That really stood out for me also, I've got to believe that's not the norm. Gosh, I'm having a flashback to the early 80's when I was a suffering college student doing everything in Pascal. One of these day's I'm gonna load up a Pascal compiler and play around with that again..or I might even join the 20th century and look at OP.

    But anyways...yeah..the results are very slanted. Kinda like taking a survey in a Pizza joint about your favorite Italian foods...Still..I like Borland and I whatever they port to Linux I will buy.
  • A lot of the respondents (like me) are
    hardcore Delphi users who would think it
    would be just dandy to develop for both
    Linux and Windows, instead of being locked
    into just a single operating system, but who
    don't know a whole lot about Linux just yet.

    Why bother spending the time to learn the difference between Qt and GTK+ and KDE and
    GNOME until Delphi runs on Linux?
  • $1500 is peanuts, when you look at it in the context of "how much does a week of a developer's time cost". I'd say $1500 is no more than a weeks worth ( remember that the "TCO" per-developer exceeds the developers salary. ) QT has some nice time-saving features -- such as documentation and support. Witness the gap between the state of the GNOME and KDE projects as concrete evidence that QT is a time saver.

    On the other hand, I don't see any commercial outfits flocking to GTK. A development kit isn't just software -- it's a package that includes documentation and support. QT has this. GTK doesn't.

  • Funny how I am totally opposite in preference
    towards using spelled keywords as opposed to
    symbols.

    I find it much speedier to read code, especially
    someone else's, in C as opposed to say more wordy
    languages like Pascal and Visual Basic. Syntax
    highlighting in the IDE helps a lot, but when
    there are words all over the place, I find myself
    delayed by having to read them, like reading a
    story where you don't want to accidentally skip
    over important words.

    It's mostly a minor issue, but I find myself able
    to get an idea of a block of C code faster in
    situations where a lot of conditions are being
    evaluated. Probably because I don't have to go
    back and make sure that I correctly read the
    Not's and And's and didn't mistaken them for
    variables or something. There's no confusing an
    && symbol from an || symbol (at least for me).

    Even having said all this, too much symbols is
    also confusing and also slows me down :) I guess
    I have too many problems :)

    On another note, I think the "Then" keyword after
    an "If" condition is very annoying and waste of
    time to have to type out. Grrr.

    Ok, that's enough from me.
  • I use KDE but think it would be dead wrong and bad for Borland to make Qt the only bindings available in their templatized RAD. Being able to select either for RAD would be best, but would be a development nightmare for Borland. GTK+ wins solely on the fact that it is non-restrictive.

    Not necessarily. I could see Troll Tech licensing QT to Borland, and collecting some royalties. If Troll had reason to believe that such a toolkit would be a big seller, it would make sense for them to sell it at a lower price. This would be a win-win-win: Troll rake in money in on the kit (which would generate a lot of commercial QT sales ) , Borland can use a stable kit that is carefully documented and maintained by professionals, and the users can develop with the best available toolkit.

    Borland need something that's good, not something that's cheap ( note that the respondents said that they were willing to pay ). This in itself rules out GTK.

  • Really. It looks like another lousy attempt to advert attention to Inprise.
    1. Every decent IDE we have under Linux today is configurable to work with almost any existing compiler. Do you need to throw $ 1,500 to the wind to tie yourself to a proprietary thing again? This amount makes a cool amplifier to me.
    2. To mean something for the whole Linux community, one needs to span his wings above everyone. Or almost that wide. The vast majority of poll participants are current Windoze developers and they want this or that (language, widget set, wm support etc). How about others? Is Inprise about to conquer Linux or they are just 'porting' developers?
    3. Forget about VCL. This Linux, it comes from Unix. Everything you need is already at your finfertips. Probably hiding CreateProcess() behind class method saves typing, but man, execve() is as simple as baby's ass. Keep it simple.
    4. Beware. There's a greater part of Unix developers and they have no need to port anything. They have zillions of lines of Hi-End code that works on any hardware and with any widget set. If you only stuck with proprietary tool- they are light years ahead and you loose before you start.
    I am with Borland since TP 4, don't get me wrong. But that was Borland. Nowadays Inprise has nothing common with that small, brave and innovative company of our early days. It started for me with 4 and is should end up with the same number. Really, Delphi 4 is a bloatware.
    In general, fashions come and go. People can dream away but it will take very long time for Inprise to come out with anything decent for Linux. If they ever manage to. Selling themselves to M$ wasn't a Good Idea (tm). "But look, 20 developers can't feed 150 'kind of' developers and 200 managers, ya know...."
  • I've always felt that the most annoying part of pascal was the use of ; as a statement separator rather than terminator. I spend an ungodly amount of time adding and deleting ; in if statements and simillar constructs. Between this and the spectacularly wordy syntax, I'd much rather stick with C++.
  • First off, what was really interesting is that more people were interested in developing for GTK+ than for QT, but at the same time, more people wanted to develop for KDE than for GNOME. Maybe KDE should adopt GTK+ as their library. :)

    I was also surprised at the popularity of Delphi. But I have to admit that when it comes to RAD, Delphi is RADer than any other C++ tool. :) And Rapid Application Development really seemed to be an interest in most of those polled.
  • If you had bothered to read the survey results, you would have discovered that 70% of the survey participants are unwilling to spend more than $300 on a complete development environment.

    Firstly, several of the survey participants are releasing under an open source license. So the QT license costs are not an issue.

    Secondly, as far as large commerical projects go, they are really asking the wrong people. The programmers do not set the budgets.

    It's really ironic that somebody from the Linux community would call 1500 dollars "peanuts",

    I don't see what's so ironic about it. Repeat after me: Free speach, not free beer.

    Furthermore, please keep in mind that $1500 will only buy you a single license for a single developer. If Microsoft decided to port Office to KDE, how much would they have to spend on Qt license fees alone?

    If it saved two weeks of development time over using GTK, it would be substantially cheaper to use QT. It is important to keep the costs in perspective.

    Lastly, why do you presume that everyone who doesn't want to release the source code for his product has to be a commercial developer? This fee can apply to freeware programs as well, if they don't comply with the Open Source mantra.

    Personally, I wish closed source "freeware" would roll over and die. Why would anyone want to give the software away and keep the code secret anyway ?

  • I wonder what makes Delphi such a good RAD tool. I can't believe that the main reason is the use of Object Pascal. The tool's design and such must contribute significantly. I have nothing against Pascal--it was the first programming language I learned. However, it isn't very popular. I'd rather use a popular language and become an expert in that language since those skills would be useful anywhere. How about a Delphi-like took based on Java?
  • I think the issue of open sourced vs Closed source compilers is a legitimate one where Linux is concerned. But if this will help, everything but the compiler itself is already opened sourced in Delphi (all the 100+ VCLs, libraries,...) This has helped developers identify bugs that have turned up in Delphi (yes there are bugs). Also, Delphi is written in Delphi, not C++ or C.

    Borland/Inprise has what they call backend compiler technology that is used in both C++ and Delphi. Because they view this tech as giving them somewhat of a competitive advantage over MS, they are unlikely to release source code for that particular piece.

    If they port Delphi to Linux (and that's a big "IF"), they will probably take a similar approach.

    Lastly, in case this sounds like a lovefest with Inprise/Borland. Version 4 of Delphi (the most recent version until version 5 gets released later this month, or early September) is generally regarded as an unstable/unreliable release. Because of Delphi 4's problems,many developers are still using Delphi 3 and hoping the problems go away with Delphi 5.

    So in the end,there may be legitimate concern over a closed source vs open sourced compiler if they screw up as bad as they did with Delphi 4.
  • I like Delphi, least what little I've used it. One of the few programming languages I can get a grip on. Borland C/C++ would be damn nice to.

  • I found it interesting that when asked what desktop they were using, 50% replied KDE, while only 27% replied GNOME. Being a GNOME user myself, I was kind of surprised at how many are using KDE (maybe I'll check it out).

    But the real interesting thing was the toolkit question: which toolkit are you interested in developing in? Only 18% replied Qt, while 25% replied GTK. While a good 26% said they didn't know what all this toolkit mess was about.

    So it appears (note, this is conjecture) that possibly 30% of the people who use KDE don't know what toolkit KDE is based on. Possibly--I don't want to draw too many conclusions from the numbers.

    Why would this be? Do KDE users simply have it easier--i.e. KDE is such a integrated package that knowledge of the underpinnings are not required, etc.? Being a GNOME user, I am very aware of GTK. One, because of the rapid GTK development in the GNOME 0.9 stages, which broke entire versions of GNOME. Two, because of all the initial "political" hub-bub about GNOME being true opne source because of the GPL v. TrollTech/Qt.

    What do you think? Is it just numbers, or is there something to this? Why are so many KDE users (almost half in THIS survey) not interested in developing for Qt?


    "Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs."
  • Sure, it's a narrow segment, but it's an extremely important segment. Current Borland customers planning on supporting Linux in the future are what they care about. They do not care about Joe Hacker who writes his CLI programs in C using gcc, because that guy is unlikely to buy their product anyway.
  • Actually, this sample draws from the /. readers. If you look, over 40% of the respondents read slashdot regularly, and it was actually mentioned in the slashdot front page. Despite this possible skewing by Linux zealots who have no intention of actually buying a Borland product for $400, these results still came up.
  • I saw the opposite in these numbers. Considering the large number of Windows developers answering the survey, these answers surprised me:
    45.8% would license their code under an open source license
    54.8% would distribute source in some form with their program

    That's good to see - even Windows users are interested in Open Source. I've seen this as well in many shareware authors that I've talked to. Many wouldn't mind giving away the source to their program, or even using some sort of free software license, but >95% of their users don't have the right compiler, so it'd be pointless to do so.

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