BorlandTalk.com Borland discussion newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Goto page 1, 2  Next          BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> C++ Builder (Non-Technical) View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message OBones Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 2:04 am    Post subject: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Hi all The company I'm working for is developing products using C++, with Microsoft tools. While the core of the product cannot use anything else but an MS compiler, the current MFC user interface could be rewritten quite easily because it's loosely coupled to the core. I'm in the process of considering the options available around and here is what I found: 1) Stick with MFC, and get stuck in a maintenance nightmare for the GUI, along with a really bad design environment (no RAD at all). However, this is the easiest solution as the experience from the developers is great in this area. 2) As we're using VS.Net to develop, we could move to managed C++ and Windows Forms. This would allow to take advantage of the editing environment and the new technologies available. However, this would force all our customers to move to at least Windows 2000 in order to get the .Net framework. Moreover, the third party components available are not quite numerous. 3) Use C++ Builder 6, but that would mean heavy training for the developers who all have a strong link to MS development environment. It would however allow to use 3rd party components like the JVCL and take advantage of the RAD environment. However, with all the buzz going around Borland's C++ policy, I'm not sure it's worth the trouble if my company has to change again in 6 months because Borland stopped their support. Because I come from a Delphi background, I'm most interested in the 3rd option but the "problems" mentionned here about CBuilderX will most likely make my boss wonder. I don't intend on launching any troll here, and I'd be delighted to have your constructive opinions on that matter. I really need some strong arguments for any solution. Thanks in advance for your help Olivier 'OBones' Sannier. Back to top Randall Parker Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 2:32 am    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Olivier, The uncertainty about VCL support in BCB/BCBX will be resolved by Borland at some point. If Borland says they will add a VCL forms designer to BCBX at some point in the future then going with BCB until BCBX gets a VCL forms designer would make a lot of sense. It would make even more sense of Borland decides to bring out a BCB v6.5 that includes the new compiler and linker, some IDE fixes, and the Delphi v7 or later VCL controls. If you are not in a rush then wait a few weeks and see what Borland decides to announce. OBones wrote: Quote: Because I come from a Delphi background, I'm most interested in the 3rd option but the "problems" mentionned here about CBuilderX will most likely make my boss wonder. Back to top Michael McCulloch Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 4:43 am    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 12:04:01 +1000, OBones <obones_fff_ (AT) meloo_fdf_ (DOT) com> wrote: Quote: 2) As we're using VS.Net to develop, we could move to managed C++ and Windows Forms. ... Moreover, the third party components available are not quite numerous. If you want to find a gold mine of VCL components, go to SourceForge and search on "Turbopower". It's a veritable feast and all I've tried so far work well with Delphi and BCB. Too bad all of those great components may only be compatible with a soon to be dead-end, unsupported development tool. --- Michael McCulloch Back to top OBones Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 5:11 am    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Michael McCulloch wrote: Quote: On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 12:04:01 +1000, OBones [email]obones_fff_ (AT) meloo_fdf_ (DOT) com[/email]> wrote: 2) As we're using VS.Net to develop, we could move to managed C++ and Windows Forms. ... Moreover, the third party components available are not quite numerous. If you want to find a gold mine of VCL components, go to SourceForge and search on "Turbopower". It's a veritable feast and all I've tried so far work well with Delphi and BCB. Too bad all of those great components may only be compatible with a soon to be dead-end, unsupported development tool. That's another concern to me as I'm on to making the upcoming version 3 of the JVCL compile and work with BCB5 and BCB6. So far, everything is fine, and if you want to have a crack at it, it's available as daily snapshot here: http://jvcl.sf.net/daily Regards Olivier Sannier PS: If I broke any netiquette rule by giving this link, let me know. This isn't intentional and I think quite harmless as this is free work anyway. Back to top Michael McCulloch Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 3:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 15:11:59 +1000, OBones <obones_fff_ (AT) meloo_fdf_ (DOT) com> wrote: Quote: That's another concern to me as I'm on to making the upcoming version 3 of the JVCL compile and work with BCB5 and BCB6. So far, everything is fine, and if you want to have a crack at it, it's available as daily snapshot here: http://jvcl.sf.net/daily Wow, thanks. Another "gold mine" of components. It had been a while since I check out the state of the JVCL project. It looks to be progressing nicely. I haven't upgraded from BCB4 though, primarily due to all the reasons sited in this group: high price (I don't need all the DB-related stuff), lack of support, new bugs, etc. I assume it will not work with anything less than BCB5? Again, a sad day if this is all marked for end of life. --- Michael McCulloch Back to top Michael McCulloch Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 3:33 pm    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 10:23:12 -0500, Michael McCulloch <michael (AT) nospam (DOT) invalid.com> wrote: Quote: I haven't upgraded from BCB4 though, primarily due to all the reasons sited in this group: high price (I don't need all the DB-related stuff), lack of support, new bugs, etc. Actually, to be more accurate, I was going to upgrade this summer to BCB6. After reading much complaining in this group and Borland's lack of response/action after having months to do so, I chose instead to order VS .net 2003. Looks like I made the right call for the long-term. --- Michael Back to top Marcelo R. Lopez, Jr. Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 10:23 pm    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Yeah ? Just try using the TurboPower set of components...their BPK's are all over the place. They've got this Mozilla license header at the top of the XML file which doesn't allow Builder to import them, and even if you get that and all the stupid directory inconsistencies to match up, BCB6 STILL refuses to load the BPK complaining about a "Project Rule" being incorrect. Nevermind that BCB doesn't TELL you which Rule was the problem, so you could fix it. Then, if you try to create a package yourself, and include all the .PAS files, you still get compiler errors saying it can't find the "DesignIntf" module ( even if you specifically requested designide.bpi to be included ) .....You can't win for trying sometimes... "Michael McCulloch" <michael (AT) nospam (DOT) invalid.com> wrote Quote: On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 15:11:59 +1000, OBones [email]obones_fff_ (AT) meloo_fdf_ (DOT) com[/email]> wrote: That's another concern to me as I'm on to making the upcoming version 3 of the JVCL compile and work with BCB5 and BCB6. So far, everything is fine, and if you want to have a crack at it, it's available as daily snapshot here: http://jvcl.sf.net/daily Wow, thanks. Another "gold mine" of components. It had been a while since I check out the state of the JVCL project. It looks to be progressing nicely. I haven't upgraded from BCB4 though, primarily due to all the reasons sited in this group: high price (I don't need all the DB-related stuff), lack of support, new bugs, etc. I assume it will not work with anything less than BCB5? Again, a sad day if this is all marked for end of life. --- Michael McCulloch Back to top OBones Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 10:58 pm    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Michael McCulloch wrote: Quote: On Mon, 03 Nov 2003 15:11:59 +1000, OBones [email]obones_fff_ (AT) meloo_fdf_ (DOT) com[/email]> wrote: That's another concern to me as I'm on to making the upcoming version 3 of the JVCL compile and work with BCB5 and BCB6. So far, everything is fine, and if you want to have a crack at it, it's available as daily snapshot here: http://jvcl.sf.net/daily Wow, thanks. Another "gold mine" of components. It had been a while since I check out the state of the JVCL project. It looks to be progressing nicely. I haven't upgraded from BCB4 though, primarily due to all the reasons sited in this group: high price (I don't need all the DB-related stuff), lack of support, new bugs, etc. I assume it will not work with anything less than BCB5? The official line for the JVCL is to only support the current and the previous version of any given compiler. However, we still support Delphi 5 because the efforts to have the compliance are not too big and because some of our members still use it. As to BCB support, we are only two people working on it. One on BCB5, one on BCB6. So it will only work with those two, unless someone wants to make the effort to try to have this work with BCB4. I compiled some guidelines in the accompanying documentation, it may help you have it work with BCB4, if you ever find the time to do such a thing. But please keep in mind that we were on the verge of completely discarding BCB support quite a number of times, because of it's buggy nature. In the end, it works quite well, but it wasn't without any pain. If anyone wants any support with it, please ask your questions on news:forums.talk-to.net/jedi.vcl/ Cheers Olivier Sannier Back to top OBones Guest Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 11:19 pm    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Marcelo R. Lopez, Jr. wrote: Quote: Yeah ? Just try using the TurboPower set of components...their BPK's are all over the place. They've got this Mozilla license header at the top of the XML file which doesn't allow Builder to import them, and even if you get that and all the stupid directory inconsistencies to match up, BCB6 STILL refuses to load the BPK complaining about a "Project Rule" being incorrect. Nevermind that BCB doesn't TELL you which Rule was the problem, so you could fix it. Never had that one... Quote: Then, if you try to create a package yourself, and include all the .PAS files, you still get compiler errors saying it can't find the "DesignIntf" module ( even if you specifically requested designide.bpi to be included ) ....You can't win for trying sometimes... You have to add designeide.bpi for the linker to work, but for the pascal compiler to work, you must add -LUdesignide at the end of the value for the PFLAGS node. This is described somewhere deeply burried in the help files. Back to top Randall Parker Guest Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 1:18 am    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Olivier, There are bugs in BCB that are not in Delphi that affect components coded in Pascal? I thought BCB comes with the Delphi compiler and OP libraries. So I would expect bugs to be a rare thing. What causes those problems if you don't mind explaining? OBones wrote: Quote: http://jvcl.sf.net/daily thing. But please keep in mind that we were on the verge of completely discarding BCB support quite a number of times, because of it's buggy nature. In the end, it works quite well, but it wasn't without any pain. If anyone wants any support with it, please ask your questions on news:forums.talk-to.net/jedi.vcl/ Cheers Olivier Sannier Back to top OBones Guest Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 1:45 am    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Randall Parker wrote: Quote: Olivier, There are bugs in BCB that are not in Delphi that affect components coded in Pascal? I thought BCB comes with the Delphi compiler and OP libraries. So I would expect bugs to be a rare thing. What causes those problems if you don't mind explaining? Well, actually, the bugs are not really in the pascal compiler itself, even if the documentation for it is quite thin. The problems are with the linker which crashes for some unknown reasons. It seems it has been fixed by update 4 for BCB6, but it is still there with BCB5. For instance, one unit that compiles perfectly with BCB6 and Delphi5-6-7 generates a linker error under BCB5 like this one: [Linker Fatal Error] Fatal: Type index 2147479547 is bad in module F:Borland3rdPartyJEDIJVCL3runJvDialogActns.pas Quite frankly I've rarely seen such a useless message. And we couldn't get the file to work, because the simple fact of using the following construct makes it crash: TCommonDialogClass = class of TCommonDialog; So we decided not to include this unit in the package for BCB5. Another really annoying issue is that the project manager checks every dependency for every package each time it is about to build one. Say for instance that you have A.bpk and B.bpk in your bpg file with B requiring A.bpi Ensure no output file is available (clean install) then open the bpg file. Choose 'Build all' and observe the message asking for the location of A.bpi when it is about to build A.bpk !!!!! Now imagine this with 25 packages all requiring the very first one... I've left a message on Quality Central about that, but didn't received any comment yet. The solution we came up with was to tell our users about this issue and give them a batch file to build the group file frm the command line, where amazingly, the make tool works. Finally, there is no way from the IDE to tell the pascal compiler where to look for additional units. In Delphi, you have a line to set this up in the Environment options, but this is not there in BCB. As a result, we had to add ' -U"$(PATH)"' at the end of every PFLAGS node so that it would check the directories from the PATH environment variable. This comes from the fact that the JVCL requires the JCL to be there and compiled. The recommended installation is that users put it the same tree as the JVCL, and so our packages all use ....JCL to refer to the JCL location. But some users want to keep stuff even more separate and as a result, the JCL is not at its expected place. The fact that we can't specify such a basic thing in the IDE forced us to ask our users to change their PATH environment variable... If you want more insight on the adventures of the JVCL team in BCB's land, just come to our newsgroup (news:forums.talkto.net/jedi.vcl) and search for posts by me, Leroy and Terry. You'll see heaps of fantastic tales about legendary beasts ! Cheers Olivier Back to top Mike Margerum Guest Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 4:31 pm    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Why dont you just use wxWindows or QT and VC++ 7.1? Back to top OBones Guest Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 11:19 pm    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? Mike Margerum wrote: Quote: Why dont you just use wxWindows or QT and VC++ 7.1? Because I want a RAD environment. I don't want to have to rely on my imagination to see what my GUI will be. What I like with Delphi/BCB/VB, it's the visual design part. I drop a component, and I directly see what's gonna look like. Back to top Mike Margerum Guest Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2003 5:49 am    Post subject: Re: Migrating to BCB: Is it worth it ? there are designers for both toolits Quote: Because I want a RAD environment. I don't want to have to rely on my imagination to see what my GUI will be. What I like with Delphi/BCB/VB, it's the visual design part. I drop a component, and I directly see what's gonna look like. Back to top Mike Guest Posted: Sun Nov 09, 2003 4:18 pm    Post subject: OT: Borland Future :) http://thematrixonline.warnerbros.com/art4.html Direct your attention to the right side, sign on the building. The Oracle has spoken. :) Back to top Display posts from previous: All Posts1 Day7 Days2 Weeks1 Month3 Months6 Months1 Year Oldest FirstNewest First         BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> C++ Builder (Non-Technical) All times are GMT Goto page 1, 2  Next Page 1 of 2   Jump to: Select a forum C++ Builder Newsgroups----------------C++ BuilderC++ Builder (ActiveX)C++ Builder (Announcements)C++ Builder (Command Line Tools)C++ Builder DatabasesC++ Builder Databases (ADO)C++ Builder Databases (Desktop)C++ Builder Databases (InterBase Express)C++ Builder Databases (Multi-Tier)C++ Builder Databases (SQL Servers)C++ Builder (Graphics)C++ Builder (IDE)C++ Builder (Internet)C++ Builder (Internet Socket)C++ Builder (Internet Web)C++ Builder (Jobs)C++ Builder (Language)C++ Builder (Language C++)C++ Builder (Compatibility with MFC)C++ Builder (Native API)C++ Builder (Non-Technical)C++ Builder (Students)C++ Builder (Third Party Tools)C++ Builder (Upgrade)C++ Builder (VCL)C++ Builder (VCL Components Usage)C++ Builder (VCL Components Development)C++ Builder (VCL Usage)C++ Builder (WinAPI)C++ Builder Installation Delphi Newsgroups----------------Delphi (General)Delphi ActiveX Controls UsageDelphi ActiveX Controls DevelopmentDelphi As400Delphi DatabasesDelphi Databases (ADO)Delphi Databases (dbExpress)Delphi Databases (Desktop)Delphi Databases (InterBase Express)Delphi Databases (Multi-Tier)Delphi Databases (SQL Servers)Delphi DeploymentDelphi GraphicsDelphi IDEDelphi InternationalizationDelphi InternetDelphi Internet Isapi-WebBrokerDelphi Internet WebSnapDelphi Internet WinsockDelphi JobsDelphi Language BASMDelphi Language ObjectPascalDelphi Model Driven Architecture (General)Delphi Model Driven Architecture (Third Party)Delphi MultimediaDelphi Native APIDelphi Non-TechnicalDelphi ObjectPascalDelphi OLE AutomationDelphi OO designDelphi OpenToolsAPIDelphi Reporting-ChartingDelphi RTLDelphi StudentsDelphi TeamSourceDelphi Thirdparty ToolsDelphi Thirdparty Tools (General)Delphi Thirdparty Tools (IntraWeb)Delphi Thirdparty Tools (RaveReports)Delphi UpgradeDelphi VCLDelphi VCL ComponentsDelphi VCL Components UsingDelphi VCL Components WritingDelphi WebServices SOAPDelphi WinAPIDelphi XMLDelphi Installationcomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.misccomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.usagecomp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.writingcomp.lang.pascal.delphi.databasescomp.lang.pascal.delphi.misccomp.sources.delphi JBuilder Newsgroups----------------JBuilderJBuilder AnnouncementsJBuilder Applet IssuesJBuilder As400JBuilder CompilerJBuilder CORBA/RMIJBuilder DatabasesJBuilder DB SwingJBuilder DebuggerJBuilder DeploymentJBuilder DocumentationJBuilder EnterpriseJBuilder HandheldJBuilder IDEJBuilder JavaJBuilder JavaAPIJBuilder Java LanguageJBuilder Java SwingJBuilder Java BeansJBuilder Java Beans UsageJBuilder Java Beans DevelopmentJBuilder JBCLJBuilder JDataStoreJBuilder JobsJBuilder LinuxJBuilder MacintoshJBuilder & MobileSetJBuilder MultiLingual AppsJBuilder Non-TechnicalJBuilder OpenToolsJBuilder Servlets (JSP)JBuilder StudentsJBuilder Team DevelopmentJBuilder Thirdparty ToolsJBuilder UpgradeJBuilder Installation InterBase Newsgroups----------------InterBaseInterBase Bug DiscussionInterBase GeneralInterBase IBConsoleInterBase OpenSourceInterBase ReplicationInterBase SQLInterBase ThirdpartyInterBase Installation Miscellaneous Borland Newsgroups----------------AppCenterAppServerEnteraVisiBroker  You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2006 phpBB Group SEO toolkit © 2004-2006 webmedic.