[plug] Kylix Open Edition

[Kevin Shackleton]

I just downloaded Borland Kylix Open Edition from their website and have 
installed and run a (trivial) example.  I'm quite thrilled by this small 
adventure and since no-one else has noted the release of Open Edition 
I'm going to prattle on a bit about it . .

The source was a 30 MB tar.gz.  It installed without any drama.

You register on the Borland site to obtain Kylix, and they email you a 
serial number.

On firing up the app, I had no trouble at all putting the example 
program together - everything is exactly as it is in Delphi under 
Windows.  (And don't think "apart from the crashes <snigger>", because 
Delphi very rarely causes crashes despite hooking right into the machine).

The Open Edition requires you to publish your source under GPL with your 
app, so it's probably not the preferred environment for commercial 
developers!  It also does not come with database components.  For more 
goodies "out of the can" there are three levels of commercial Kylix, 
with the wizzo version selling at $6000!

On the other hand, it's quite normal practice in Delphi is to use third 
party add-ins - in fact many of the components you get in Delphi are 
brain-dead third-party add-ins you really need to kick out.  So 
hopefully it won't be too long before there are a range of products for 
Open Kylix.  Interestingly, many Delphi third-party add-ins are free - 
you pay for the source code or for more goodies.  Expect to see, for 
example, a free Kylix add-on for MySQL.

The introduction of Kylix may be seen as a disaster for unix the way we 
know it.  On the other hand, it means someone can cut code on a Linux 
platform that can be used on Linux or in Windows.  The full commercial 
version of Kylix is squarely aimed at web programming with interfaces to 
Apache and databases.  What can you do with the Open version?  There are 
about 50 controls you can use to make up user apps like calculators (wow 
you might say).  Add a database interface and you could write a POS 
app.  Add IO port control and you can use it in a lab or industrial 
environment.

Kylix removes (dare I say it) the geek image from getting things done in 
a unix environment.  Anyone who can do it in Windows can do it in 
Linux.  It advertised as RAD - Rapid App Development - and it's 
certainly true that you can deliver apps quickly, debug quickly and 
deliver changes quickly, at least that's been my experience with Delphi.

Get a copy!

K.