Open Community Letter to Borland Management (Now Released!!!)
It's been sent!!! Thanks for the feedback everyone.
The official site for the letter is http://bcbjournal.org/community_letter.pdf
The signature page will stay open for a while longer.
Still compiling results of Mark Jacobs survey.
Otherwise, the letter is now in the hands of Borland Management!!!
18 Comments:
intense!
love,
jason mulgrew
internet quasi-celebrity
my blog is better than this piece of crap you call you blog. bloggin-stinks.blogspot.com
and Probably the radio station you listen to.
Borland C++ is used by two of the largest radio station software providers.
Paul,
I'd love to sign your letter, but can't use my company's name, or their client's names. This for fear that our business would be imperiled by Borland's lack of developer / product support.
The customers do include several of the U.S. National laboratories.
Paul,
The letter looks good! Thanks for standing up for us at the Borland Conference. As a long time professional C++Builder/Delphi programmer (exclusively programming in C++Builder for the Healthcare Industry the last 3 years), I do not want a large investment in coding to go down the drain. C++Builder is simply the best RAD C++ tool available. Let's get it back on track! How do I sign your letter?
songprog@email.com
I just agree with the continuation of BCB but also would like to continue BCBX. It should be possible to merge the functionality from BCB to BCBX.
Excellent effort. Agree 100%. To your list of companies you can add the emergency services (Police, Fire, Health) in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain and Australia. Most of them will be using a first response database developed with C++ Builder.
It seems a natural thing to evolve C++ Builder towards .Net via VCL.Net and thus provide a migration path for C++ developers and an alternate, superior development platform to Visual Studio.
Where do I sign?
How do we sign the list, is leaving a message here good enough?
Gregor Brandt
Director, Development
OMT Technologies
www.omt.net
Paul, Thank you for your efforts. We use BCB to develop software for renewable energy applications. How can we add our names to the list? Also, can you tell us how to contact Borland and lobby them directly? I've tried in vain to make contact with Borland to express my desire to see BCB continue as a product, and my frustration with the lack of communication regarding its future. We have a huge investment in C++ Builder!
Joe
Paul,
I'm ready to sign such an open letter.
Adding that to me, working in emergency fields (volcano monitoring), along with the US Geological Survey, C++Builder was the only choice.
In no way I could have done what I do in Microsoft, because I'm not confident enough about the quality of the produced executables.
In life threatening situations, you need something you can count on, not worry about.
And that's why I always used Borland product, nothing else.
Back a decade ago, C++ alternatives were a joke. They had no real object oriented except pieces of junk to try to hide the Win API. Whereas OWL was a masterpiece of Object Oriented Framework.
If you need reliable application, which option do you choose: amateurs or professionals? I chose Borland.
That's why BCB has to survive, because that is the only quality product available in C++. I said the bad word: "Quality", a word that frightens so many people today.
Steve JORDI, Switzerland
You may just want to mention "2004" when you speak about the BorCon.
Borland strategists strike again. C/C++ underpins most software development to date. Bread and butter stuff. Borland seems only interested in desserts. Anyone remember what happened with Interbase? Any lessons learnt?
Maybe, but lets alienate some more of our customer base anyway. Lets hope they do not move into the communication field.
Paul, I think the letter is fine, except for a sort of odd sentence around the "if Borland doesn't deliver, than the developer is at risk of delivering as well". It flows badly and loses its impact.
More importantly, you have missed what the imperative is for Borland. These large organisations, and many many small organisations, invested time and effort in C++ Builder projects. That effort is now more and more at risk as Borland procrastinates. People who took a risk on Borland instead of playing safe buying into Microsoft are now losing their credibility. Many projects will be moving away from Borland tools, any Borland tools, forever, because people are losing face over this. I know, because I recommended C++ Builder to some clients, and they now question the decision - it was after all a dead end.
Borland can choose to sideline their products if they choose, but the consequence is that the developers who used them, and many more who see what happened, will sideline Borland. Borland have to continue C++ Builder/VCL, and then find migration paths. The cost to Borland would be too high in the long term.
Matthew
So what if BCB is sidelined? Does it kill your current apps or prevent you from creating future apps? I don't know about you, but if Borland dumped BCB today, my version will still function the same as it always had (just as buggy and just as slow). Reading all these rants about sidelining BCB gives me the impression that the world will stop if Borland does not release yet another version of BCB. New features are always nice, but the 'cost' associated with them is no where near worth it! If you sit back and examine what features of BCB you use the most and what features you never even touch (or those that seem just plain worthless) you will soon discover that maintaing your current version or even, dare I say, downgrading is more likely to suite your needs. Sure, everyone likes to have the most up-to-date version, with all the bells and whistles, however, in professional programming, practically rules.
Just a side note: How many professional programmers actually use only one tool? I for one, use many tools to develop my applications. I cannot phatom putting all my eggs into one Borland basket...that is simply just a terrible business decision.
Now back to our story: I consistently use BCB5 and Delphi4 daily, and have no plans to upgrade; ever! Anything that I need, I create. Anything I don't feel like creating, I find elsewhere (and usually for free!). Rather than pushing Borland to release another version of BCB, and pilage the pockets of its customers, I suggest this:
The Open Community should push Borland *TO* sideline BCB, and then release it as open source. This would benefit the Open Community far more by releasing the product to those who love it at no cost, and it will keep all those component writers busy (and profitable?) providing the additional functionality OpenBCB (has a nice ring to it, huh?...I hearby copyright OpenBCB, any use of the term will cost you a nickel) will need to stay up with the joneses.
Anyway, that's my two cents, you may deduct it from the nickel you owe me.
Since 1979, I've participated in software development, from main frames to micro computers. I remember Dbase and Turbo Pascal as Borland's first products on the micros, and a few years ahead of Microsoft. I understand how Pascal is Borland's premier product. I also understand how combining two or more languages into one IDE is somewhat complicated as the real world rejection of foreign objects from the host is the common normative factor, which brings me to my conclusion that C++ is better left in it's own IDE such as C++BuilderX attempts to do.
However, since Borland has already combined the two languages into one IDE with success, I see no reason other than the C++ engineers of the more popular compilers attempting to bring their compilers inline with the popular Borland VCL. In otherwords we now have multiple C++ compilers in play where there was only one; with legacy concerns now decelerating/accelerating Borland's C++ ship into the Sun.
I wonder if Borland can whip them all into line?
BCB and the VCL introduced a swathe of C/C++ programmers to the RAD world of Win32 development, way ahead of all other competitors including M$. The product has been poorly supported of late, and is now starting to appear long in the tooth. However, it is of such importance for all of my development work, that I do not intend migrating to another product until my copy of BCB5 Pro SP1 is unable to target Windows PCs any more. This is a very long way off, so as far as I am concerned, I do not care what happens to BCB - we have got the best and we are sticking with it. If Borland decides to improve it, they may get more money from me. But until a product is out there, tried and tested, there can be no revenue from your current C++ programmers, who will continue to use BCB5/6 and target Win32 frameworks. The VCL market continues to expand, and will certainly provide some of the .NET features certain BCB programmers may miss. At least, I think so...
Wow! What an incredible response to the OCL! Now kids, did we learn anything from this exercise?
Borland responded by reiterating an already established 'response' date, and a gratuitous thank you for sending the letter.
Gee, almost seems worth all that effort, huh?
I say OpenBCB! Say it with me...OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! Let me hear it....OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! OpenBCB! Yea, baby, OpenBCB!
Remember each time you chant it, you owe me a nickel! So far, I have $4.95. I gonna be soooo rich!
Hell, I'll even provide the web site, server, ... I'll maintain OpenBCB (and the distributable(s) it will work!), and I promise not to beg for handouts (donations) or ask to support the work by purchasing a crummy CD, or gay T-shirt. Consider it my gift to all the BCB fanatics out there.
Think about it!
Rather then clog up this blog, yes I'm a poet...goto
http://lordpaultimore.blogspot.com/
and let me have it...
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