ENT Magazine: Don't Be a Windows Muggle

Jan 14, 2001, 13:25 (13 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Eric Binary Anderson)

"In the mystical world of the popular 'Harry Potter' books, the normal people of the world -- those who must struggle through life without the help of magic -- are known as 'muggles.' The term muggle isn't derogatory, but it seems to carry a certain amount of pity for the plight of nonmagical folks. In spite of the magic that Windows programmers can do using Microsoft's suite of operating systems, many of us feel a little like muggles when confronted with Linux. Tough installs, arcane commands, and a dearth of productive development environments keep many of us in our comfortable Windows world. Inprise's Borland group is trying to entice us onto new platforms using a little bit of magic called Kylix."

"Kylix first came to my attention when Corel attempted to purchase Inprise. That deal was quickly scuttled following a plunge in Corel's stock value, but Kylix continued. Kylix is Borland's codename for a set of platform-independent versions of its RAD tools: Delphi and C++ Builder. While Harry Potter and his fellow wizards are trained at a secret school named Hogwarts, Kylix users are being trained in secret through a closed beta program that is filled to capacity. The fruits of the Kylix program are filtering out via white papers, user reports, screen shots, and dog-and-pony shows. The results look promising."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• ZDNet UK: Inprise releases code for Linux developers(Nov 18, 2000)
• ZDNet: Inprise takes its Linux app tool open source(Nov 13, 2000)
• The "official" Inprise/Borland Kylix homepage(Sep 23, 2000)
• Borland: Presentation: Project Kylix - Native Rapid Application Development for Linux(Sep 22, 2000)
• Community: Kylix Information Bundled at New Site(Sep 20, 2000)
• DelphiZine.com: The Dish on Kylix - Cross-platform Controls, From Windows to Linux, and Back(Jul 16, 2000)
• DelphiZine.com: The Dish on Kylix - Is Linux Ready for Delphi?(Jul 16, 2000)
• First Kylix Screenshots Available!(Jun 06, 2000)
• Website on Kylix (Delphi & C++ Builder for Linux)(May 16, 2000)
• O'Reilly Network: Kylix is Coming! Delphi and C++ Builder Invade Linux(Apr 19, 2000)
• Borland Community: Getting a glimpse of Kylix(Mar 28, 2000)
• 32BitsOnline: Windows2000 and the Eloi(Sep 20, 1999)