Visual C++ or Borland C++

[Chris]

I am just beginning programming again and need a bit of advice.
I have both Visual C++ 6.0 Standard Edition and Borland C++ Builder 6.
Of these two which do you consider the best for programming windows programs
(not the DOS style program). I have had a quick look at both of these and
Borland seems to have a lot more components (Buttons, Forms etc) than
Microsoft Visual C++. Does Visual C++ have these components easily
accesable.
Chris.

 

[Guest]

Borland C++ Builder (BCB) is/was fantastic tool.
BUT after all those years, for some difficult to understand reason, Borland
decided not to continue BCB product.
So, Ver 6 seems to the last version of BCB. Altough BCB is a fantastic, very
easy to use and it has huge component library, it would not wise to
recommend BCB (or any Borland product, because company became unpredictable
and not trustworthy anymore) for your forthcomming endeavour.

 

[roman ziak]

I am just beginning programming again and need a bit of advice.
I have both Visual C++ 6.0 Standard Edition and Borland C++ Builder 6.
Of these two which do you consider the best for programming windows programs
(not the DOS style program). I have had a quick look at both of these and
Borland seems to have a lot more components (Buttons, Forms etc) than
Microsoft Visual C++. Does Visual C++ have these components easily
accesable.
Chris.

Borland 6 has much easier learning curve for Windows programming.
It will be also easy to upgrade your knowledge, because VCL (Visual
Component Library) has very similar concepts as .NET

Visual C++ on the other hand will have much harder learning curve,
either you choose MFC or Win32 and the knowledge will go to toilet
since MS is trashing this technology. On the other hand, it may be
beter choice for certain tasks (ActiveX, ATL, MFC etc.)

 

[Wim Deprez]

I am just beginning programming again and need a bit of advice.
I have both Visual C++ 6.0 Standard Edition and Borland C++ Builder 6.
Of these two which do you consider the best for programming windows programs
(not the DOS style program). I have had a quick look at both of these and
Borland seems to have a lot more components (Buttons, Forms etc) than
Microsoft Visual C++. Does Visual C++ have these components easily
accesable.
Chris.

you can always try to use QT on top of Visual C++, worked for
me:ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/non-commercial/QtWin230-NonCommercial.exe

imho, it's easy to use and well documented and it's more open than mfc
(which i personally really dislike...)


Have fun,

--wim

 

[Wim Deprez]

I am just beginning programming again and need a bit of advice.
I have both Visual C++ 6.0 Standard Edition and Borland C++ Builder 6.
Of these two which do you consider the best for programming windows programs
(not the DOS style program). I have had a quick look at both of these and
Borland seems to have a lot more components (Buttons, Forms etc) than
Microsoft Visual C++. Does Visual C++ have these components easily
accesable.
Chris.

you can always try to use QT on top of Visual C++, worked for
me:ftp://ftp.trolltech.com/qt/non-commercial/QtWin230-NonCommercial.exe

imho, it's easy to use and well documented and it's more open than mfc
(which i personally really dislike...)


Have fun,

--wim

 

[Zilsch]

100% Visual C++!!!

after several month of coping with inexplicable crashes and failures of BCB
I can say it for sure: avoid BCB at all costs! Though this tool might be
appealing at first, later you will find lots of unpleasant surprises.... It
just not suitable for professional C++ development.

See also
http://tinyurl.com/4zebh

 

[Zilsch]

Visual C++ on the other hand will have much harder learning curve,

either you choose MFC or Win32 and the knowledge will go to toilet

Same is true for VCL and, probably, Borland C++ Builder itself.

Windows Forms and Visual Studio .NET are a lot more more feasible

 

[Peter van Merkerk]

100% Visual C++!!!

after several month of coping with inexplicable crashes and failures of BCB
I can say it for sure: avoid BCB at all costs! Though this tool might be
appealing at first, later you will find lots of unpleasant surprises.... It
just not suitable for professional C++ development.

Unfortunately I have to totally agree with this.

I have several years experience with both Visual C++ and Borland C++
Builder. And even though I am not really a fan of Microsoft, for serious
development work, given the choice I would choose Visual C++ over
Borland C++ Builder anytime. Only for very small UI/database oriented
projects Borland C++ Builder might be a better choice. VCL (Borland) is
definitely nicer and more intuitive than MFC (Microsoft), which is IMHO
utter crap. However because VCL is actually a Delphi library and not a
real C++ class library, it relies heavily on many non-standard C++
extensions which are convenient but not portable. In other words you
cannot take that knowledge with you when you switch to another
programming environment. Considering the uncertainties regarding the
direction Borland may take in the future, I'm afraid that the investment
in learning the Borland class libraries and components may be wasted
effort in the long run.

 

[Chris]

It seems that VC++ will be the better choice. However the newest version
that I can run on my windows 98 system is version 6.0. How close is this to
standard C++. Is there any other enviroment that you consider better for C++
programming (taking into account Windows 98 - However I will soon make the
change to XP).
Thanks.
Chris.

 

[ZafT]

I have been playing around with C++ builder X lately and it seems pretty
nice. I was using Visual Studio 6, but I had to try the borland product
after using JbuilderX for Java. I LOVE JbuilderX. I was using the
enterprise edition and it does UML diagrams for you, etc. The components
are easy to use, and it is quite stable.

That said, I just started playing with C++ Builder X personal edition, and I
am missing my UML diagram tool. I'm wondering if it's in the Enterprise
edition. Anyway, does anyone have enough experience on the X version to
comment on it's stability? I have had good luck with it so far.

Undecided.

Shane

It seems that VC++ will be the better choice. However the newest version
that I can run on my windows 98 system is version 6.0. How close is this to
standard C++. Is there any other enviroment that you consider better for C++
programming (taking into account Windows 98 - However I will soon make the
change to XP).
Thanks.
Chris.

of

BCB

surprises....

 

[Peter van Merkerk]

It seems that VC++ will be the better choice. However the newest version
that I can run on my windows 98 system is version 6.0. How close is this to
standard C++.

Unfortunately standards compliancy of VC++ 6.0 is compared to todays
standards not very good. VC++ 7.1 is much, much better in this respect.
Templates are not very well supported in version 6.0, and the incorrect
scoping of for loop variables is annoying. The lack of standards
compliance may lead to confusion if you are using it to learn C++. The
standards compliance of Borland C++ Builder is better.

Is there any other enviroment that you consider better for C++
programming (taking into account Windows 98 - However I will soon make the
change to XP).

Besides Visual C++ and Borland C++ Builder there are other options like
for example GCC, which is free and and its standard support is very
good. However this is just a compiler, if you like an IDE with it look
at Dev-C++ (also free: http://www.bloodshed.net/).

What the best environment is also depends on what you want to do with
it. If it is just for learning standard C++ (which implies no GUI, no
networking, no internet stuff...etc) GCC is a good choice. You can make
GUI, networking and internet application with GCC, but if your ambition
is to become a professional Windows developer I would get myself
acquainted with Visual Studio .NET. If all you want is to throw together
a simple quick-and-dirty UI application Borland may be for you. I wish I
could say something more positive about Borland, they made good products
in the past, but nowadays they seem to have lost it.

 

[Duane Hebert]

I have been playing around with C++ builder X lately and it seems pretty
nice. I was using Visual Studio 6, but I had to try the borland product
after using JbuilderX for Java. I LOVE JbuilderX. I was using the
enterprise edition and it does UML diagrams for you, etc. The components
are easy to use, and it is quite stable.

That said, I just started playing with C++ Builder X personal edition, and I
am missing my UML diagram tool. I'm wondering if it's in the Enterprise
edition. Anyway, does anyone have enough experience on the X version to
comment on it's stability? I have had good luck with it so far.

CBX had a lot of potential but version 1 has a lot of bugs. If it's fixed,
it may be a viable choice for C++ programming. Currently, it doesn't
offer much for GUI generation and it's not clear from Borland whether
it will be continued, replaced by BCB9 or abandonded.

As for the compiler, CBX and BCB6 both use the same compiler. It's
better with compliance than the one in MSVC6 but not as good as
MSVC7.1. The STLPort shipped with Borland's stuff has been modified
and uses some RogueWave stuff (presumably to support delphi extensions
of some sort). I find MSVC7.1 with Dinkumware to be much better with
respect to standard compliance.

As for BCB in general, if your intent is to just create Win32 GUI apps,
it is probably simpler to use than MSVC with MFC. Though you have
to choose between Delphi extensions and MFC extensions.

For us, our need is to do cross platform so BCB doesn't help. (CBX might
have if the bugs were fixed) We moving to a combination of MSVC7.1/Qt on
Windows and G++/Qt on Linux. It seems to be going well so far.

Borland is in a real state of flux currently and not releasing any information
of their future intent as to C++. They have just issue a linker patch for
BCB/CBX though so they may be continuing development. If you can wait
a while, it may be worth paying attention to what they're doing.
You can check newgroups.borland.com and follow the
borland.public.cbuilderx.non-technical or
borland.public.cppbuilder.non-technical discussion groups.

 

[Peter van Merkerk]

CBX had a lot of potential but version 1 has a lot of bugs.

The same can be said about previous versions of C++ Builder, it has a
lot of potential but is way too buggy to be actually useful.

If it's fixed,
it may be a viable choice for C++ programming.

Don't hold your breath, for BCB version 5 no more than one service pack
was ever released, which fixed a only few of a great many bugs. Even
with the service pack I wouldn't consider BCB5 alpha quality. The
problem is that Borland doen't appear to use C++ Builder for their own
product development, and therefore have no direct interest in fixing
bugs. Personally I would stay away from Borland products until they
finally decide to tackle their QA problem. It is sad to see that a
company that could potentially create a serious alternative to the
Microsoft development suite insist on killing their own marketshare by
releasing extremely buggy software.

 

[Richard Herring]

In message <[email protected]>, Duane Hebert

[...]

As for BCB in general, if your intent is to just create Win32 GUI apps,
it is probably simpler to use than MSVC with MFC. Though you have
to choose between Delphi extensions and MFC extensions.

For us, our need is to do cross platform so BCB doesn't help. (CBX might
have if the bugs were fixed) We moving to a combination of MSVC7.1/Qt on
Windows and G++/Qt on Linux. It seems to be going well so far.

What happened to Kylix? That was supposed to be a port of BCB (including
VCL) to Linux.

 

[Zilsch]

What happened to Kylix? That was supposed to be a port of BCB (including

VCL) to Linux.

I heard that Kylix was a commercial disaster for Borland with almost no
copies actually sold... Though technically it was quite interesting

 

[Rufus V. Smith]

I heard that Kylix was a commercial disaster for Borland with almost no
copies actually sold... Though technically it was quite interesting

I think it was priced out of the then-Linux-user market. May have been
reasonable
pricing for the UNIX folks, and may have been worth every penny, but I know
at
that time I couldn't afford the $1000 copy I would have needed to create
distributable
web applications...

Rufus