OWL/CLASSLIB
Michael Fischer
in our programs, we do use a lot of the stuff in classlib, i.e.,
TArrayAsVector as well as 'IMPLEMENT_CASTABLE', and
'IMPLEMENT_ABSTRACT_STREAMABLE'
Well lot in '<owlfiles\classlib\arrays.h>'
I've noticed that on the companion cd for BCB6 Enterprise, there was no
OWL as in BCB5 Enterprise.
What do I have to do to use BCB6 with our code using
'<owlfiles\classlib\arrays.h>' ?
Thanks for your help
Regards
Michael Fischer.
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Ed Mulroy [TeamB]
> there was no OWL as in BCB5 Enterprise.
The bad news:
OWL was replaced by the VCL years ago but for legacy apps it was still
shipped with the compiler. With version 6 it has not been shipped with it.
The reason is simple, OWL stopped development and Windows continued on so
there is a decreasing portion of what Windows provides that OWL covers.
The good news:
Borland allowed others to continue OWL development. The development is a
co-operative effort and some very competent people are involved. Reports
indicate they have kept up with Windows. Go to this site and look around.
You may like what you see.
http://owlnext.sourceforge.net/
Good luck in your adventures with OwlNext.
. Ed
Michael Fischer
thanks for your reply.
Perhaps I've put the wrong question. I mean we I don't use OWL any more
but still use lot of the classlib.
I've found some *.bat in the source-dir of owlfiles\classlib and running
any of them will not produce the libs....
Regards
Mike
Luigi Bianchi
story (you can just patch Borland code)?
Luigi
--
Luigi Bianchi
http://www.luigibianchi.com
n...@luigibianchi.com
Programming, C++, OWL, VCL, SDK, Dfm2API
Martin Golm
> Hi Ed,
> thanks for your reply.
> Perhaps I've put the wrong question. I mean we I don't use OWL any more
> but still use lot of the classlib.
> I've found some *.bat in the source-dir of owlfiles\classlib and running
> any of them will not produce the libs....
You could add the needed files to your project.
Or you could create your own classlib DLL containing all files from the
classlib directory. You would have to look at that build.bat to know
which #define's you have to set in the DLL's project options. (I don't
know if that procedure is legal in regards of the EULA.)
Martin
Ed Mulroy [TeamB]
Development has continued on with OWL Next. You still need to begin with a
valid copy of some version of OWL.
I am not part of the OWL Next project so am not where you should get details
of the project. Get the information about it from the source - go to their
site and read about it.
http://owlnext.sourceforge.net/
. Ed
> ...do you mean that OWL has been opensourced or it
Luigi Bianchi
> Borland allowed others to continue OWL development.
Borland doesn't allowed anybody to do anything with OWL. It cannot stop it
and actually it is an obstacle to OWL survival. The development actually
consists in patching the original code and recompiling it. This is not an
easy task as there are several OWL "original code": the one that comes with
BC501, BC502, BCB1, BCB3, BCB4, BCB5. Patching the original code means that
the team should mantain 6 different upgrade paths that is not properly what
the OWLNext team would do. This is because the original OWL code cannot be
redistributed (Borland didn't allowed it). Also Borland does not sells OWL
code separately, and this is a limitation too. If it would sell the OWL code
for a small charge, all the current OWL users could buy it and then the OWL
Next team could care of just one upgrade path. Note that Borland until now
did not allowed anything. It is just an obstacle to the OWLNext project as
it does now allow anything to anybody. This is another milestone to Borland
Support Policy, IMHO. This is the main reason why I will not buy BCB6. Why
should I buy another Borland product if it then abandon me? What is Borland
doing better in the long and mid term than Microsoft? I could continue. But
Borland, IMVHO, allowed just one thing about OWL: to die.
Bye,
Ed Mulroy [TeamB]
>
> > Borland allowed others to continue OWL development.
>
> Borland doesn't allowed anybody to do anything with OWL.
Wrong. OWL is a product of Borland's. The whole OWL product is their
property. They specificly created legal permission for the OWL Next effort.
Your opinon that Borland doing that is evil is a fantasy that I do not
share.
> ...This is the main reason why I will not buy BCB6. Why
> should I buy another Borland product if it then abandon me?
> <continued ranting deleted>
Then don't buy it.
Obviously Borland arranged to abandon you, specificly you. They didn't want
you to know it so they were sly, telling others (but of course not you) that
the VCL was the way to go and only shipping versions of OWL for FIVE MORE
YEARS. Yeah, that's the ticket. They abandoned you.
Sure they abandoned you, and I own the title to the Brooklyn Bridge - want
to buy it?
. Ed
Luigi Bianchi
news:3ca213d0$1_2@dnews...
> Wrong. OWL is a product of Borland's.
I never said something different.
> The whole OWL product is their
> property. They specificly created legal permission for the OWL Next
effort.
??? To do what? To release a patch that also fixes the bugs that Borland
never fixed? I can recompile the OWL so if I want to add files and classes
to the original source code I can do that. If I want to share these classes
I can do that. Note that OWLNext does not share any original file. What does
the special legal permission deals with?
> Your opinon that Borland doing that is evil is a fantasy that I do not
> share.
I didn't said it is evil. It's simply a way to abandon Borland Users. I had
a special feeling with Borland. Now, obviously, I haven't it anymore.
>
> Then don't buy it.
>
Of course.
> Obviously Borland arranged to abandon you, specificly you.
I know that my english is not perfect, but I never said that they abandoned
specificly me. In any case, I think that all the OWLers are feelling
abandoned.
> They didn't want
> you to know it so they were sly, telling others (but of course not you)
that
> the VCL was the way to go and only shipping versions of OWL for FIVE MORE
> YEARS. Yeah, that's the ticket. They abandoned you.
IMHO I think that as they have opensourced Interbase, they could have
opensource OWL too. Or at least continue to sell the OWL code online as
there are still many programmers that are using it. Asking to Borland why
not to opensource OWL they said for "patents reasons". Asking them (several
times) which are the patents and the what do they cover thay NEVER replied
to that in "FIVE YEARS" even if they said they'll have done. Asking them why
not to sell the code they never gave an answer.
As for VCL, dear Ed, I know VCL having written one of the just two papers on
CUJ about VCL. I just am saying that the policy of a company that is not the
absoulte leader of the market (I mean the Win/C++ compilers line) should be
different. Note that I think that Delphi is an excellent product, so I'm not
against Borland "by default". I have purchased 11 different releases of a
Borland product. But you should be more objective. Why so many people have
chosen VC? If you want we could start a thread about this.
>
> Sure they abandoned you, and I own the title to the Brooklyn Bridge - want
> to buy it?
>
> . Ed
>
>
>
No comment on this and on the general "sound" of your post. I thought that a
TeamB member "style" should be different.
In any case, thank you for sharing your ideas.
Ciao,
Pete Fraser
OWL.
However, having used BCB since v1 I would say that I don't miss OWL at all -
in fact I much prefer VCL/Builder as being a much more productive way of
developing - especially as there are so many components available out
there(many of which are free).
My applications have been *much* better looking/functional since I switched.
Rgds Pete
"Luigi Bianchi" <l...@luigibianchi.com> wrote in message
news:3ca21c24_2@dnews...
David B. Held
news:3ca2dbcb$1_1@dnews...
> I used to be a fanatical OWL user and was disappointed when
> Borland dropped OWL.
> However, having used BCB since v1 I would say that I don't miss
> OWL at all - in fact I much prefer VCL/Builder as being a much
> more productive way of developing - especially as there are so
> many components available out there(many of which are free).
> My applications have been *much* better looking/functional since
> I switched.
In fact, I was so frustrated by Windows development that even OWL
seemed tedious to use. Whining about OWL support when we have
the VCL seems to me like whining about DOS support in the presence
of XP. Sure, there might be a niche market here or there that can
use it; but can programmers put on the businessman hat for just a
sec and ask themselves if it's economically feasible to cater to every
niche market in existence?
Dave
Luigi Bianchi
is more "open" than the VCL. For example I can use OWLNext with VisualC or
GCC and this is a great opportunity for programs that will have a long life.
I'm still using OWL for a project that started in 1995. And I'm heavily
extending it, not just fixing bugs or adding minor enhancements. I have
signed a contract with a company to add new modules to the program that will
"support" me for a couple of years. I have no problem to add support to new
messages or other stuff. So I use tooltips, menu with bitmaps, common
controls, use directX 8, Video capture, real time processing, etc... I don't
want to say that OWL is better than VCL, because, of course, it depends on
what you have to do. If I need some OLE or DB stuff, I use MFC or VCL, but I
don't use VCL for programs that should survive for 5 or 10 years. In that
case I prefer something that will be supported even if Borland decides to
drop VCL or C++/Win support. I think that the main problem of VCL is the
fact that it is written in Delphi and then adapted to C++ in a NON STANDARD
C++ way. For me, for many jobs, this is unacceptable. So, in those cases,
I'm forced to use a different framework. Note that in my programs the GUI
aspects are not so relevant. I do a lot of data processing, mainly
scientific, and in this field is much more important to use good design
patterns that make me save much more time than a RAD tool. I think that
(simplifing a lot!) the difference of time spent to double click on a
component event compared to the time required to write case WM_PAINT:...
break; is negligible compared to the complexity of the software that I
write. In this sense, BC50 with Design Tools was the most advance IDE that
Borland has ever produced. I'm still using it with the free Borland command
line compiler. In 1996 Borland released an IDE that is still better (IMHO)
that the BCB5.
I partecipated to this thread, in any case, because I thought that Borland
policy should be different. I think that with respect to OWL it did a lot of
mistakes. This is my opinion that I have expressed to Ed. I'd like to know
what you think about it.
Andy C
>"Ed Mulroy [TeamB]" <e...@mulroy.org> ha scritto nel messaggio
>news:3ca213d0$1_2@dnews...
>
>> Your opinon that Borland doing that is evil is a fantasy that I do not
>> share.
>
>I didn't said it is evil. It's simply a way to abandon Borland Users. I had
>a special feeling with Borland. Now, obviously, I haven't it anymore.
>
>>
>> Then don't buy it.
>>
>
>Of course.
>
>> Obviously Borland arranged to abandon you, specificly you.
>
>I know that my english is not perfect, but I never said that they abandoned
>specificly me. In any case, I think that all the OWLers are feelling
>abandoned.
Don't worry about your English, Luigi. It's as good as any native
speaker I know of. Ed is just being an a**ho** as usual.
Some folks would characterize the "OWLers" as people clinging to the
past. But some of us are stuck maintaining huge OWL programs (> 1
million lines) for which their greatest hope would be to get away from
OWL completely. For a program of this size, and one which will be on
the market for at least another 10-15 years, the elimination of code
from tool vendors who don't give a rat's ass about their customers
(AKA Borland) is easier said than done. So OWL users "feeling
abandoned" is an understatement. "Have been abandoned" is quite
simply fact in the case of developers and maintainers of OWL projects.
One of the huge benefits of OWLNExt is that it allows us to use VC6.
If that weren't the case, we'd be in big trouble, as we wouldn't be
able to link the program - at least, not without a totally unnecessary
physical repartitioning.
I'm quite grateful for your efforts in providing XP-style menus for
OWLNExt, and will be using them in production code. I'll let you know
on the OWLNExt list of any issues I might encounter.
In the meantime, don't let the Borland fanatics get you down. Borland
as we used to know and love it is dead. Note that Ed likes to use the
word "fantasy" as a rhetorical device in his responses to people's
experiences and ideas. He did this in response to David B. Held's
"How Borland can win back customers" thread for example. He is
basically a flamethrower and has not contributed anything positive in
this group that I can see. Maybe the situation is different in other
groups.
Andy C
Luigi Bianchi
Ciao,
Luigi
P.S. There will be an update to the TBmpMenu soon. It will contain fixes and
improvements from Mark Hatsell. I think that you know that Mark is working
on Gadgets and XP look and feel.
P.P.S. Can you send me via email the name of your >1M lines of code OWL
program? Just for curiosity
Jogy
"Ed Mulroy [TeamB]" <e...@mulroy.org> wrote in message news:3ca213d0$1_2@dnews...
Well, in previous versions of BCB, up to 5,
Borland C++ 5.02 and OWL libraries were included.
Even more, in BCB5 OWLNext was included.
Now, there is BCB6, costing significiantly more than BCB5,
but not including either BC5.02 or OWL.
This is a step backwards.
Yes, VCL has it's advantages, but it also has some disadvantages,
that's why in some cases I look for a framework more close to the API,
allowing more control.
For example, we are developing a CAD/CAM application. It was started
in OWL 7 years ago. But if we had to start it now, from scratch, I am not sure
if we'd use VCL for it, because I am not sure if it allow very fine control of the needed
Windows messages, drawing modes, etc. So I'd prefer to have both frameworks, VCL and OWL
and choose the more suitable for a given task.
We have BC++ 5.02, so we can use OWL and OWLNext, but for other users this is imposible.
Jogy
> Don't worry about your English, Luigi. It's as good as any native
> speaker I know of. Ed is just being an a**ho** as usual.
>
> Some folks would characterize the "OWLers" as people clinging to the
> past. But some of us are stuck maintaining huge OWL programs (> 1
> million lines) for which their greatest hope would be to get away from
> OWL completely. For a program of this size, and one which will be on
> the market for at least another 10-15 years, the elimination of code
> from tool vendors who don't give a rat's ass about their customers
> (AKA Borland) is easier said than done. So OWL users "feeling
> abandoned" is an understatement. "Have been abandoned" is quite
> simply fact in the case of developers and maintainers of OWL projects.
> One of the huge benefits of OWLNExt is that it allows us to use VC6.
> If that weren't the case, we'd be in big trouble, as we wouldn't be
> able to link the program - at least, not without a totally unnecessary
> physical repartitioning.
>
We are the same case. And if Borland hadn't stopped support for OWL,
we probably would continue to buy their products.
> I'm quite grateful for your efforts in providing XP-style menus for
> OWLNExt, and will be using them in production code. I'll let you know
> on the OWLNExt list of any issues I might encounter.
>
> In the meantime, don't let the Borland fanatics get you down. Borland
> as we used to know and love it is dead. Note that Ed likes to use the
> word "fantasy" as a rhetorical device in his responses to people's
> experiences and ideas. He did this in response to David B. Held's
> "How Borland can win back customers" thread for example. He is
> basically a flamethrower and has not contributed anything positive in
> this group that I can see. Maybe the situation is different in other
> groups.
>
> Andy C
>
Ed is being very helpful in the technical forums. And he is not an
official representative of Borland, so his opinions are not the official ones.
David B. Held
> [...]
> Yes, VCL has it's advantages, but it also has some disadvantages,
> that's why in some cases I look for a framework more close to the API,
> allowing more control.
> For example, we are developing a CAD/CAM application. It was started
> in OWL 7 years ago. But if we had to start it now, from scratch, I am
> not sure if we'd use VCL for it, because I am not sure if it allow very
fine
> control of the needed Windows messages, drawing modes, etc. So I'd
> prefer to have both frameworks, VCL and OWL and choose the more
> suitable for a given task.
I've seen plenty of low-level API interactions with the VCL. I don't think
there's any problem at all, but I'm not a VCL or API expert, so I couldn't
really say. There certainly aren't any obvious reasons why you couldn't
have fine-grained control with the VCL.
Dave