I think it's worth noting that programming for Linux requires a bit of a
paradigm shift for those of us used to working in Windoze. You have to
remember that Linux is a flavour of Unix, and there's a very good reason why
most people don't have a Unix box on their desktop :-) It's not designed as
a desktop operating system. It's designed as a server operating system, and
it's designed by, and for, geeks and nerds who prefer a command-line driven
operating system. Sure, it has an X-Windows GUI (GNOME or KDE) but it has a
long way to go before Bill Gates starts having trouble sleeping.
While we certainly need database and gui tools, the sort of applications
we're likely to be asked to create using Kylix are not necessarily the same
types of apps we're building for Windows. Linux is much more likely to be
used as a server operating system that as a workstation in the average
office. I see Kylix providing us with a general purpose programming language
and environment that will enable us to become productive with a new and
growing O/S. Possible uses would include writing console-style programs
("filters" in unix parlance) which can be used to provide number-crunching
services for specific applications or as plug-ins for web-servers, etc.
Linux/Unix has a number of very powerful features that are either
unavailable in windows, or generally ignored, but which shine in a server
environment. For a start, it has a decent scheduler (cron) which means that
all the "service" programs you've written with built-in timers to tell them
when to activate can be written much more simply. Because of Unix's ability
to chain programs or "filters" together to provide quite complex behaviour,
you may find yourself writing smaller general purpose programs where a lot
of the potential nightmares are dealt with by existing "filter" or control
software (almost all of which is free). And Unix/Linux comes with a couple
of decades worth of really useful scripting languages to handle any really
complex stuff.
So, in summary, while Kylix will (presumably) provide us with a great way of
developing GUI/Database applications for Linux (hoorah :-) it will also open
the door for us to become productive in ways many of us haven't even touched
on yet.
That's my two cents worth anyway :-)
Cheers,
Simon Mahony.
> > Hiya all
> >
> > Just a quick Kylix question -
> > What are they goning to do about database access or are just going to
use
> > Kylix to write screen savers
>
> Inprise (ie, the US) have stated, I beleive, that they will have native
> drivers for Interbase and ((I think) mSQL. Other than that, the product is
> not even close to ALPHA let alone containing anything that might be
> workable. Not that I've seen it, mind you.
>
> I suppose you could write screen savers in it.... but why would you
bother?
>
> N
>
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