Dave,

> are you really claiming that a nice draggy-droppy GUI designer
> would make writing a UIless daemon faster?

Yes.  Here is the code for a sample daemon.  Feel free to copy, paste, try.
Note that Libc.pas wraps an enormous number of glibc functions for you to
call directly in your code.  Anything Borland has not wrapped, you can do in
a matter of seconds.

program Project1;
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses SysUtils, Libc;
var
  pid : pid_t;

begin
  Writeln (‘Sample Daemon’);
  pid := fork ();
  if (pid = 0)
  then begin
    { Perform Daemon processing}
    exit;
  end;
  Writeln (‘Created daemon: pid=’, pid);
end.

Was that simple, or what?

The GUI designer is just one aspect of Kylix.  Most of the application
development I did over the last year with Delphi was web server application
development.  The server version of Kylix allows you to create Apache shared
objects in literally a couple of clicks.  Note that the Apache support is
identical in Delphi so you can create cross-platform Apache apps.

> Granted, Kylix may now include
> a solid library of nonvisual classes which already have large parts of the
> server implemented, but that's the class library helping you out,
> not Kylix
> per se, and I'm sure there are similarly handy class libraries for C++ and
> even classless libraries for old-style C.  (I couldn't name any, though,
> because I'm doing everything in perl these days.  I'm just talking about
> C/C++ because you specified "compiled executable" and I don't want to
> start a debate about whether perl is compiled or interpreted.)

The class library included with Kylix is called CLX.  As I said before Kylix
is not just a GUI designer.  The CLX library is not separate from Kylix but
it is part of Kylix, and written with Kylix.  Note that CLX is also included
with Delphi.  At the LUG demo we will show you that with CLX you can create
single source applications for Linux and Windows.  In other words you create
your program with Kylix on Linux, transfer it to Windows, compile, and
presto -- your program is running on Windows.  Of course, this also works
the other way: create your application on Windows and have it running on
Linux in seconds without changing anything.  This true cross-platform
application development with CLX is on its way to Solaris and there is talk
of moving CLX to Macintosh, as well.  Theoretically, there is no limit to
the platform choices.

Also there is a HUGE third party market for Delphi components, and many of
those vendors have already created Kylix versions of their components.  The
Open Source market for Kylix components is emerging quickly and also
promises to become huge.

> There's also the language barrier.  A C guru who hasn't looked at
> Pascal since freshman CompSci isn't going to be able to kick out code in
> Kylix nearly as fast as he could with vi and gcc without spending a few
> months (years?) becoming an Object Pascal guru first.  So much for
> "faster than ever before"...

If you have a favorite C or C++ library, why not just use it in Kylix?
There is nothing stopping you.  Maybe you want your core application logic
to be written in C++, and hook it into Kylix to write the user interface.
If more people did that, maybe people would complain less that there aren't
enough usable Linux applications.  Developers are also in the process of
porting their Windows applications to Linux with Kylix so that should also
help with the problem of too few Linux applications.

Also, if you love C++ you will be happy to know that C++Builder is coming to
Linux soon.  The original plan was to have Kylix support both Pascal and C++
in the same IDE, but at this point C++Builder for Linux may be a separate
product.  Regardless, it will basically be Kylix, only with C++ syntax.  I
guess if you don't like Pascal or C++, there is JBuilder(Java) which has
been available for Linux for quite a while now.  Also remember that Kylix
has an IDE with editor, compiler, linker, and debugger all in one unlike
other Linux programming tools.  This has a huge advantage over command line
tools and other tools with limited or no debugging facilities.  Integrated,
graphical debugging will save you a ton of time.

Kylix might not be right for you.  That is for you to decide.  I think that
an objective person can see that Kylix is an excellent software development
tool.  Even if you don't use it but someone else does and writes an
application that furthers the acceptance of Linux, isn't that a good thing?

> Is there anywhere I can get it without having to put my personal
> information into Yet Another Corporate Database?

You could ask one of the brave people who gave honest information to Borland
to burn you a copy although I am sure there are a number of sneaky and
frightened people who just lied about who they are and downloaded a copy.
Kylix Open Edition is entirely free.  Borland is a good company, and their
only reason for existence is to help software developers get their jobs
done, wherever they are working and with whatever technologies they are
using.  By giving Borland your name you help them support you better in your
development efforts.

> Somehow I suspect that you'll get a better response from this group if
> you try not to sound like a marketing flyer...I don't run up to people on
the street, grab them by the
> collar, and start preaching Linux at them.

I did not know that is how I sound.  I am a programmer by trade, but some
people have argued that Borland needs better marketing so I take this as a
complement since it has caused you to at least take the time to respond.
What I'm telling you comes from the heart and it is the truth.  As for
preaching, I am a pastor's kid (PK) so it is probably biological and I can
do nothing about that either! :)

Mark