A Borland RAD (programming) tool, essentially a version of
Delphi (Object Pascal) and, in version 3.0 and above, C++ Builder,
which runs on Linux instead of Windows. The latest version at the time
of writing is 3.0, which is seperated into two different IDEs (both
written using Kylix itself), one for C++ and one for Object Pascal, both of
which run under XFree86. Command-line compilers are also provided, but not
too useful for development purposes in a visual environment like this.
Because it is so similar to Delphi, I'll just cover the main differences
here, drift over to the Delphi node to learn more.
- Uses/provides the cross-platform CLX component library instead of the VCL (although
modern versions of Delphi also support (and encourage the use of) CLX.
The Kylix version is based on the TrollTech Qt GUI toolkit.
- Integration with Apache: BizSnap (web services development) and WebSnap
(web application development) are both included in the more expensive
Enterprise edition of Kylix.
- dbExpress database drivers to connect to (and seamlessly interact with) MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2,
Oracle and Informix databases, among others. Interbase is included
free with the Professional and Enterprise editions of Kylix.
- The Enterprise edition includes VisiBroker for CORBA client and server development,
together with integration with JBuilder and Borland Enterprise Server.
- Ability to easily use other editors and/or build systems while still
using the rest of the Kylix environment.
A free (as in beer) version is available, however you may only distribute
applications compiled using it under the GPL, which obviously means you
must also distribute source code. Happily, this is not a problem for many
free applications. Obviously, the functionality of the free version ("Open Version")
is restricted - the included component library is FreeCLX, a
GPL-licensed subset of CLX - but it is still a great and easy-to-use
tool for writing all those utilities and even full applications you've
always wanted to write but have never had the time or patience to.
It's currently certified to run under the latest versions of Red Hat, Mandrake and
SuSE, but runs fine on any other modern Linux distribution.
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