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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 2010-05-03 15:13:40
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Hi everyone!
I work on a company that maintains big Delphi application with Bold as persistence framework. Of course we sometimes discuss how to handle the future and talk about ECO. Our thoughts looks like this.
Bold pros:
- We have the source and have customized it a bit for our needs.
- We know rather well how to handle the framework.
- It is pure Delphi and Win32.
Bold cons:
- Outdated and not supported by any company.
- Not opensource and no active development.
- The GUI components show its age compared to components like Devexpress [url=http://www.devexpress.com][/url]
ECO pros:
- Modern framework written with a modern language Dot.Net.
- Active developement.
- Use Dot.Nets databinding for the GUI.
ECO cons:
- Not opensource.
- Both the framework and language is new for us.
- A lot of work with porting old code to ECO.
- Some work to transform the database to ECO.
I'm not saying we gonna change from Bold to ECO now. But my feeling is that many companies have the same situation as us. Sometimes there come a day when we must choose technology and framework for the next generation. One of the pros with Bold for us is that we have the source. And that is one of the stronger reasons we stay with Bold now. It feels very safe to have total control of the source. We also have bought the source of Devexpress VCL-grid that is much in use for us.
I think that technically both Bold and ECO are one of the most advanced and productive perstistence frameworks. Sadly not many programmers have discover it yet. When the initial threshold is over it is very convenient to access objects with OCL instead of SQL. And when the objects is loaded in memory the performance is unbeatable!!! The derivation mechanism is another top feature.
There have been some discussions about making Bold opensource. This would be a very good move to spread this technology and improve the framework. But I understand that Bold cannot go this way because Borland still owns some parts of it (correct me if I'm wrong). This is plain stupidity! I don't get how Borlands laywers can believe they can got any money of Bold...
What is the situation with ECO ? Do CapableObjects own the whole ECO source ?
This is my personal opinion but I think ECO should be opensource for the following reasons:
- Sooner or later Microsoft replace LINQ and release a similar framework free with Dot.Net. Most developers use MS framworks regardless of the technical quality. But if ECO is opensource probably many developers try to use it. Right now there don't exists a good opensource persistance framework for Dot.Net and Bold. ECO has a good chance to compete with Microsofts technology!
- With ECO opensource many developers and companies feels much more safe to choose ECO. If CapableObjects disappear for some reason they still have the source and maybe someone else can continue active development.
- With ECO opensource CapableObjects must of course somehow earn money. There are 2 ways, education of ECO developers and ECO support. With more developers using ECO there is a need for education and consultant service for ECO. I believe it would be more profitable than selling licenses for ECO in the long run. I think all developers trust CapableObjects competence compared to other companies in the market 
This is a win/win situation for CapableObjects and developers under the precondition that the ECO developers reach a high number.
Sinceraly
Roland Bengtsson
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Supreme Being
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Last Login: 2010-11-30 12:17:13
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Hi Roland
And thanks for your vote of confidence in the technology we have been working with over the years. First a few words about Bold...
CodeGear owns the source code for Bold, and we don't have any contracts with them regarding this code. For a number of years, we have recommended to CodeGear/Borland that they should either open source the code or hand it over to us for maintenance. Back in early 2006 it was very close that this happened, but then the DTG/CodeGear spin off got in the way and legal resources were diverted to other tasks. We still have an open dialog with people at CodeGear where we mention this on a regular basis.
About ECO: We are working with CodeGear to reach an arrangement were we will at least be able to sell full source for those customers who want/need/require that. CodeGear has been pretty busy lately with the release of Prism, so this discussion has been dragging out... Already Eco4 comes with almost all of the runtime source code for you viewing pleasure (included in the standard installer, no purchase needed). It is not packaged in a way that makes it compilable on your machine (no project files for example). In Eco5 we have rearranged the source to make it easier to ship, and we intend to ship at least as much source in Eco5 as we did in Eco4, and include the required project files. This will not allow you to rebuild the entire product, but should allow you to rebuild the runtime libraries.
/Jonas
/Jonas Hogstrom [CapableObjects]
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 2010-05-03 15:13:40
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Thanks for the reply. Good to hear that you are open for discussion about this. And selling the source maybe is a good compromise. I just want to point out that many companies want the source of all components for full control of their applications. It maybe one key for success on the market.
Regards
Roland Bengtsson
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 2009-12-05 15:18:18
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Hi Roland,
I see we are in similar position, I also still develop several Bold apps, and have had the same issues. What may be of interest to you is that we have boldified DevEx Grid table and card views, so contact me if you are interested.
Regards,
Daniel Mauric
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Junior Member
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Last Login: 2010-10-26 13:20:25
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| >we have recommended to CodeGear/Borland that they should either open source the code or hand it over to us for maintenance. Probably "hand it over to us for maintenance" should be the best solution for CG and us.... Eddy Brussels
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 2010-05-03 15:13:40
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We have actually talked about to boldify the CxGrid, but this is not a concrete project for us yet. We use an server/client solution with DCOM so for performance reasons it is better to use a fat client with a boldified grid. But this is not either an immediate project now. Currently we use a grid inherited from CxGrid that is filled from the server (with DCOM) by a stringlist. It works well but we miss direct designtime for the grid.
But it is good to know that there is people still developing for Bold and a boldified CxGrid can be interesting in the future with the precondition that source is available.
Regards
Roland Bengtsson
Danny (2008-11-12)
Hi Roland,
I see we are in similar position, I also still develop several Bold apps, and have had the same issues. What may be of interest to you is that we have boldified DevEx Grid table and card views, so contact me if you are interested.
Regards,
Daniel Mauric
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Forum Newbie
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Last Login: 2010-05-03 15:13:40
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I'm a bit dissappointed of Borland. They seems to be even more greedy than MS. For example recently we upgrade Starteam from 2005 to 2008. It was a very expensive business. I doubt they got any new customers with a politic like this. And it is hard to get any concrete information from their site like changes between version, costs etc.
And regarding Bold they probably think that as Bold has cost them X dollars they cannot of course just give it away.
But they don't realize that software is "perishable". If the software is not updated it loose users and more or less worth nothing on the market.
/Roland
EPO (2008-11-14)
>we have recommended to CodeGear/Borland that they should either open source the code or hand it over to us for maintenance.
Probably "hand it over to us for maintenance" should be the best solution for CG and us....
Eddy
Brussels
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Supreme Being
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berocoder (2008-12-15)
I'm a bit dissappointed of Borland.Don't forget; CodeGear owns Bold for Delphi, Borland doesn't own CodeGear
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Pete
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