Kylix's Step Brother QT, and Siblings have grown up
A small band of developers banned from Embarcadero keeps Kylix alive. QT, Free Pascal, Rust, Go are now better options.
Brief introduction
Kylix 1 was released on March 7th 2001. The last version of Kylix, Kylix 3 was released in August 13th 2002.
Kylix gave hope that Delphi apps can go cross-platform. That hope faded when Kylix was no longer supported in 2005. There’s a small band of developers keeping the Kylix dream alive.
Embarcadero’s solution is to make Delphi for Linux “pay-walled”. Any updates to Delphi for Linux must be paid, leaving the intrepid developer in an expensive subscription to make money, or leave code that is suddenly incompatible with the latest versions of Linux.
In the mean time, when you talk about Cross-Kylix, they get deleted, and your rights to post are moderated.
Kylix uses QT DLLs repurposed to use Pascal.
QT has grown up.
It is now 2024. 22 years have passed since Kylix 1 was released.
QT, the spunky wannabe cross-platform kid has grown up. QT competed for top contender. Cross-platform tools such as Zinc sputtered. WxWidget is another cross-platform project.
The latest version - QT feels like Delphi 7 QT 6.7 is a joy to use. The classes found in QT are similar - QStringList, QList. the ToInt feels like StrToInt. QT’s mask widget feels like TMaskEdit. Clang, used by the new C++ Builder 12.1 can be freely downloaded.
QT Creator is now version 13.00. It’s easy to port a legacy CLX application to QT.
What matters -
Don’t tell the Delphi developers, since they are up-to their heads in endless subscriptions.
NodeJS and JS have grown up
Another cross-platform to chooise is JS - Vue, React frameworks have matured
AG-Grid, TanGrid and countless other excellent grids.
Dozens of edit-controls are available with Svelte, Vue, React.
Have you seen IntraWeb integrated Vue or Selvte?
FreePascal have grown up
FreePascal IDE supports QT…
My Kylix dream faded.
Embarcadero vs QT
Here’s what you need to use Linux:
Delphi for Enterprise for Linux. (US$3,999)
Possibly a UniGui or TMS or IntraWeb subscription. (Euros 599 and above)
Possibly a FML (**** My Life) purchase (US$349)
Possibly a TMS subscription. (Euros 1999)
Possibly a DevExpress you can’t use for Mac or Linux.
Possibly a Unidac subscription (US$499.95), cos, FireDac is depreciated.
Before you start, you’re already out $5,000 or more… and that’s per-developer. Get 5 developers, I think you’re out so much money, you might wonder what kind of for-hire work or what kind of profit margins you are eking out?
Right! That’s the Delphi way.