Borland Kylix 3 review

Judged on its own merits, Kylix adds up to an impressive developer toolset. In particular, C++ developers who haven't experienced C++ Builder should give Kylix a try. Putting together a rich client form-based application is a snap, and two-way tools allow you to switch seamlessly between code and visual design. The environment is equally comfortable for console apps. The unique strength of both C++ Builder and Kylix is that you gain RAD productivity without losing the performance or the flexibility of pure code.

Some Kylix annoyances remain. The help system is poor, and it would be great if Borland would switch to HTML help rather than the Winhelp-based tool used even on Linux. There's still no integrated report tool, although a free version of Nevrona's Rave is provided on a supplementary CD.

Kylix also suffers in comparison to Windows Delphi, which is more polished and powerful. The range of officially supported Linux distributions is short and, while Kylix may well work on others, there have been problems reported, for example, with Red Hat 7.3. Furthermore, Kylix 2 users may feel short-changed - version 3 seems smoother and there are minor improvements, but not much is new if Delphi is your language. Still, there's no better development tool for Linux, and overall Kylix is highly productive.

Author: Tim Anderson