brk102@leah.albany.edu (Brian King) (02/23/91)
The following is some information I received from TCPLUS-L (a listserv based newsgroup.) Hope this clears up some confusion with the new product. -Brian King University at Albany Internet: brk102@leah.albany.edu Bitnet: brian@albnyvms.bit --------- From: Sidney Markowitz <0003875515%MCIMAIL.COM@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU> Subject: Re: new C++ Comments: To: TCPLUS-L <TCPLUS-L@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu> To: "Brian R. King" <BRIAN@ALBNYVM1.BITNET> ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- I'm happy to see favorable reports about the new Borland C++, but there seems to be some confusion here. Borland announced a new version of C++ on Feb 13, called Borland C++ 2.0. The name change is to distinguish between a high end product aimed at professional developers (Borland C++) and a lower end product aimed at students, hobbyists, people who want to learn C/C++, etc. (Turbo C++). BC++ 2.0 is shipping now. TC++ will no longer be offered as a "Professional" package, and starting some time next month it will be sold as "TC++, Second Edition" which will be TC++ 1.01 with some of the doc moved from print to the online help system and the price reduced. I don't know what the two messages reporting getting TC++ 2.0 last December are talking about, unless they got the maintenance update version 1.01 of Turbo C++, but they definitely did not have BC++ 2.0. To answer the questions about it, here is what is new in BC++ 2.0: 1. The package comes with everything that used to be associated with the "Professional" version of Turbo C++, that is, an integrated development environment that combines editor, C and C++ compilers, debugger and linker; command line compiler, linker and assembler; Turbo Debugger (TD, TD286 and TD386), and Turbo Profiler. These are new versions of all of these. 2. In addition, there are protected mode versions of IDE, compiler, linker and assembler, which use their built in DOS extenders to run in extended memory (on 80286 or better processors) for a huge increase in capacity and speed. 3. Precompiled headers: The compiler can be directed to save symbol table information after compiling header files, so that subsequent compiles of the same source file (or another that includes the same set of headers in the same order) can simply restore the saved state instead of recompiling the headers. Especially in typical C++ or Windows programs where there tend to be large header files compared to the size of the programs, this can make recompilation many times faster. 4. The compiler now has a built in assembler (BASM) for processing inline assembly code much faster than Turbo C++ which shells out to TASM. 5. The IDE editor has full Undo and Redo. 6. BC++ contains everything that one would need for developing applications for Microsoft Windows 3.0. In particular: a) The compiler and linker have options for generating Windows apps for standard and enhanced mode. Real mode apps are possible, but not yet fully supported. b) A Windows compatible RTL. c) The Whitewater Resource Toolkit (WRT), which provides in one integrated toolkit much of the functionality provided in separate tools by the Microsoft Windows SDK. d) The necessary parts of the SDK that are not part of WRT have been licensed from Microsoft and are included free as part of BC++. These are Resource Compiler, Help Compiler and windows.h. In addition, the Windows Programmers Reference (the documentation for the SDK) is in the online hypertext help system, and a certificate for a free copy of Petzold's book Programming Windows is included with every copy of BC++ bought through the retail channels (or a 1/3 off certificate for those obtaining BC++ as an upgrade). [Note: The Help Compiler was not mentioned at the Feb 13 announcement and was not shipped with the initial copies of BC++ because of delays in the contract with Microsoft. It is being sent separately, at no charge, to anyone who was sent BC++ without it.] e) Enhancements to the IDE to simplify setting options and creating projects for building any of DOS exes, overlayed DOS exes, Windows exes or Windows DLLs, and to support building programs that require resource compilation and linking steps in addition to the usual compile and link steps. f) TDW, a version of Turbo Debugger that runs as a Windows app for debugging Windows apps in standard and enhanced modes. TDW uses the familiar TD text mode interface and screen swaps with the debugged Windows app for single screen debugging. It has features for dealing with things like Windows messages, as well as the usual Turbo Debugger features. To answer some common questions: The only components of BC++ that have to run under Windows are WRT and TDW. The IDE and the command line tools are all DOS apps, which can be run in DOS boxes under Windows. The reason that the user interfaces are text mode and not Windows-hosted GUI is that Borland wanted to get the product out as soon as it provided a useful alternative for Windows development, and did not want to delay it longer than necessary. Windows-hosted GUI is obviously coming, though no dates have been announced. The protected mode versions of the IDE, compiler and linker can only run under standard mode Windows, not enhanced mode, because they are VCPI compatible and Windows follows the DPMI standard. The real-mode versons of the tools will run under enhanced mode Windows and have approximately the capacity of TC++. The protected mode version of TASM was able to be made DPMI compatible in time for this product, so it will run under enhanced mode Windows. Again, time was the factor here and DPMI compatibility for all the tools is in the future. I don't want to sound commercial by listing the upgrade pricing in a message to the net: Call the 800 customer order number which you can find in Borland's magazine ads for that kind of stuff. I will say that this time the upgrade price is a lot cheaper than the retail price. I don't have very convenient access to the net yet, but when I saw some misinformation passing by I felt I had to step in. Please feel free to pass this on to appropriate usenet newsgroups: I don't even have read-only access to them yet, much-less the "write-rarely" access that I have to this list. If you are going to try to reply to me, please use sidney@borland.com as an address. If it works it will be more convenient for me than a reply to the originating address of this message. And no, Borland Tech Support and Customer Support are not yet (and notice I said "yet") hooked into borland.com (which is still in its infancy) and as an R&D type I will not have time to also work as a support specialist and/or messenger for lots of support type questions :-) Sidney Markowitz <sidney@borland.com> Borland International (Languages R&D) -------- End of Message -------------