>>I though I'd take advantage of Borland's $200 offer for Kylix (down from their intial price of $1,290). My copy of Kylix arrived yesterday!
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>I love Delphi. When I first looked at Kylix I said wow, it looks just like Delphi except... the price. I complained to them about this. They gave me all sorts of excuses. I am glad they finally saw the light. I will now purchase Kylix cause it is reasonably priced. Anything more than $200 (for a professional version) is too much. I just purchased SUSE so now I have a reason to install them and test. This is great news for Linux which does not have anything like a VB type programming environment.

Good choices. IMHO, SuSE is the best distro on the planet!

If you loved Delphi you are going to adore Kylix!

Actually, though, Linux has some good or even execellent GUI-RAD tools.

KDevelop (C++), and it is GPL.

Glade (GNOME) is not as polished as KDevelop but it is acceptable.

TollTech bundles Qt-Designer with its Qt toolkit. The version of Qt that is embedded in Kylix is 3.0, which contains both data-aware widgets AND a version of Qt-Designer that supports them. The 3.0 version of Qt-Designer is, by TollTech's own admission, their entry into the GUI-RAD arena. I have downloaded the Qt-Free (GPL) version. It is excellent.

IBM Visual Age for Java 3.0. Commercial, not GPL, but excellent. I have used both the Windows and Linux versions and one cannot tell them apart in look&feel or operation. The code is completely portable.

There are several other 2nd tier commerical apps (Code Forge, Code Warrior, Code Medic, etc.) but while they good tools they are not at Kylix's level. They arose several years ago as propriatary tools, surfing the intial wave of Linux, but failing to gain any interest because they were initially too limiting and of lessor quality. KDevelop's first release blew them out of the water. Some are still 'haning on' but ....

And, there are several other GPL startup GUI-RAD tools:

Lazerus, which uses Free Pascal and looks similar to Kylix, the way a model airplane looks similar to a 747. The limited, but useful, Kylix Open Edition may give this startup some trouble, because the KOE will allow GPL software to be written and/or modified, but won't allow propriatary code to be written. For that one needs the Kylix Desktop or Enterprise Edition.

KBasic, following KDevelop's GPL model but attempting to capture the look&feel of VB 6, and to be able to compile VB source code itself. I expect this project to take a while, since they will have to either translate the code to C++ or build a BASIC compiler. Neither is a trivial task.

In additon, there are some excellent 2nd tier GUI-RADs that have been around for a long time:

TCL-GTK+ is one of them. When you install PosgreSQL and include pgaccess you get a set of GPL apps written by an Italian programmer that mimmicks ACCESS on the X-Windows desktop but is connected to PostgreSQL. For simple stuff it's ok. You can create/modify/use PostgreSQL tables, views, forms, reports, etc... without too much coding, if you don't get carried away and attempt to build MDI apps using pageframes, etc..

XFORMS is another.

NCursors builds 'DOS' apps.

But, none of them, approaches the ease and power of Kylix. Linux die-hards, of course, will always use a GPL tool to write GPL software, but it is a great stratigic move of Borland to release, later this year, Kylix Open Edition, for about $100, which will allow folks who want to create GPL or modify GPL software, the opportunity to use a premier GUI-RAD tool like Kylix. I've been studying C++ for awhile now, and using it on occasions, but my heart is with Pascal. So this Linux fanatic is glad to see Kylix appear. See! Not every Linux fan is anti-propriatary/commerical. But, if Borland tries a 'lock-in' and price escalation they will find the welcome mat pulled so fast they won't know what hit them.