The short answer is no. Below is part of an article giving more information on this decision.
A ReportBuilder for VCL.NET product has been shelved, just prior to completion. There are no plans to release it unless the VCL.NET platform can prove itself capable of building non-trivial applications. Digital Metaphors will not release a product that cannot perform up to our expectations and the anticipated expectations of developers and end-users. Thus far we have seen little demand for VCL.NET. We will continue to evaluate VCL.NET going forward.
I don't understand your comment regarding not realeasing a VCL.NET version of RB "unless the VCL.NET platfrom can prove itself capable of building non-trivial applications". What exactly is it about VCL.NET that you think prohibit it from building trivial applications? VCL.NET is a complete port of the VCL framework so it should be capable of building applications of the same complexity as the VCL (Win32). I know that most developers where disappointed with D8 (a lot of which had to do with the lack of Win32 support) however D2005 has changed all that. Since D2005 supports both Win32 and .NET development I would hope that RB would do the same. I think RB is an excellent product and we have integrated it for years into our commercial product and will continue to do so. RB9 looks impressive and we will be upgrading in the near future. But like all Delphi developers moving forward doing .NET development we need RB to be a tool we can continue to use, first because it is a great product and second because we are so heavily invested in it.
Again, I am extremely curious as the what it is exactly about VCL.NET that you think prohibit it from developing complex applications.
I am looking forward to your comments. Thanks in advance.
Yes, it should be, but unfortunately this is not the case. To give you an idea, the Digital Metaphors team spent over 9 months trying to port our existing code over to VCL.NET. This was very frustrating due to the fact that VCL.NET is extremely buggy, extremely slow, and virtually impossible to debug. Regardless, we were able to develop a working product (ReportBuilder 8). We decided not to release this version partially from the lack of interest with our customers but mainly because the quality of the release was simply not to our standards. Unlike other companies, we will not shove a slow, buggy product out the door just because it is the end of the quarter.
Although this is subjective, I do not believe this was the case. Developers (including myself) were disappointed with Delphi 8 due to its poor quality. Try using Delphi 8 for about a week and you will see what I mean . We have done some minor experiments with VCL.NET in Delphi 2005 and have not found enough major improvements to justify using the resources to create a version of ReportBuilder 9 for VCL.NET as of yet.
However, a ReportBuilder for pure .NET is being developed for the longer term future.
The real strength of .NET is remoting and ASP.NET. We are currently considering and researching the possibility of a hybrid solution that enables Win32 based reports to be viewed using ASP.NET code and possibly WinForms code.
Thanks for the response. Though I can appreciate the problems with the D8 release, D2005 has now been released and is not the buggy product that D8 was and the debugging has been greatly improved as well as the performance. And considering DM has already made the investment and has a nearly complete version I would think it would be worth completing. We have a commercial product, the next version of which will be completed in 12 months, that must be development for the .NET enviroment. This is mainly due to customer demand but it makes good business sense as well because we are in a better position for partnerships and aquisitions if we have a .NET product as opposed to a Win32 product. RB has been integrated into our product for over 7 years and we have trained all our end-users to use RB. So, that puts us in a bit of a dilema because we want to continue using RB but a VCL.NET or pure .NET version isn't available. And though DM seems to be committed to a pure .NET version sometime in the future that doesn't help us much in the present because we do know your timeframe. And though a hybrid solution might work, I'm concerned that this would involve a .NET client using the RB Server and if so this would mean that all our clients would need to license the RB Server (as the RB Server cannot be distributed royalty free). Like I said before we think RB is a great product and we are trying to come up with any conceivable way to being able to continue using RB but it's becoming increasely difficult to do so without a .NET product of some sort.
Comments
The short answer is no. Below is part of an article giving more information
on this decision.
A ReportBuilder for VCL.NET product has been shelved, just prior to
completion. There are no plans to release it unless the VCL.NET platform can
prove itself capable of building non-trivial applications. Digital Metaphors
will not release a product that cannot perform up to our expectations and
the anticipated expectations of developers and end-users. Thus far we have
seen little demand for VCL.NET. We will continue to evaluate VCL.NET going
forward.
--
Regards,
Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com
Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com
I don't understand your comment regarding not realeasing a VCL.NET version
of RB "unless the VCL.NET platfrom can prove itself capable of building
non-trivial applications". What exactly is it about VCL.NET that you think
prohibit it from building trivial applications? VCL.NET is a complete port
of the VCL framework so it should be capable of building applications of the
same complexity as the VCL (Win32). I know that most developers where
disappointed with D8 (a lot of which had to do with the lack of Win32
support) however D2005 has changed all that. Since D2005 supports both
Win32 and .NET development I would hope that RB would do the same. I think
RB is an excellent product and we have integrated it for years into our
commercial product and will continue to do so. RB9 looks impressive and we
will be upgrading in the near future. But like all Delphi developers moving
forward doing .NET development we need RB to be a tool we can continue to
use, first because it is a great product and second because we are so
heavily invested in it.
Again, I am extremely curious as the what it is exactly about VCL.NET that
you think prohibit it from developing complex applications.
I am looking forward to your comments. Thanks in advance.
Scott Rowat
Yes, it should be, but unfortunately this is not the case. To give you an
idea, the Digital Metaphors team spent over 9 months trying to port our
existing code over to VCL.NET. This was very frustrating due to the fact
that VCL.NET is extremely buggy, extremely slow, and virtually impossible to
debug. Regardless, we were able to develop a working product (ReportBuilder
8). We decided not to release this version partially from the lack of
interest with our customers but mainly because the quality of the release
was simply not to our standards. Unlike other companies, we will not shove
a slow, buggy product out the door just because it is the end of the
quarter.
Although this is subjective, I do not believe this was the case. Developers
(including myself) were disappointed with Delphi 8 due to its poor quality.
Try using Delphi 8 for about a week and you will see what I mean
have done some minor experiments with VCL.NET in Delphi 2005 and have not
found enough major improvements to justify using the resources to create a
version of ReportBuilder 9 for VCL.NET as of yet.
However, a ReportBuilder for pure .NET is being developed for the longer
term future.
The real strength of .NET is remoting and ASP.NET. We are currently
considering and researching the possibility of a hybrid solution that
enables Win32 based reports to be viewed using ASP.NET code and possibly
WinForms code.
--
Regards,
Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com
Nico Cizik
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com
release, D2005 has now been released and is not the buggy product that D8
was and the debugging has been greatly improved as well as the performance.
And considering DM has already made the investment and has a nearly complete
version I would think it would be worth completing. We have a commercial
product, the next version of which will be completed in 12 months, that must
be development for the .NET enviroment. This is mainly due to customer
demand but it makes good business sense as well because we are in a better
position for partnerships and aquisitions if we have a .NET product as
opposed to a Win32 product. RB has been integrated into our product for
over 7 years and we have trained all our end-users to use RB. So, that puts
us in a bit of a dilema because we want to continue using RB but a VCL.NET
or pure .NET version isn't available. And though DM seems to be committed
to a pure .NET version sometime in the future that doesn't help us much in
the present because we do know your timeframe. And though a hybrid solution
might work, I'm concerned that this would involve a .NET client using the RB
Server and if so this would mean that all our clients would need to license
the RB Server (as the RB Server cannot be distributed royalty free). Like I
said before we think RB is a great product and we are trying to come up with
any conceivable way to being able to continue using RB but it's becoming
increasely difficult to do so without a .NET product of some sort.
Scott