Re: Embarcadero - what does this meanfor the futur of Paradox?

Hi Rick:

The evolution of development from 16-bit DOS to 16-bit Windows with the 16-bit API to 32-bit Windows with the Win32 API to support for 64-bit processors is interesting. I wrote a bit about it on the Prestwood Boards at...

http://www.prestwoodboards.com/ASPSuite/eBoard/Thread.asp?MBID=12733

The bottom line is that Paradox is a Win32 app and even today most commercial applications are still being built with Win32. This includes most of the applications from Microsoft!


"RickM" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:482a1a1c$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Leslie -
Thanks for your response and confirmation of some of the things I had been
thinking. From your standpoint, keeping the BDE unchanged is a good thing.
I hadn't thought about it that way - but I can see what you mean.

I had hoped this might mean some positive news for Paradox, but I'm more
inclined to believe like yourself, that BDE will remain largely ignored despite
all this corporate juggling.

Given the prevalence of other popular free software DBs like MySQL and PostgreSQL
- and there's even a "desktop" style database a la Paradox and Access that
comes with OpenOffice.org - perhaps even open sourcing would fail to breathe
new life. But I still maintain that it's a happy possibility, despite the
licensing conflicts involved. Maybe it wishful thinking, but I would love
to see what the Paradox faithful would do with it if given the chance!

As for Paradox on Vista - I contacted Corel tech support about a year ago
and was told 2 things: 1. that Corel's official stance is that Paradox is
in "maintenance" mode, meaning, as it was explained, that no new releases
or bug fixes are planned for the future. And 2- there is, however, a Vista
patch in the works, but when I asked when it might be released, I was told
that they had no idea, and that they "wish they could tell me" Now it's
been over a year since Vista's release and still no patch - it's looking
more like vaporware all the time. But I have read some good reports that
others have gotten it to work on Vista. I haven't tried it yet, but from
what I understand it's mostly a matter of moving some of the executables
out of the main Program Files directory. No surprise, as this problem isn't
for Paradox alone. IIRC, it's caused because of the way microsoft has altered
the permissions on that directory, and other apps have needed the same modification
to run on Vista.

I also agree that the move to all 64 bit architecture is in no way imminent.
It's certainly not planned for Windows 7 in 2010, and almost certainly won't
happen in the foreseeable future. Given this, I think that Paradox potentially
still has many years of usefulness ahead of it, despite it's frozen state!

Best regards!
Rick


"Leslie Milburn" <CDB4W@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"RickM" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:482766d9$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Someone please help me because I have been trying to sort this out as
to
what is in store for the future of Paradox and if there is any hope of
it
being upgraded and improved upon and bug fixed.

Don't hold your breath !!!

Corel owns Paradox, but they don't own the BDE, and that is the heart
of
Paradox. In my understanding that is why Corel has not or not been able
to improve upon Paradox. That and the fact that it would be a very
expensive
endeavor for them, in a market that is already owned by MS Access, it

almost
seems like a no-win situation for them, despite the dedicated legions
who
haunt newsgroups like this.

Correct.

Now that Embarcadero has purchased Codegear, what does this mean for the
future of BDE/Paradox? Embarcadero makes database tools... do they have
their own replacement for DbExpress/BDE planned? Will they sell BDE to

Corel?
Does Corel even want it? Will they open the doors to Corel to work with
and improve BDE?

What it means is the (hopefully) the BDE will be completely ignored and
thus
unchanged !!!


Maybe at some point they will open source the BDE.. could you imagine?

That
might be the answer to Paradox's woes.

This will not happen in my lifetime - they use the excuse that it contains

proprietry code but IMO if they are still using concepts that old then they

need to give it all away.

I apologize in advance if any of my info/conjecturing is less than 100%

accurate.
That's why I'm posting here, to get feedback and clarification from others
who might know more.

IMO the BDE is frozen in time. This is a good thing because it means it
is a
known quantity and we can mess around with it (slightly). The downside is

that at some point the BDE may stop working but I strongly doubt it until

many many years into the future and perhaps it might take computers
migrating away from 32 Bit into a 64 Bit only world (with no backwards
compatibility) for it to totally fail. After tweaking and hacking away at

it, I am happy to say the BDE runs find under Windows Vista.

Paradox For Windows on the other hand is a slight more worrisome. I cannot

comment too much as my experience is way too old to be valid, but reading

some of the posts here, it appears that Paradox still has some issues under

Windows Vista, others will no doubt let you know.

Rgds
Leslie.




.

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