Teach Yourself Borland C++ in 14 Days - portal

488 Day 14
What Brought Us Here?
For the past couple years, Borland C++ users and C++ users in general have been crying for
a RAD tool that is based on C++. As great as Borland’s Delphi is, it is based on ObjectPascal.
ObjectPascal is no less a language than C++ in the hands of the average developer, but, as they
say, image is everything. There are many organizations (public, private, and government)
that flatly refuse to use a product based on Pascal. Obviously, a C++ RAD tool was needed.
So Borland began working on a solution to the problem. It made sense to leverage both the
popularity of Delphi and the existing Delphi IDE. After all, people were asking for “Delphi
for C++,” so why not give them what they ask for? It was obvious that using the Delphi IDE
would present no real problem. In fact, it was an immediate solution. There was no point in
trying to modify the Borland C++ IDE (or in trying to hybridize the Delphi and Borland C++
IDEs) when the Delphi IDE had most of what users were asking for, not to mention the fact
that it was a ready-made solution. So that part was easy.
The hard part came when Borland began looking at the PME model and at how to implement
it and still stay 100 percent ANSI C++ compliant. This was a dilemma for Borland because
Borland C++ has been one of the few PC-based C++ compilers that has maintained ANSI
C++ compliance over the years. (Microsoft has many extensions to Visual C++ that preclude
it from making such a claim.) It didn’t take long to come to the realization that it just couldn’t
be done—there was no way to implement the PME model, as it exists in Delphi, and stay
within current C++ standards. The solution was to extend C++ in order to leverage the power
of the PME model and the already-existing Visual Component Library. At that point the
question was not How can we do this? but rather Do we dare do this?
When in doubt, ask the public. Borland conducted marketing surveys in an attempt to
determine what developers wanted. The surveys were extensive. One important question
Borland wanted answered was, “What is more important to you: rapid application development
or maintaining C++ standards?” The results of the survey indicated that strict compliance with
C++ standards was not as important to many C++ programmers as it once was. Apparently the
overall feeling is that RAD is more alluring than strict adherence to C++ standards. Armed with
that information, Borland proceeded to add to the C++Builder implementation of C++ those
extensions that it would need in order to implement the PME model.
NOTE
It is important to note that there is nothing to preclude compiling 100
percent ANSI-compliant C++ code with C++Builder. The C++Builder
extensions to C++ are there if you need them, but that does not in any
way affect C++Builder’s ability to compile standard C++ code. If you
want strict adherence to C++ standards, you can still use C++Builder to