Hot News: Borland is Killing the BDE

Hot News: Borland is Killing the BDE!!!




I bet that got your attention! Although Borland has marked the end of the Borland Database Engine (BDE), they will continue development for another year or two. The current expectation is that the BDE will be a useful solution for another 2 to 3 years. Although two to three years is a lifetime in this industry, you will want to start migrating away from the BDE as soon as possible. How much development time Borland will devote to the BDE in the next year or two is a touchy subject for both Borland and current users of the BDE. Based on the discussion going on at BorCon 2001, it looks like future work on the BDE will be focused primarily on bug fixes with very few new features being added.


Borland has made it clear that they want you to use their new dbExpress solution. The problem is that dbExpress does not yet support Paradox, dBASE, nor MS SQL. For those databases, Borland is recommending you stick with the BDE or switch to ADO.


What about Paradox and other tools that rely on the BDE? It remains to be seen what will happen with Paradox and other tools that rely on the BDE. Will Corel buy the BDE, switch to Microsoft technology, or develop their own solution. Only the future will tell.


dbExpress currently supports Oracle, DB2, Interbase, and MySQL. Other database platforms will follow. Our recommendation is that if you're starting a new application, use dbExpress and a supported database platform. If you must use Paradox or dBASE use the BDE and be prepared to migrate to dbExpress when it supports those database platforms. For MS SQL, you can choose between the BDE and ADO. For MS SQL, we're starting new projects using ADO. The bottom line is that now is the time to migrate away from the BDE and toward other database engine solutions and dbExpress is clean, lean, cross-platform, and Borland's future database engine solution. 

Rick:

Here are some hopefull words. Borland is getting rid of the BDE, not paradox tables. I'm 100% positive, they will continue to offer and support Paradox tables. There is already a very very good ODBC driver out there for use with Paradox tables and I believe they will add Paradox support to DataSnap sometime in the future.

Dare I admit that although having been a Paradox convert I think that had I the choice to start over working in Delphi or Paradox I would now choose Delphi!
But, as I have said many times if only the Delphi help system offered as many examples as Paradox does then the work would proceed much faster.
I would also think there is a need for some form of book\guide to give those converting from Paradox to Delphi a bit of a head start.
rt

This sure does make things difficult for long time Borland developers. For the last 8 years or so, I've been encouraging my clients to use Paradox for their databases. That way their database people can make use of the raw front end that Paradox provides, and I can write programs in Opal for their end users and data entry people. Just recently, though, I changed to Delphi. It's astoundingly beautiful and I'd hate to have to go back, but until (unless?!) they open up another interface to Paradox data, I'm really out on a limb.

Carl E. Campbell
New York - Presbyterian Hospital
The University Hospitals of Columbia and Cornell

Carl E Campbell
System Administrator
New York - Presbyterian Hospital
The University Hospitals of Columbia and Cornell

I have been trying to work in Delphi but find it a little difficult. (at least more difficult than Paradox).

Mr. Prestwood, please help me find a book exactly like your books on Paradox but for Delphi!

Mike or Rick,

What is it we have to worry about Corel not supporting BDE?

I use Paradox 9.0 Developers Edition. Most of my applications are in small retail stores. Some are networked but most are stand alone systems. They are used for inventory control and customer tracking.

What do I have to be concerned about? Is it that Paradox might not work with future operating systems? New technology might not be available?

It seems to me... if my clients enter data into Paradox tables... Paradox should be able to be used for years to come.

I never use Corel for any support now. I always rely on the great people in your forums if I hit a snag.

Thanks

Mike or Rick,

Please excuse my using Corel for Borland.

John

If you have Delphi 6 Pro or above, I would recommend Marco Cantu's "Mastering Delphi 6," which includes plenty of examples and discussion of working with various database technologies. If you're just dabbling in Delphi for now, start with the free material at his website, "Essential Pascal" and "Essential Delphi" at
Old UBB Archived Link: [URL=http://www.marcocantu.com/]http://www.marcocantu.com/[/URL]

There are also editions of "Mastering Delphi" for each of the earlier versions.
Also good, but perhaps a bit more advanced, is "Delphi Developer's Guide" by Pacheco & Texieria.
Another good web resource is
Old UBB Archived Link: [URL=http://delphi.about.com/]http://delphi.about.com/[/URL]
They have a number of articles and tutorials for beginners, including a tutorial on database programming using ADO and Access tables. However, some have suggested that Microsoft may well drop support for ADO even before Borland drops support for the BDE.

Rick Carter
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG
Cincinnati PC Users Group

Carl, I too have lots of Paradox tables out there, and lots of ObjectPAL programs running under Paradox for Windows. But, it may be time to wake up and smell the coffee. Borland apparently feels no obligation to continue support for Paradox tables forever, and I don't see any third party rushing in to "save" the future of the Paradox table format. The future of Paradox for Windows and the Corel Office Suite seems to be questionable. It may be time to start looking at another table format that's likely to be around for some time. OTOH, as mentioned above, I feel no urgency to convert everything immediately, and I don't understand the mad rush from BDE to ADO, since Microsoft has a history of abandoning data access technologies, and has been dropping hints that ADO may not be around much longer.
I'm starting to think it may be worthwhile to take a look at Interbase tables...

Rick Carter
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG
Cincinnati PC Users Group

Borland's latest statement:
Old UBB Archived Link: [URL=http://community.borland.com/article/0,1410,28688,00.html]http://community.borland.com/article/0,1410,28688,00.html[/URL]


There's some interesting discussion of this at borland.public.bde
You can read and post from
Old UBB Archived Link: [URL=http://newsgroups.borland.com/]http://newsgroups.borland.com/[/URL]

Rick Carter
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG
Cincinnati PC Users Group

We'll have to wait and see, Mike. Borland employees have told me that Borland has no intention of writing a DataSnap driver for Paradox, but a third party may if they wish. DataSnap is designed mostly for client/server databases. I had heard conjectures that, with all the dBASE tables out there, and with the .DBF file format being public, surely someone would write a DataSnap driver for them, but AFAIK it hasn't happened yet. If it's not happening for .DBF tables, as widely in use as they are, what are the chances for Paradox tables?
Borland has recently stated that the BDE will never be open sourced. Even though Borland is no longer making money from the BDE and Paradox tables, the code for the BDE does contain other "intellectual property" which Borland feels it needs to retain to maintain its competitive edge. And, the only documentation of the Paradox file format is within the source code for the BDE, so Borland has no intention of making the file format public, either. So that makes it difficult for anyone else to write drivers. (Corel can, of course, but their resources for this sort of venture are limited.)

Rick Carter
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG
Cincinnati PC Users Group

What do I have to be concerned about? Is it that Paradox might not work with future operating systems? New technology might not be available?

Exactly.

It seems to me... if my clients enter data into Paradox tables... Paradox should be able to be used for years to come.

Yes, I'm certainly counting on it. You might compare it to the way that Microsoft has been threatening to "kill" DOS and 16-bit Windows for years, but many of those apps are still running now (but maybe not under newer Windows versions such as XP, or only with great difficulty under those versions).

Rick Carter
Chair, Delphi/Paradox SIG
Cincinnati PC Users Group

Ok, so what does this mean for me as a (somewhat naive) small time Paradox developer in the sense that Paradox is the front end and one could presumably have any compatible engine sitting in the background? How much effect might changing from BDE have on the actual Opal code I write, or have written in older applications for that matter?

Assume everything, Assume nothing!

BDE deprecation began as a ceasing of support for client/server style databases. dbExpress was introduced specifically to take up the role that would later be vacated by BDE, which was why there was such a push to migrate folks to it for new development.

Basically, consider BDE to be deprecated and don't do new development with it. Just because Borland is ceasing development (and eventually ceasing shipment) of it, doesn't mean you can't keep older versions around and code to them. It does mean, however, that it's unlikely you'll see any more bug fixes for it.

Best of luck -

T

It means you might want to consider another front-end to your code such as Delphi for C++ Builder. If you know OPAL really well I would look at Delphi as the transition might feel a little smoother.

Seriously. With a tool like Delphi you have access to *lots* of different database technologies that are still being kept current(like ADO/MDAC). I think you'd find yourself a lot happier if you looked in that direction.