Games of Daze/Infomagic - Games of Daze (Summer 1995) (Disc 1 of 2).iso/x2ftp/msdos/reviews/wc10_bc4.sum

Internet Message Format | 1994-09-17 | 12KB

From [e-mail] Fri Sep 16 18:34:22 1994
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools,comp.os.msdos.programmer,alt.msdos.programmer
From: [e-mail] (Mattias Gerald Hembruch)
Subject: Summary: Watcom C/C++ vs Borland C/C++
Nntp-Posting-Host: dictator.uwaterloo.ca
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 01:50:45 GMT

Here's an EDITED version of the replies I got in response to a question
of which package was better: Watcom C/C++ 10.0 or Borland C/C++ 4.0.
Watcom got 6 good votes, Borland only gripes & complaints. Not ONE vote for
Borland. Boy, times have changed since '89 when I bought Watcom 6.x and then
went and bought Borland because Watcom was just TERRIBLE to work in.

From: [e-mail] (Kevin Hamilton)

BTW, don't waste your
money on Borland. Watcom is the far better compiler. Its interface
may not be flashy, but its got the best tools and is relatively bug
free compared to Symantec, Borland, and Microsoft (I have all of these
compilers in case you have any qeustions).

Kevin

From: "David Andrews" <[e-mail]>

I ordered the Watcom compiler without manuals.  What a pain!  Good thing I
already had a copy of the 9.5 manuals (though I'll probably get the company
to spring the bucks for the 10.0 books too).

The Watcom help system is a poor substitute for the manuals.

Borland has notoriously poor technical support, whether or not you got the
educational allowance.  (I bought into TC 1.5 a long time ago, and upgraded
through BC 3.0).

Borland will NOT notify you of bugs, or post bug fixes anywhere.  Marshall
Cline has maintained a Borland C buglist -- since Borland won't do it.
And Borland typically charges you a (small) upgrade fee when you do order
a bugfix.

Watcom is still providing free telephone support, and their BBS has the
latest bugfixes for the product available for download.

Watcom is BIG.  You get multi-platform capability -- DOS 16 and 32 bit
compilers, MS-Windows, OS/2 and Netware.  You get the development libraries
for each environment -- MFC for MS-Windows, the OS/2 toolkit, the Netware
prelude and header files, etc.  A full installation could go to 100MB if
you went nuts.

If you have room in your chassis -- a friend of mine was offered a FIFTY
DOLLAR internal CD-ROM drive recently.  This was part of a package deal,
but it illustrates that prices are coming down dramatically.  I see that
Teac has introduced an under-500 dollar quad CD-ROM drive.

Watcom arguably does better code generation.  I cannot compare the profiler
and debugger with Borland's, because I haven't used the Watcom versions yet
(but I *do* like Borland's).  Watcom doesn't provide a builtin editor, they
use whatever editor you point the IDE to (at least in the OS/2 environment).

Borland provides its own adequate editor, with a Wordstar-based command set.
Both Watcom and Borland allow you to specify your own editor, and many people
choose Brief, or another program.

Disclaimer: I run BC 3.0 and Watcom 9.5 and 10.0.

BC 3.1 came *very* close on the heels of BC 3.0 (that's what originally
irritated me about Borland).  I have not personally experienced any of the
3.0 bugs though.  TV and OWL are supposed to be buggy at the 3.0 level,
but I don't use much of either.

BC 4.0 (for OS/2) has been widely castigated on the net for its bugs and
incomplete language support for C++.

Watcom's recent 10.0 offering is known *not* to work under the OS/2
Warp-2 beta.

There is no DOS-based IDE.  It is MS-Windows and OS/2 PM only.

My opinion: buy the Watcom offering, especially if you have multiplatform
aspirations.  Their service is much better than Borland's (and they are
local to you).  Consider buying the documentation anyway.

There is no OWL or TV equivalent libraries distributed with Watcom.

Hope this helped.  Please summarize your email replies to the net; this
question comes up frequently, and others would like to know what you find.

From: George Swan <[e-mail]>

For what it is worth, I used to work at the University of Waterloo,
BC++ was bought for me under the educational liscense.  The fine print
said to get technical help from your instructor or from your local
computer centre.  I addressed some technical questions to DCS.
My message got bounced around for about a week, until it arrived
on the desk of their "Borland expert".  He and I exchanged a couple
of messages.  I don't remember if he had suggestions, and I tried
them and they didn't work, or whether we just batted around ideas.
Anyhow he said that he would contact Borland, and get back to me.
** lines deleted
Big mistake.  It turns out their "Borland expert" was just a co-op
student.  The reason he was so busy was that he was working on his
work term report.

The end of the story was that Borland couldn't answer the question
either, so six months later they sent me a free upgrade to the next
version of the compiler.

It's an annoying practice.  At my next job, which was at U of T
they bought me the professional version of the compiler right off
the bat.  I found them to be very unprofessional in terms of
how they respond to bug reports.  In fact they weren't any more
responsible than the young co-op student.  They didn't make any
attempt to acknowledge them, classify them, or give you a prediction
as to how high a priority as to when they would be fixed.

They continued their policy of sending you free upgrades if they
couldn't answer their technical questions.

These free upgrades were a problem though.  They stamp the value
of the shipment on the US mail shipping sticker.  Canada Customs uses
that to determine how much duty and GST you should pay.

If you buy the Watcom, how about a review?

From: [e-mail] (Kevin Hamilton)
> Thanks. btw, what's the MAX install space for Watcom vs Borland?
> Have you seen Borland 4.0?

You're looking at around 172 Megs for Watcom vs. 70-90 for Borland.
But, Watcom comes with libraries for writing AutoCAD, Novell, Win NT,
16 bit Windows, 32 bit Windows, OS/2 (Watcom has great OS/2 support),
16-bit DOS, and 32-bit Extended DOS. Borland does not have Novell,
AutoCAD, and 32-bit DOS support. Also, you have to pay a licensing
fee to dristribute 32-bit Windows code writin in Borland. Watcom
is completely royalty free, and it has the MFC (Microsoft Foundation
Class) libraries in both 16 and 32 bit versions.

On Borland's side, it has a better IDE for both Windows and DOS (Watcom
has no DOS IDE, and its Windows IDE is spartan). Both have remote debugging
capabilities and great debuggers.

Although I've used Borland 4.0, I still found enough bugs in it to warrant
not buying it myself. My problem with Borland isn't necessarily their
compilers so much as the Technical Support team is utterly unresponsive.
Too many times I have heard: "We're aware of the problem and it will be
fixed in the next release" and "No, there's not a work around, just don't
use it that way." I have too many things that need to get done to have
to worry about dealing with those kind of responses every week.

Hope this helps. Kevin

From: Ban Keong Yee <[e-mail]>

You can also get Tech support of Watcom from networking.
Send your email to [e-mail]
Something that, Borland doesn't have.

From: Koivisto Hannu <[e-mail]>

For those who demand best code generation, and are used not to have the
latest and coolest IDE, Watcom is the one. It may be a bit 'easier' to do
Windows programming with BC, since it has quite nice Windows IDE. Watcom
has IDE for Windows too, but I wouldn't use that.
  I personally use Watcom, since it generates the best code, it has DOS-
extender bundled, and support for manymany platforms, including 32bit/16bit
DOS, 16bit/32bit Extended Windows/32bit Win32(s), QNX, OS/2, Netware etc.
Besides, I don't care about IDE, because I use Multi-Edit, and no IDE can
beat that! I would use it even with BC, so only the quality of compiler
and utilities is an issue for me.
  The conclusion: I recommend Watcom.

From: [e-mail] (Anthony Whitford)

I have *heard* that there are still bugs with Borland C++ 4.0 which is
why they are releasing 4.02.  I have heard nothing but goood things
regarding WatCom C++ 10!  I must admit, I haven't used either.  I
personally use VC++ 1.5 for WfWg development and VC++ 1.10 for NT
development.  I have used Borland C++ 3.x, and I really liked it for
developing C apps, but I didn't like OWL very much.

Again, may I iterate that my opinions about the latest products are
based on hearsay.

The WatCom compiler for $99 is a steal!  IT DOES EVERYTHING, or so it
seems.  If the compiler doesn't have a windows IDE (which I think it
does, but not 100% sure), you might consider using WinEdit or
CodeWright.  They are nicer editors because they are customizable--but
most importantly they are usable because they support keyword
highlighting.

If you are looking for code generation quality, Watcom kicks butt!  I
think most people would say that although MS compilers are slower, they
generate better release code than Borland compilers.  BUT, I am sure
almost anyone would agree that Watcom generates better code than MS.

If you need a CD-ROM drive, you may consider picking up a cheap
double-spin CD-ROM drive.  I own a Panasonic CR-562B double-spin drive
and it works great.  Sure, there are better CD-ROM drives out there, but
not for the price!  They are selling around here for less than $200
($189, I think was the last price I saw for them).  Double-spin CD-ROM
drives are cheap because (apparently) everyone is making triple-spins
instead.  I even run my compiler off of the CD-ROM (to use less HD
space), and it works pretty well.  The best part is that you can access
the help files, sample code, and books off of the CD instead of
cluttering your HD.  Also, EVERY compiler these days is being released
on CD-ROM--it is almost impossible to develop software without one, so
break down and pick up one!

I do not have a hard copy of the manuals for my compiler.  Sure, there
are some people who think I am strange, but I prefer to click on a
function and press F1 and read about something than to leaf through
manuals.  I totally prefer to have the information electronically at the
touch of a key than on a bookshelf.

: In case it matters: Watcom is local so I can get support without paying long
: distance, and I think they even have a support BBS.

That is a plus IF you intend to use support.  Personally, I have never
called the support lines.  I ask any weird stuff on the UseNet.

Well, I'd get Watcom over Borland.  But then again, I use Visual C++...
Cheers,
Anthony

From: "w.a. batorowicz" <[e-mail]>
Hello
    I would go with the home team! First of all it is much broader
package (I know I have both). It has a nice friendly IDE for Windows,
Windows NT, OS/2 and QNX - I am not 100% sure about the last one. One
warning though, the complete installation will take 175 Mbyte of your
hard disk. Borland C++ 4.0 will only take around 80 Mbytes depending on
your disk's cluster size.
    I must admit though that nothing beats DOS environment found in
Borland C++ 3.1, Borland Pascal etc. Unfortunetly DOS IDE is no longer
part of Borland C++ 4.0. One of the major reasons why I took BC++ version 4
of my computer was it's slowness on my system (486 DX 33MHz, 8MB RAM).
BC++4.0 is really slow as compared with VC++, Symantec C++ and of course
Watcom v10 C++. The best IDE for Windows in my opinion has Symantec C++
6.1 - it's a pleasure to work with this package.
    Of all mentioned compilers only Borland and Watcom support
exception handling but as far as I know only Borland supports RTTI
(whatever that is :-) ). For my purposes I really like Watcom compiler it
is a steal for $146, price I paid at UWO.
    Regards
        Witold

--
Mattias Hembruch
University of Waterloo
BASc Computer Engineering, MASc to follow
[e-mail]