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copied!<p>The strength of C++ Builder (and also Delphi) is the VCL GUI framework, it is easy to work with, and delivers true RAD development. There are a lot of alternatives to VCL which all have their strengths and weaknesses. The strength of VCL is the close ties with C++Builder/Delphi which makes it work very well with that combination. The downside is that it is propitiatory software, which means that you are unlikely to port your code to other IDE's or platforms without official support from Codegear/Embarcadero.</p> <p>There is however some free alternatives out there, one of the more interesting being the <a href="http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lazarus IDE</a>. The Lazarus IDE is an IDE for the Free Pascal language, this is very similar to that of Delphi, I must admit that I am not a Delphi guy myself, so I am unable to go into too much detail about this. Lazarus have a GUI framework much like VCL called LCL. From the brief looks I've had on it, it looks very similar. There are several good things about the Lazarus/Freepascal package especially for your case. It is free, it can compile and build for both windows, linux, and mac, it has 64 bit support. Further more the compiler seems more modern than the Delphi one.</p> <p><a href="http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/images/thumb/b/bd/Windows_7.png/800px-Windows_7.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lazarus running on Windows 7</a></p> <p><a href="http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/images/thumb/9/9c/Lazarus_IDE_GTK2_Linux.png/800px-Lazarus_IDE_GTK2_Linux.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lazarus running on Linux (GTK2)</a></p> <p><a href="http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/images/thumb/5/5b/Lazarusmac0.9.25.jpg/800px-Lazarusmac0.9.25.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lazarus running on Mac OSX</a></p> <p>More screenshots can be found here: <a href="http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Screenshots" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Screenshots</a></p> <p>The problem with Delphi/C++Builder is that the VCL is not currently crossplatform capable. Although this is planned for future versions (as far as I recall) it is not yet implemented. Having noted that, there are some considerations as to whether the C++Builder will continue to be maintained or not, in here there is some comments on this: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/819942/the-future-of-c-builder">here</a>.</p> <p>Qt has been mentioned and it is indeed a very strong GUI framework and the Qt creator is a fine tool, personally though I like to have a very close bond between the IDE and the GUI framework like it is the case with the VCL, but that is very dependent on the developer.</p> <p><strong>Edit:</strong> Just a thought I had, when comparing C++Builder to other RAD IDE's it is easy to include IDE's for the .NET languages and Java. These use languages created for this purpose. C++ used in C++ Builder does, although in Borlands version slightly modified, not. This does raise an interesting question, is using C++ for RAD applications necessary and justifiable? Why not use a tool (language) that is written for the purpose. I am aware that C++ Builder is written for RAD development, but the language behind it was not designed for this purpose. If your need is truly rapidly developed applications, I would consider looking for other languages, but if you dependent on C++ for whatever reason, could be 3rd party libraries etc. Then C++ Builder is in the C++ world an excellent RAD development platform.</p>

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