I felt like a child again as I eagerly tore off the packaging of the newly arrived software package. I'd been waiting since 22 March 2000, when Borland C++ Builder 5 was officially released to the public, to test drive the package. So many features so little time to test them all out.

The first test every body wants to know is how easily can I create the standard "Hello World" Program. Well it takes time to decide what type of application you want to create, to the novice this could be a bit overwhelming, but you can certainly create almost any type of "Hello World" program. This includes a multi document interface, dialogue based, even MFC based application with out typing a single line of C++ code.

One of the first new features of Borland C++ Builder 5 that really grabbed me was ADOExpress. I have invested a lot of time lately trying to get the most out of ADO. I have been using Microsoft's Visual C++ 6.0, and to say the least its tedious work. Microsoft have really targeted Visual Basic Users and there is not much support for Visual C++. After installing Borland C++ Builder it wasn't much more than half an hour later, that I had a nicely functioning program interacting with a Microsoft Access database. ADOExpress simplifies the complications of having to type cast between C++ types and ADO Variant Types. ADOExpress' encapsulation of the ADO toolset is easy to follow and extremely easy to use. Most of the ADO Objects are accessible from their own tool bar. Other than the literature found in the programs accompanying manual and help file, ADO EXPRESS is lacking in help resources.

I have a lot of legacy code written in Microsoft Visual C++, so what If I wanted to convert one or all of my projects into Borland C++ Builder? Well according to Borland that is no problems. Borland C++ Builder Enterprise Edition comes standard with a conversion utility to handle just this. I thought I'd check it out with a small MFC Dialogue based project I'd recently been working on. The conversion occurred very quickly and I didn't have to choose many options. Once it was done the program ran with the first tryy…very impressed. I'm not sure how well it would work with larger projects, there would probably be some teething problems along the way but it's not so daunting a task as you would expect. You can't convert a Borland C++ Builder project into a Microsoft Visual project with the same ease.

I am also impressed with the background compiler. It appears to run very quickly on the projects that I have complied with it to date. Being able to continue working with out having to wait for the compiler to complete what it is doing is a welcome feature.

Borland C++ Builder is by design, a very quick development tool. As a tradeoff the code that is produced is not very portable. If you are intending on developing a cross platform application with Builder you will have to forgo almost all of the niceties that Builder provides.

As a web and application developer I fully appreciate the significant decrease in development time that scripting languages such as Cold Fusion, PHP and ASP, create when developing with them compared to developing e-commerce solutions in a standard 3rd generation language such as C++.  Borland C++ Builder promises to bridge that gap while enabling development of faster more robust e-commerce applications. Using features such as Internet Express Builder combines the use of XML, HTML4 and C++ to rapidly develop database driven applications for the Web.

Other than the documentation provided by Borland there are no third party resources that try to tackle the immense features list that Borland C++ Builder provides. SAMS has published some books on Borland C++ Builder 4

• Sams Teach Yourself Borland C++ Builder 4 in 24 Hours by Kent Reisdorf, et al 
• Borland C++Builder 4 Unleashed by Kent Reisdorph (Editor)

These can get the novice started but obviously they won't touch on any of the great new features in the later version.

Borland C++ comes with many other new and existing features that I haven't yet had time to fully check out. TeamSource is one of these that I am eager to play with as most of the work that I do is in a team environment.

All in all I found the Borland C++ Builder experience enjoyable and well worth the wait. I look forward to many more late nights tapping at the keyboard in front of it.