• some guy (unregistered)

    Please get back to Grace and ask her if she has emailed to "no address given".

    This tidbit raises even more questions for me - were the people who set up this message template not the same people that filled it? Did the C++ Builder developers purchase this thing and then not fill it properly? Or is IT at Grace's employment to blame?

  • Lukiko (unregistered)

    Ahh, C++ Builder! Seems to be just as crap is it's sister product RAD Studio for Delphi. It too would throw random errors when trying to build, that disappeared on the next build (or you might get a completely different fake error on the next build, compiling felt more like playing a slot machine). Though at least it didn't output the errors as HTML source code...

    The IDE's form editor (the main reason you would use it) is so bad that we will sometimes open a form's source code in Notepad++ and edit it by hand. It's legitimately faster and easier.

  • Jason Stringify (unregistered)

    It also has one of my pet hates: an error message ending in an exclamation mark. To me, "Object not found!" is equivalent to "Object not found, you idiot."

  • ttlanhil (unregistered) in reply to Jason Stringify

    Dude, where's my object?

  • (nodebb)

    Does the button to go to the web support a Hayes SmartModem?

  • Duke of New York (unregistered)

    The 1990s "everything must be XML" was not nearly as damaging as 2020s "everything must be AI." More civilized for sure.

  • (nodebb)

    I used C++ Builder for a few years until we decided to rewrite our applications from scratch in C# using Visual Studio. Once in a while I try C++ Builder Direct to see what was new. There was never anything new.

  • Oracles (unregistered)

    I'd wager the popup is due to an upstream check on one of those dead links to see if there are any updates. The code probably has some randomizer that fires it off whenever you start a build: if (rng > 0.1) check_for_updates();

  • (nodebb) in reply to ttlanhil

    Dude, where's my object?

    It's in a very powerful and mysterious place, whose power is only exceed by its mystery.

  • Hmmmm (unregistered) in reply to Oracles

    I'm thinking something along the same lines, except I would guess it's a "try again after X hours" trigger and you might be able to avoid it by rigging its record of the last build time (or disabling it).

    ... Speaking of AI, decided to see what it had to say and it claims there are third-party plugins that may run a query for license or telemetry during build. There are also post-build events which try to reach a URL (check Project -> Options -> Build Events). And finally it suggests to use wireshark to try to track the actually request.

    Guys, I think we can fix this one.

  • m (unregistered)

    I think the popup has nothing to do with the build. It opens once with some delay after starting the IDE; also when one is only editing files (doing it wrong). I can not remember any spurious problems with the automated builds

  • PluMGMK (unregistered)

    Looks like it's trying to download a text description of an error from some C++Builder-related website. But that website's been reconfigured so now it's giving a 404 instead of the error description, and the 404 message is (naturally!) in HTML rather than text. So that's why the error that appears is "object not found" instead of what the error actually is…

  • Loren Pechtel (unregistered)

    This looks very much like a periodic update check, except it's hitting a dead link and thus getting something "new"--the 404 page. And it's renderer isn't as tolerant as a browser.

  • Twither (unregistered)

    I recognize I'm the weird one here, who is more comfortable in GDB than in a GUI debugger

    Here's what happened: We looked at the consequences of C/C++/Java build systems and it broke our brains. In order to regain our sanity, we needed something between us and the horror that was gluing all our code together. That's the IDE.

    The situation today isn't so grim. Anyone who has worked with Rust probably prefers the CLI, too. Cargo is such a treat to use. Elevating convention over configuration is helping to normalize things. Even C# is looking pretty good these days, with a project often condensing into a concise and human-readable XML file.

  • Duke of New York (unregistered) in reply to Duke of New York

    Correction: 2000s were the age of "everything must be XML". 1990s were "everything must be objects" and then "everything must be web". 2010s were "everything must be cloud" rounded off with "everything must be blockchain."

    2030s will be "everything must go."

  • lzsiga (unregistered)

    The software wanted to "phone home" i.e. send usage statistics or whatnot to Borland, but couldn't, that's why the error message came.

  • Old Timer (unregistered)

    Your CLI is an Integrated Design Environment. "The unix programming environment" as K called it.

    Or, at least as integrated as most other IDE's are, which mostly try to replicate the unix programming environment by encapsulating a small file system and application space.

    And that's half the problem. They aren't really integrated. just a WIMP gui for a bunch of individual tools. Error messages and context get lost in the interface.

  • Bart (unregistered)

    I've seen the same in Delphi 7. It seems it (D7) wants to talk to a server that has long gone... The errormessage has nothing todo with any error (or absence thereof) in your code.

  • Bogolese (unregistered)

    They had me at Borland . . .

  • (nodebb)

    Oh so that antiquated IDE is just Borland C++ Builder? I wonder why the mystery and not just plain name it in the original 2025 article.

    I thought it had been acquired and maintained by another company so it's technically not dead. Why didn't this particular shop just keep it updated then?

    It's just yet another byproduct of the RAD hype from the 90s. Although that hype has never truly disappeared. Today's vibe coding is just RAD with a different name, and the same bad after taste. People don't learn.

  • Kkthek (unregistered)

    It‘s so old that Borland is still Borland, not Inprise. Amazing!

  • 516052 (unregistered) in reply to Ralf

    That's because we broke the managerial pipeline decades ago. Used to be that the way to get into positions of power in a company was to grow up through that company. You'd start off as a worker, or more likely an engineer and than climb your way up learning the lessons of the process as you went. That way, by the time you got to the C suite you knew all the pitfalls and had a good general understanding of what was going on and could avoid playing buzzword bingo.

    But decades ago this pipeline broke irreparably. Workplace advancement and carrier building was replaced by job hopping. And as a result the market now has a whole class of carrier managers whose one and only skill is managing. And since these individuals have no domain knowledge of the business they are managing they easily fall for suggestions that look like a great idea to a layman but make us professionals cringe.

    It's just the nature of the beast really.

  • Neveranull (unregistered) in reply to Duke of New York

    What about “Everything must be JSON?”

  • jaskij (unregistered) in reply to Twither

    C++ and Rust have one thing in common: the errors are so long, they just don't fit comfortably in a GUI.

Leave a comment on “A More Civilized Age”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article