I purchased two (thick) Delphi 2 books hoping they would be good references for Kylix. What luck!! Borland seems to have maintained a consistent development environment from Delphi 2 (for Windows 95) through Kylix (for Linux). And what a rich development environment it is!! As a Biophysicist interested in instrumentation and controls interfaces, the Borland Visual Pascal system is a long sought working tool. It allows me to get back to being a Biophysicist; instead of getting lost in a variety of syntax, pointers, and obscure classes and libraries. M$ has never been consistent in its programming environment. Qbasic, QuickBasic, QuickC, C, Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications, Visual C, Visual Java, Front Page, are all very different even from version to version. M$ planned obsolescence has destabilized the industry.