Danny Thorpe message for the Delphi Community

Post taken from the delphi.non-technical newsgroups. I'm including the text in order to avoid confusions, if you want to see the real text, go to the google newsgroups, it should show up there.


"
Members of the Delphi Community,


As you've no doubt read in other threads in this newsgroup, I have left
Borland to seek new opportunities at Google.

This was not a sudden action. I have tried my best to ensure a smooth
transition for the Delphi team, starting with transition plan
discussions with Borland management more than nine months ago.

Delphi is built by a team, not by any individual. Far greater talent
than mine has come and gone from the team, and Delphi presses on. More
importantly, far greater talent remains in the team, some of it as yet
untapped.

As you may know, my philosphy is that teams should be built to
anticipate, tolerate, and support the comings and goings of individuals
on the team. Everyone will eventually leave the team - either by
choice, or by pine box. To ignore this is childish.

I have full confidence in the Delphi team to continue to deliver the
right stuff to keep Delphi current, innovative, and competitive for
years to come. Though there have been some difficult spots between
myself and Borland corporate management, the internal changes in
attitude and messaging in recent months from Borland corporate toward
Delphi have turned my faith in Borland supporting Delphi back toward
the positive. I'm sure that will only get better as Todd Neilsen
steps in as the new CEO.

I'm also pleased that in some small measure my departure is creating
opportunities for advancement within the Delphi team, and that Borland
management (Boz and Steve Todd) was very supportive of "redrawing the
map" under the guidance of Allen, Michael, Eli, and myself. Several
individuals on the team have been promoted in title and/or in pay as a
result of this change. Many of those have not seen promotion or pay
raises for as long as 5 years. Borland has also committed to opening up
several new positions in the Delphi group in Scotts Valley, which may
be filled with entry or mid level engineering talent. This alone is a
significant reversal of the "No new hires in Scotts Valley" edict
earlier this year by then-CEO Dale Fuller.

I was not snatched away from Borland, and I am not leaving Borland for
lack of money. I sought out Google, and I'll be making at Google
exactly what I made at Borland, which is nicely comfortable but not
excessive. There were other suitors (including the obvious one) but,
quite frankly, Google outmaneuvered them.

Could Borland have bought me back? No, because I didn't leave for
money. Why, then? Opportunity. I'm going to Google to pursue ideas
and opportunities that are simply beyond Borland. I love Delphi, I
know it inside out, but there's a lot more in me than just Delphi.

After 15 exciting years doing a wide variety of things at Borland, it's
time for me to do something /completely/ different.

This is not goodbye. This is just changing channels.

-Danny Thorpe
Engineer, Google.
"

Thanks Danny, your legacy on our amazing development tool will never be forgotten. May the force be with you in your new ventures.


Nos vemos pronto.

Danny Thorpe left Borland.

In my opinion one of the smartest guys i have the honor to met, it was on a great developer's three day conference in Toronto where i got the pleasure to listen and share some time with the guy behind the latest improvements on the Delphi compiler.

After 15 years (some people say 20 :P) of working with Borland he is leaving for a new great adventure in Google, helping on the development of lots of new things related to FireFox. Before leaving, he gave the Delphi community a last gift, by helping to provide one of the strongest Delphi versions ever. Delphi 2006.

Borland, the Delphi team and the Delphi community for sure will miss him, i'm happy to know that for a couple of months now, new people is already taking his place. New minds working on the progress of the language, environment, etc that we love so much. In my opinion, the future looks very bright, we have a roadmap, we have a strong Delphi version and we have the chance of fresh ideas coming into Delphi.

Thanks Danny, you are 'Da Man. Enjoy your new venture and keep in touch with the community.

Long nights of development...

Lately i have being a bit unplug from my blogging duties.

The reason, a big personal project i'm trying to pull out. Just for fun, let me extend a bit into it.

It is developed in WIN32 using DataSnap, Indy, the Quantum Express Grid and JVL/JVCL. No other component is allowed :) (well, i need some sound recording, so, im looking for some replacement to the MMTOOLS, if you guys know of any, please let me know).

My Datasnap modules on this occassion sit on Transactional Data Modules on MTS, using Free threading. My previous experiences with it have return amazing performance advantages of using connection and object pooling in coordination with a good load balancing and redundancy techniques thanx to the DataSnap built in load balancer.

Initially i tried to use a very good ntier framework called KbMw, but the learning curve and my short time to bring this project alive stopped me from doing it (once it is up and running i will try to port the project to it).

The Quantum Grid is just amazing, i haven't even scratch the surface of these components and i'm already shocked with the possibilities, if you guys have the budget, go and get them. They support VCL.Net and i'm waiting to see its Express bars working on VCL.Net too.

I still haven't decided what is going to be the web technology i will implement for the web front. ASP.Net? playing safe with nice ISAPI Dll's? or a cool combination of ISAPI DLL's and Ajax?

I need to implement some interfaces between different systems, and DCOM is not an option due to security restrictions among the products, my initial thoughts went to SOAP but recently i've being reading about REST and i think i will give it a shot. I want to thank Marco Cantú on his blog for bringing some light to the topic.

I have to go for now, but, i will go deep into my experiences with all these later on.

Delphi 2006 Tour - Toronto

Well, i was supposed to post this a bit earlier, so people can find this information useful, but i am extremly busy at work.

Today, November 15th, Borland Canada will be showing the new features and enhancements of Borland Delphi 2006. An amazing event conducted by Mighty Michael Li.

For more information please visit the Toronto Delphi Users Group.

Hope to see you all there.

DataSnap... as good as it gets.

Well, for the last 2 years since i started using DataSnap, i can't stop feeling amazed of how good it is. I know that you guys may say that now its all about .Net Remoting and BDP, but, ladies and gents, DataSnap is extremly versatile and easy to use, and definitly a proven way of implementing VERY effective multi tier systems.

These days i've being using lots of nested datasets in mix with the Quantum Grid, you can't imagine the THOUSANDS of lines of code i'm saving myself everyday with these lethal combination.

I mean it, for the same amount of database operations, we have at work complete hard drives of code in Java. Write this down, it is until you work with a language not as versatile and powerful as Delphi when you realize HOW MUCH YOU LOVE IT.

I must admit that i really like the way KbMw does things, but DataSnap is so integrated into all the Delphi stuff that the idea of migrating all the code to KbMw is something for the long term.

Borland has not stopped the support on DataSnap although i must admit is extremly stable and mature, it is not their main concern, but i feel that its adoption is growing instead of going away, specially on WIN32 systems. I hope we can get some minors enhancements and a firm fix to the multi-procesor issues experienced with socket connections, cause i cant wait to set our systems on some nice MultiCore Opteron processors.

Good night, cya all later.

24 HOUR DELPHI 2006 MARATHON - BDN RADIO!

Well people, at 12:01 AM Pacific Time.

3:01 Eastern Time, the Delphi 2006 BDN Radio Marathon starts!!

Click here to get more information about the different speakers and schedules for this great event.

I'm taking my headphones to work. :)

Cya all there.

The Real Costa Rica.

A totally non-Delphi related post.

I'm from Costa Rica, the last 6 years i've being traveling around the world and now i'm in Canada. My country, cause of its touristic potential, is very popular these days, so, browsing the internet i found this website wrote by a US guy living down there.

I love reading the point of view of foreign visitors, usually, if objective, are very entertaining and gives me an idea on how the world may see us, (if they see us :)).

Go here and enjoy reading, is worth it. I laugh a lot on the Odd and Ends section.

New Delphi starting to appear on Borland's website.

Well, the mighty one is starting to show his head out of the egg shell.

For the first images of it, go here or here.

There is still not a public announcement of it, but Borland will start to receive pre-orders in October 17. It will ship out someday end of this year (possibly end of november).

Delphi Roadmap revealed!

The delphi roadmap for the next 3 years is up. Great news.

It was displayed at EKON 9 conference.

The Roadmap

• Dexter (end 2005) will have ECO 3 (with ECO Basic in all Delphi editions), specific support for 64bit .net, a full-blown version of Together for Delphi, focus on performance and quality, Fastcode Memory Manager, SQL Server Unicode in dbexpress, BDP Connection pooling, BDP SQl tracing, BDP Data Hub error reconciliation, new refactories and lots more.

• Highlander (2006) will support net 2.0 and provide a VCL for .NET 2.0, VCL for Compact Framework, support for 64bit .NET 2.0
  

• Delphi for Vista (2007) will include a VCL for Avalon and Indigo support
  

• Delphi/C++ for win64 (circa 2007).

* Taken from Marco Cantú notes.

Check a picture of the roadmap taken by Bob Swart.

I dont need to explain more, the picture says it all. :)

VCL becomes again the key factor around Delphi development, with ever changing MS specs, a common ground is needed and VCL give us that.

VCL works with Linux, Win32 and .Net, and it will support CF and Avalon in the coming future.

No need to redesign or alter your applications. woo hoo.

The first virtual world plague.

In what is to be known as the first virtual world plague, players from the famous Blizard's World of Warcraft game (I'm an addict Starcraft player) suffered a terrible plague that almost wipe out their virtual world population, Orcs laugh while they saw their human counterparts dying.

More information here.

Lol.

Delphi and LINQ.

Danny Thorpe, Borland's Chief Scientist, just came back from the PDC and express his impressions about LINQ and its future on Delphi.

Take a look at it here.

Promising future ahead. :)

Want to assist to a Borland Conference?

Now you have a nice selection of them, look for your country here, or
take a nice "technical vacation" :)

Can't wait for Dexter.!!!


Ekon 9 - German Developer Conference
September 26-30
Frankfurt, Germany
http://www.entwicklerkonferenz.de/


Borland Developer Conference US
November 8-10
San Francisco, California
http://www.borland.com/conf2005/


Borland Conference Brazil
November 17-19
Sao Paolo, Brazil
http://info.borland.com.br/borcon/


Borland Developer Conference Europe
November 29-30
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://www.borconeurope.com/


Borland Developer Conference France
December 14-15
Paris, France
http://www.borland.fr/news/events/index.html

BDNradio: The 8 Hours of InterBase

I'm happy to announce to all the Interbase fans, the next great Borland Radio event.

Please tune in on Thursday, Sept 22nd, 7am Pacific Time.

Don't miss it!!


Check the borland Event section here.

Hacker attack!! EXTREMLY FUNNY!

Just read this post, take your time, i couldn't stop laughing, way to good.

Enjoy!

Google get in on Microsoft's nerves?

It sounds like payback time for me.

After MS got more than 30 Borland employees through the years, they are suddenly feeling the same brain migration thanks to powerful mighty Google, to the extreme of MS CEO throwing chairs and blessing google in all its aspects. Very entertaining, link here.

Borland Developers Conference!!

Very nice introduction to the agenda and speakers of the Borland's Developer Conference this November in San Francisco.

Check this great presentation.

My intention is to assist to the conference, but, it all depends on how some business around that time work out. If they do, then, i will not go :P.

Ebay buys SKYPE!!!!!!

One of the most popular Delphi developed programs Skype is close to be part of Ebay's realm.

The rumors talk about a 3 to 4 billion dollar deal. Hey, thats a lot for a nicely done Delphi development. My kudos to the Skype team, their software is a great example of high engineering.

Oracle buys Siebel!

Well, when i worked for Acer Corporation, i used Siebel. It was a very good system on that time (7 years ago) by now, it is one of the best CRM software packages out there.

Now with Oracle's adquisition of PeopleSoft and Siebel things will change and SAP should start to worry.

The deal was closed with a 5.85 Billion dollars. lol, just that?

More details here.

Also check siebel's website.

Brazil a Delphi World.

It is time for Brazil to enjoy the "Extreme Performance".

Aggh, thats the kind of marketing i want to see around here!!

Have an awesome time down there guys!

DevExpress and KbmMW ... My new toys.

Hi,

Well, i finally picked a Grid for my new project, the favorite after a big response from the borland forum was Dev Express Quantum Grid 5. My comments so far: amazing drag and drop grouping of columns.

On the other side, i'm trying to install, and learn my new KbmMW Enteprise multi-tier framework, so far i'm having problems trying to install it under Delphi 7, it seems to be reconigzing a different version of the Indy components (9 instead of 10). The memory table is working properly, so at least i have one right.

I will keep you posted of my progress with this new powerful toys.

Cya all.

Pst. Allen Bauer post another unofficial patch for Delphi 2005. It is already installed on my computer and it seems to help a lot. Thanks Delphi team, in you guys we trust.

Agghh he is really selling Borland out ... :)

More good stuff coming from Mr Bauer, now, another beautiful "use at your own risk" patch, which basically means, as you can imagine, that i'm already using it :D.

Cheers and go HERE! to get it, go soon, available NOW!.

Thanks Allen! Really really thank you.

Mr. Bauer little secret.

Well, it was supposed to be a secret, but, i couldn't manage to keep it like that. :P

Sooo... click here to find more:

Allen Bauer's little secret.

MOOOOAHAHAHAHA!

By the way, D2005 is not giving me much trouble, i'm starting small to medium size projects, and it is going so far, so good.

Quick update.

Hi guys, it is a while since my last post.

I left my previous job (2.7 years), it was an amazing time, lots of good people and i had the opportunity to work like crazy on Delphi 5 and 7. But now it is time to move on.

Now i'm playing lots more with Delphi 2005 for personal projects.
I have lots of new ventures coming and it promises to be a good year, i think i will be buying Dexter (Delphi 2006) by the end of this year.

I should receive the book "Mastering Delphi 2005" this week from Amazon. Lots to learn, i will be moving to a nice learning curve around ASP.Net and ECO II.

In the meanwhile i'm getting knowledge on WebLogic and Java deployment in general as part of a project i have in mind.

Anyway, keep the Delphi hype going... talk to y'all soon.

Missed a part of the marathon? no worries!

Go here to listen to previous parts of the marathon so far.

24 HOURS OF DELPHI! - GOING GREAT SO FAR!!

This is a picture of the "recording" studio of the 24 hour marathon.

:) DavidI is doing a great job staying up for soooo loooong.

Keep the good work!!

remember get into it at: http://bdn.borland.com

24 hours of delphi! - A more formal announcement

At Borland:
http://bdn.borland.com/

At Yahoo:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050712/125796.html?.v=1

24 Hours of Delphi -- July 13!!

Well, there are already several blogs talking about this, but we need to make enough noise cause it's an event that you can NOT miss.

The day July 13th, 2005.

This link will give you a complete schedule of activities and the different starting time in different time zones.

I am planning most of the day, specially interested on the Delphi Road maps, and migration stories. So, see you guys there. ;)

ECO II Resources...

I will try to add more links about ECO when i found them, but, this compilation should be enough to have anyone moving forward on the "lovely" world of ECO.

Borland:
Borland's Web Page
Borland's Developer Network: Make things fast with ECO II (video)
Borland's Developer Network: Create an ECO Space from an existing Database.
Borland's ECO Wikki

Third parties:
Creating a Blog with ECO.
How to do Things: ECO.
(The entire HowToDo site is built with ECO)

ECO related Blogs:
Malcom Groves
Jonas Hogstrom (Borland)
Jesper Hogtrom (Borland)
(i will suspect they are brothers eh?)
Peter Morris

Newsgroups:
Borland

If you find more, please add comments with their URLs , so other people can use them.

ECO II Conference - How was it?

Well, people, there are things that you heard about, but you dont buy it, or you may believe it but you dont think they can be that good, UNTIL the moment you see it.

Well, ECO II is that. The next great thing in Rapid Application Development, in a matter of minutes with a few clicks we had a nice small application with database, GUI, Business logic, etc running without writing a single line of code. Nope, not even 1.

If you know how to do boxes and lines (UML design), thats it! you are on it. It really makes you think of all what you have done all these years :(.

I mean it, it is AWESOME, if you have not seen it go here and get an idea of it. IT'S WORTH IT!

The conference was great, John gave a good overview of D2005. We got a small taste of Dexter (D2006), the compact framework and finally some nice refactoring to keep us happy.

Two lucky participants got D2005 to take home courtesy of Borland Canada. I got a marker :)

Finally, let me thank the Toronto Delphi Users Group, you guys are doing a fantastic job, thank you John for bring up all the goodies and keep us smiling with Delphi and Thank you Borland Canada to support us.

ECO II Conference - Toronto

The Borlander John Kaster will be here in T.O. giving us a very welcome and needed conference about ECO II. The day, June 6th, location, so far looks like the North York Library as initially planned. For more information visit the Toronto's Delphi Users Group.

I expect a good assistance to this meeting, so, see you all there.

Ad Hoc SQL vs Stored Procedures

Well, i had the pleasure to assist to a Michael Li's conference about Security using ASP.Net in Delphi 2005.

One of the topics was the famous "SQL Injection" menace. I felt bad initially cause i use Ad Hoc SQL on my everyday, is extremely versatile, and you can build great search queries at run time. More static operations like reporting, specific updates and very plain searchs on tables are usually perfect places for stored procedures.

Maybe a difference is that i use parameterized ad Hoc sql, never pure text insertion (eg. "select * from users where id = '+id.text+'"), but i must admit that for user validation procedures i use stored procs.

I think that for abstraction of tables in a program, there is nothing better than ad Hoc, I never considered appropiate to have hundreds of sps to manage every single update. Constant changing databases will prove to be a hell for the hundreds of sps that depends from that table that you just changed.

Well, after that conference, i decided to do a little research about this topic and i found a great "good and bad" discussion about it.

Check it here at the Server Side, it brings some light to both sides of the discussion.

Good to read, enjoy.


Pst. btw, I will keep using my ad hoc queries. :)

New delphi Book coming...

The new Marco Cantú's book "Mastering 2005" will be available in stores this coming June.

You can pre order it here!

Based on its content table, it promises to be a great addition to the Delphi library.

Enjoy.

Help improving Delphi!!!

Please take some of your time and fill up this survey.

Its a very well done poll, and will definitly help improving the product. Make some time and go for it!.

Microsoft feeling the pressure?

I don't hate MS, i really dont. But i support any other software company that gives a different flavor of what we already get from MS.

I love google, and they are doing great against msn search. I love Borland, and they have their ups and downs, but they havent let me down with Delphi. The last example on this, is Linux adoption by goverments.

I found this interesting article about the topic. Enjoy.

Negotiating a contract...

The first time i had a contract job, my contractor practially abused me. :P

Long nights, lots of work. Low money.

After that point, i get sharper when the time for negotiation comes. One guy in the Borland forums post a nice article that talks about the matter, and give TIPs on how to deal with this situations.

I wished i read that before. :P

Necessity in Software Design.

I found this very interesting post about what drive us to make decisions.

A the end of the post they applied it to Software design, i like specially the phrase "they have specific goals and will do only the absolute minimum necessary to achieve those goals" when talking about the users behaviour while making a decision.

Sometimes we try to provide all the possible options, and we design with this concept in mind, thinking that it will make our software more complete, at the end, offering all those options waste our development time and they may never be used.

We are moving up!!

Based on this ranking Delphi is going up in popularity, usually its ranked in 10th and 9th, but in the last months is going up.

I think it's time for those abandom Classic VB to move to Delphi where backwards compatibility matters!!.

Oh thinking about that, i found this interesting guide about migrating Visual Source Safe projects to StarTeam. A good option if you get the Architect / Enterprise version of Delphi that includes a StarTeam license.

Games made in Delphi. COOL STUFF!!

Age of Wonders is made in Delphi.

Want more?, take a look at the finalist from the Delphi Developers Gaming community competition this year.

Click here and start playing

ASP.Net security conference in the TDUG group

Hi people,

Yesterday i went to the TDUG (Toronto Delphi Users Group) meeting, we were initially expecting the visit of John Kaster but, due to out of control personal reasons, he couldn't attend and we had the "just on time" assistance of Michael Li (Management Consultant from Infocan)

Michael gave us an interesting conference about asp.net security, running off course on lovely Delphi 2005. Most of the issues brought up were already known by many, but, it was always interesting to see how all the people (me included) did a mental check of their own projects to see if we were commiting one of the security flaws that Michael was explaining to us. Usually, a simple smile, or a gesture let the rest know the insides of a typical problem in our code (some people just said, 'oh f@ck! i do that).

Anyway it was interesting, the additional info about Michael's scuba shark experiences were also great (supported by video). Finally, Borland Canada was also kind enough to give away a Borland Delphi 2005 architecht version and some cool tshirts. (i do like the tshirts, i love going with those "become a development super hero, use Delphi 2005" to some MS events, really i do :) ).

But hey! now i have a cool blue desk clock courtesy of Borland which i already have on top of my monitor. :D

Thank you guys! good stuff.

And keep up the good work TDUG group.!!

Development methodologies... Agile Development

Well, i'm a hard core developer, but lately, im getting more and more interested on how to enhance and improve the software development process (ALM, SDO anyone?).

I found a good piece of web literature that you guys may want to read whenever you have some time available, its about Agile Development.

Here is the piece.

Enjoy.

John Kaster in Toronto!

Hey people! John Kaster from Borland will be here! April 4th!

He's one of the minds behind DataSnap (Midas), he will be demoing ECO II development in Delphi.

Visit this website to get more information:

Toronto Delphi Users Group

Pst. ECO II is basicaly a way to program using UML designs that comes in Delphi 2005. From a UML design it generates DB, GUI and the interaction between.

ASPPRO.Net Readers Choice Awards

Well, after this heads up by Nick Hodges, i did my duty of letting them now their mistake.

They had a quick and good response. Delphi is on the list, go and vote now!!


Pst. They are missing Rave as reporting tool, some people emailed them plz.

Costa Rica VoIP in the news....

Well, i'm from Costa Rica, my beautiful and peaceful country...

But, yup, we do make some stone age decisions... like this one that may happen if we dont wake those ICE guys up.

VoIp may become a crime in CR

Biggest LCD TV.. so far.

Hi guys, another non Delphi related post.

This is the biggest LCD Tv made so far.

Remember its LCD, Plasma is a different technology and we do have Plasma TVs that big.

Moving time...

Gosh, i hate moving... its one of those things that you are forced to do and you hate it, but simply you have to do it.

This is the 9th time in my life that im moving, i know it sounds like a bad record, but usually its an upgrade. This time, its basically same apartment size, same facilities, same everything, simply a better deal on the long term.

I spent lots on furniture, mostly from this place IKEA. Amazing place, specially the AS-IS section, if you have the chance to go, visit it. European furniture with low prices and great quality if you know how to pick.

Some of the secrets behind the low price is that you need to assemble the furniture yourself. The packing and instructions are great, so, its just a matter of patience and a good back and you will do fine.

Tomorrow is my last day on my current apartment, i lived here for two years, it gave me amazing memories, but now its time to move on. Lets get ready for what is coming on the next one.

Talk to you soon people.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DELPHI!! 1O YEARS AND COUNTING!!!

There are thingspersonal and professional that change your life.

I must admit that Delphi changed my professional life. Programming never resulted more fun than it is thanks to it.

Thanks Borland, thanks Delphi. 10 years of joy!!

Thanks Anders Hjelsberg, Gary Whizin, and Zack Urlocker for the initial push, and now thank you to all the people that is still on board, old and new guys that keep this amazing thing going on.

Danny, Allen, everybody there... thanks. Keep the good work.

as someone says "Go Delphi Go!"

SQL Day...

Well, right now im trying to finish an Archiving application for our ever growing customers databases.

I spent hours and hours on the Query Analyzer and the Enterprise Manager, and finally i think i got it all done. Now im trying to add some reports to it, but, it seems that my good Rave is giving me problems. A "Duplicate License" on the system, i think it maybe caused due to the fact that Rave comes with Delphi, but also we bought the license version of it.

I will confirm that later, but so far, the app looks great. Another step further to more professional applications.

Simply OMG!! The most amazing animal you can imagine!!

Well, i dont think communication should be an issue for mankind if this guy can do it, so do we right?

The Amazing Parrot

Nice review!

Hey, my friend Roberto mentioned something very simple and fairly straight smart.

There is some people out there that actually are not that informed about what's new on Delphi 2005. So:

This is a good review to read.

Hey, dont like long movies... get a quick 30 seconds recap of it. :)

LOL, extremly funny, love those bunnies.

Watch Titanic, Alien, etc. in 30 seconds!

Cheers!

This is not Delphi related but, its worth it...

My friend Zoster finished his last song, no he doesnt sing, and if he does, im 100% sure he sucks at it, hes one of those techno, rave, etc computer composer. I can tell, his stuff is good.

Download his latest hit here!

VCL and .Net... VCL.NET The best of both worlds.

I was trying to find out what can i do to keep going with all my knowledge on the VCL, and also add some of the good ideas that .net can offer.

With the VCL and Win32 it was always like that, we use WIN32 when there were things that Microsoft actually did right, but for the rest, we depend on our mighty VCL.

Well, the VCL survived win16, Win32, Kylix and now .NET. The answer, VCL.NET

Read this great article from the guy who help porting it to its new generation.

Why VCL.NET?

Guest Star Forum appearance

I had the pleasure of attend to a Delphi 2005 Conference, among the speakers we had Danny Thorpe, Chief Scientist of Borland one (for not saying THE one) of the brains behind the Delphi Compiler.

It was extremly interesting to hear him talk, we as normal people, will use everyday expressions to explain our ideas, hearing him talk was the same thing but with tokens, one-time parsers, constants and variables, his entire way of talking was simply extremly analitical.

In my opinion of of the smartest guys i've ever met.

Here is a brief guest appearance he had talking about the Delphi Compiler:

Danny Thorpe clears out the dust around the Delphi compiler.

COM+ Wars...

Ok, so basically i have a set of Com+ that have to work on win2000 and another set of COM+ that have to work on Win2003.

The migration wasn't as bad as i tought, i encounter some basic problems due to security restrictions that windows 2003 by default adds to almost any network communication.

So for all of you guys that use DataSnap on a COM+ (Transactional Modules) in 2000 and want to "upgrade" it to 2003, this articles will help you.

1. How To Enable Network COM+ Access in Windows Server 2003.


Then i start getting this nice error message while starting my apps:

"New transaction cannot enlist in the specified transaction coordinator."


So far so good, LAN side is covered. What about ISAPIs in IIS 6.0?

It was kind of simple actually:

1. Click "Allow unknown ISAPI extensions" in your web extension option in the IIS.
2. And, i dont know why, i create/write/read a log file that is created inside the System32\LogFiles directory. Doesn't matter how many permissions i gave, or how many times i tried to reset it. It never allowed me to write data on it anymore. The problem was solved when i moved the location of the file to any other directory in the computer.

Well, that was it. So far the way to D2005 and Win2003 is looking good.

What i do...

Ok, basically, i deal with one of the people's favorite sins. Gambling.

I do Casino and Sports Book wagering software.

It's a very fascinating industry and i can tell you hundreds of adventure around this business... but oh well, i can post some other day about that.

In the meanwhile, today im fighting with some integration with our casino software, which works with win2000, as i mentioned before, my servers are in win2003, so its a good step to check compatibility and any other issues between these 2 guys and how com+ works from one to another.


So far so good... i will keep you posted.

Oh, if you have Rave 6 license, DONT install it on your D2005. I uninstall the Rave set that came on my D2005 (version 6) to upgrade to my registered version 6.2. Big mistake, newer version yes, but i lost my .Net reporting capabilities, reason?

Well, it seems that in the near future, whoever had a license over Rave 6, will need to upgrade to a new license to .Net, because we will be able to download only the Rave 6 upgrades intended to Win32 development, .Net will be some other issue ($$$).

Not totally sure about this, but looks like it.

k, bye!

New year, new development.

There is nothing like starting a new year, than starting with fresh mentality and FRESH SOFTWARE. Yup, SQL server formatted, and upgraded from 2000 to 2003 (finally). Application Servers to 2003, and my dev computer to XP with the IT terror service pack 2.

Delphi 5 in (aghh, dont tell me), Delphi 7 in (oh yeah!), Delphi 2005 in. (IT ROX!!)

Yup, we develop in the three of them, reason for not upgrading... components. Im stuck with a set of components in Delphi 5. Too expensive (thats what they say) to go for the 7 version at least.

New INDY components, version 10, (it actually gave me some trouble installing it on D5), and new Rave 6.

So far so good, final step will be to try to compile our code, fingers cross, as usual it should never work on the first run, else we are in trouble.

cya.

Welcome to my Blog!

Well, this is my first attempt on having a blog.

Main topic, my favorite programming language DELPHI!!!

Specially now that we have Delphi 2005.

I hope to start posting soon.