Delphi 2006 launch in Amsterdam

Today was the Delphi 2006 launch in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The event was attended by about 200- 300 developers. (This is a wild guess...I did not count them.)

First David Intersimone gave an introduction to the new Delphi, the history and the future. He showed and discussed the Delphi roadmap.
Cary Jensen gave an overview of the improved IDE, showing the new productivity features. To name a few:

• New refactorings
• Live templates
• Block completion
• And more, much more...
• ....

Especially the possibility to build and share your own templates is very nice.

After that Jason Vokes gave a small introduction of the ALM stuff (Starteam and CaliberRM) and an introduction to the C++ personality. A nice, C++ feature only, is Codeguard, which works in (debug mode) runtime to track bugs which are not spotted by the compiler. Looks like a great feature to me for Delphi. (in the future, that is)

After the break Jeroen Pluimers showed all the Together stuff. Really Live Source. The most of this seems to exist in the Enterprise and Architect SKU. This is very cool stuff, and I'm beginning to hang over to the Enterprise SKU already :-). But this was only the beginning....

Then it was time for Delphi's Golden Egg: ECO III.
Bob Swart (alias Dr Bob) gave an impressive ECO demo. He made an application in 3/4 of a hour without a single line of code. That means without a single line of Delphi or C# code.
He designed an UML Package, added classes with attributes, derived attributes and operations which he then used in a Delphi for .NET winforms application. All necessary coding was done in the Object Constrained Language (OCL) with small expression and statements. He also added a 'state machine' diagram to his model, using guards and..., well forgive me there was so much, but it looked relative easy to implement. He showed what the real power of ECO is: Give you the chance to focus on the business needs of the application. ECO takes care of all the underlying stuff. (like persistence mapping etc.)
Another great feature of ECO is the possibility to reverse engineer an existing database. Well Bob showed it in about, euh... 5 minuts. Sweet!
Jason Vokes had to drag Bob from the stage, because otherwise we still would be there. :-)

So what did we learn?

• Delphi 2006 has lots of new productivity features for Win32, .NET (Delphi/C++/C#)
• Delphi 2006 integrates Starteam and Caliber RM (Enterprise and Architect SKU)
• Delphi 2006 Together integration is mature now
• Delphi 2006 ECO III is the future of Software Development

For a few weeks I have been dubbing between the Pro and Enterprise edition. But now I now I want to use Together and ECO III so I will definitly go for the Enterprise edition.

It was a great afternoon......

Var injection and code completion

One of the great new things of Delphi 2006 is Var injection. It allows you to declare a variable in the middle of your code while the IDE takes care of placing it in the var section of your procedure. (At Nick's delphi blog post you can see how it actually works.)

No doubt, this kind of tricks boost your productivity!

Thinking it over, one of the things that, sometimes annoys me in Delphi coding is the fact that the procedure head in the initialization section of the unit must be the same as the procedure decleration itself. In fact this is no problem, but is has to be maintained during changes in, for example the parameters of the procedure.
For new procedures Code completion takes care of this when you create either the initialize or the procedure itself.

For example typing this in the initialization section of your unit:

procedure MyProcedure;

Clicking Control+SHIFT+C makes the procedure itself:

procedure TMyForm.MyProcedure;
begin

end;

This is great!, however adding an additional parameter in code (after rethinking the procedure) forces you to change the other manually. And that is in big units a lot of code cruising.

Would it be a good idea to use code completion also on existing procedures, so that for example editing the above procedure like this:

procedure MyProcedure(IForgotAParameter : Boolean);
begin
//Do some stuff
end;

....clicking Control+SHIFT+C updates the initialization section and vica versa.

Maybe the together support in Delphi2006 makes this easier?
Don't know, have to wait a little longer.........by the way 29 november 2005, Dutch Delphi 2006 launch in Hoofdorp. For more information click here.

AJAX

Ajax is a new technology (in fact a combination of 'old' technology's) to drive your website. (I always thought it was our famous dutch football team from Amsterdam)
Ajax is hot(or hype). But what is it?

Ajax stands for Asynchronous Javascript And XML, it combines XML, HTML, DOM, Javascript and XMLHTTP. Bottom line is that it can solve the problem of many postbacks to your server by allowing you to load only parts of the webpage in the browser via XML.

For a good introduction and (.NET) example you better check out this dotnetbips article.
More on the technology can be found in this article.
Marco Cantu gave a BOF session on Ajax and Delphi at the BorCon, the slides can be found here.

Certainly will give this a try one day.

DevCon papers, code and slides

The papers/code and slides from the DevCon sessions are available for download at :

http://bdn.borland.com/devcon05/delphi

Note that not all papers are submitted for download yet, probably because of the fact that DevCon has not ended yet.

Update:
Watch DevCon (or is it BorCon!?) keynote on BDN here.
Containing:

• Opening video
• Conference opening by David I
• SDO by Rick Jackson
• Tod Nielsen, the new CEO

Great stuff, must attend next year..... :-)

Incremental search.....supprise

Yesterday I was reading on the coding horror blog a rant about searching document files with Ctrl+F.
It said that Visual Studio has incremental search(Ctrl+I), which after I tested it is very usefull. I thought it is (was) a pity that Delphi does not (didn't) have incremental searching.

Today I read a comment on Nick Hodges blog entry Firefox my Delphi that Delphi has incremental searching from at least version 5!
Just click CTRL+E and it works.......

I must have missed something all this years, or this is one of the most secret shortcuts outthere. :-)

A must see ECO III video...

On BDN Henrik Jondell presents a BDNTV episode covering the new features of ECO III in Borland Developer Studio 2006.
In the 21 minutes during video Henrik show very cool (new and existing) ECO III features like:

• Winform Autoforms
• ASP.NET autoforms
• Reverse engineering an existing database
• Actions
• State machines (finally have an idea what those are)
• And much more...

A must see video indeed!

Going for ECO

Delphi's ECO is a great benefit in the .net world compared to Visual Studio. As far as I know there is no such thing in Visual Studio (yet) that matches the brilliance of ECO.

Until now ECO was only available in the Architect SKU of Delphi. According to the feature matrix of Borland Developer Studio 2006 ECO will be in all SKU's available.
The only difference (according the feature matrix) between the Professional and higher SKU's are that the higher SKU's have autoform support for ASP.NET and State Machines.

As a professional SKU user that is great news. Besides the above mentioned differences it seems that the professional SKU only supports basic object-relational mapping and transparent local XML persistence.
That said you can conclude that for ECO with database persistence support a higher SKU is needed.

Anyway I will definitly upgrade my Delphi version to either professional or enterprise SKU!
Still some time to decide....

Another 24 hours...

This sounds like a new movie, but according to Ander's blogpost it is another 24 hours BDNRadio event about BDS 2006 (Delphi, C#, C++ Builder, ECO, VCL etc.) This will happen on the 24 th october 2005.

This will be fun! (again...)

Borland announces Delphi 2006

In a press release Borland has announced Delphi 2006.

Delphi 2006 the Ultimate Force-Multiplier

Wow, that must have something to do with super man!

According the press release Delphi 2006 will be available for pre-ordering between oct. 17 and 1 december.

Delphi, what is it for me?

There is a sort of discussion going on, about what Delphi really is. Nick Hodges blogpost Dignity is deadly, trickered Allen Bauer in his blogpost Passionate Producers = Passionate Customers. One opinion is that Borland drifted away from the barbarian attitude of the early days, and that it needs more guerilla marketing like the 24 hours of Delphi event.
Well Delphi certainly is not only an IDE, it is community a great technology and it is Passion!
Marco Cantu, also added two intresting blogpost, Delphi Passion and Delphi in Trenches (this post really hits the nail on the head, a great post)

Read the blogposts for the full story.

What is Delphi for me, and why do I love it?

For me Delphi is passion, it always helped me to deliver my software projects in good quality and in time.

With the new roadmap it is very clear that Borland is committed to Delphi. Listening to the roadmap BDNRadio show, you can only conclude that all the people involved in the developing of Delphi are passionated and extremely dedicated.
That and the growing list of bugfixes makes me feel very confident that the next versions of Delphi(DeXter, Highlander, Vista,...) will be competing for the title "best Delphi version ever". Go figure it out: VCL Win32, VCL Win64, VCL for .NET, VCL for CF, VCL for Avalon! ECO, .NET1.0, .NET2.0! Man this will be a beast.

Conclusion: Go Delphi!

Delphi roadmap information overflow...

Since yesterday (27/9) when the Delphi roadmap saw the daylight on the EKON 9 conference in Germany, Delphi future information is really exploding on the internet, so let's summarize here where to find all the information:

Eyewitness reports:
There is a lot of 'live' blogging from EKON 9 going on, to name a few:

• Bob Swart aka Dr Bob
• Marco Cantu
• Daniel Wischnewski (lot's of pictures here)
• Dexter Preview on Delphi Praxis (First impressions/photos)

Borland employees:
You will find lot's of information on the Borland blogging community, to name a few:

• David I (another summarize of information)
• Danny Thorpe (focused on compiler enhancements)
• Steve Trefethen (focused on ASP.NET enhancements)
  

There are probably more, please let me know.

Well one thing is clear:

Delphi is still alive and kicking....

Update 29-09-2005:
There is a list of 'closed' (read fixed) bugs in Quality Central here, for DeXter.
I don't know if this is the complete list.

Delphi roadmap

Marco Cantu blogs about the, long wanted, roadmap for Delphi!

Highlights are:

• DeXter (End 2005) providing ECO III, with Basic ECO for all version of Delphi.
• Highlander (2006) VCL for Compact Framework and support for .NET 2.0
• Delphi for Vista (2007) VCL for Avalon and Indigo support
• Delphi/C++ for Win64 (2007) Native 64 bits compiler

Check out Marco's complete blog entry here. (there will be a photo soon, to proove this :-) )

Personally I really love the ECO basic support for all Delphi versions. Can't wait to jump on it!

All this was exposed on the EKON 9 conference, which is going on as I write. You can also read other 'hot' stuff from this conference on Bob Swart's weblog.

Updated:
First pictures of David I's keynotes sheets can be found on Daniel Wischnewski's weblog.

Delphi CLR multicast events explored

In a recent blogpost, I compared the C# and Delphi languages regarding to events. This time I will dig a little deeper in the Delphi .NET multicast events.

In the original Delphi VCL (since 1995), multicast events are not supported. Events, in VCL, are properties which can be assigned using the read/write methodoligy. They are limited to one handler for one event.
In Delphi .NET multicast events are, just like in C#, supported. In C# multiple listners(handlers) can be added and removed with the += and -= operators.
In Delphi for .NET you can achieve the same behaviour with the Include and Exclude methods.

The following example adds an extra handler to a button click:

Include(MyButton.Click, MyExtraEventHandler);

to remove it use:

Exclude(MyButton.Click, MyExtraEventHandler);

MyExtraEventHandler is a procedure declared as follows:

procedure TfrmMain.MyExtraEventHandler(sender : System.Object; e : System.Eventargs);
(Any procedure is OK as long as the parameters compare)

Note that adding a handler multiple times causes this handler to fire multiple times. Removing a non existing handler, however, does not generate a runtime error.

Adding multicast events to an object:

To use multicast events you must declare them using the add and remove keywords. Read and writing for those events are not allowed. The compiler will generate an error "Read/Write not allowed for CLR events".
You can, if you like, use single cast events using the read and write style, just as in the VCL. In fact you could use a TNotifyEvent, but that is another story)

An add/remove example:

TMyObject = class
private
FBeforeSomething : System.EventHandler;
public
property BeforeSomething : System.EventHandler add FBeforeSomething remove FBeforeSomething;
procedure FireTheEvent;
end;

You can add eventhandlers, just like the above example, using the include and exclude methods:
MyObject := TMyObject.Create;
Include(MyObject.BeforeSomething, AnEventHandler);
Include(MyObject.BeforeSomething, AnOtherEventHandler);

So compared to VCL read/write events CLR events are not that difficult to understand. The main differents is that they are hooked up using the Include and Exclude methods.

ECO, the movies

ECO, Borland's Enterprise Core Object technology, is the one technology I really would like to learn and to work with. This .NET technology keeps you focused on the bussines objects. ECO seperates your code from the way you persist your data.
ECO provides you with one technology, and several persistance possibilitys. (Database, XML)

Unfortunately this technology is only available for the Architect SKU and, even more unfortunately, I don't own this SKU. (yet)

The only thing left are the great video's that were posted today on BDN TV, which give you a nice introduction into the ECO 'space'.

MDA Tour 1 Eco modeling and UI
MDA Tour 2 Persisting your ECO space

Wow I'm on BDN!

This morning I checked my blog stats, which should be between, 1 and 6 hits, for a normal day. (One for myself ;-) )

Guess what: It said 147 hits! Wow, spilled some coffee over my desk.
Where is that coming from? bdn.borland.com (Huh?)

Well, I am listed on BDN with a blogpost about events in C# and Delphi.

That is very cool. :-)

Oops, didn't quit expect that to happen, so I hope the english is not to bad ;)










'....and still counting...'

Delphi 2005 Fix Roll up

Allen Bauer has made a Fix roll up, including all the latest (unofficial or are they now official?)Delphi 2005 fixes and included a new fix concerning a bug while multiselecting non-visual components.

The complete story is here.

C# 3.0 LINQ video

LINQ stand for Language INtegrated Query. With LINQ you can integrate your database query's into the C# language.

Anders Hejlsberg himself shows LINQ in this video.

It looks great.

The LINQ MSDN project can be found here.

Delphi update on BDN

On BDN there is a (monthly?) Delphi update from Borland on the future of Delphi. Borland is still committed to Delphi, and Delphi is part of the ALM vision.

It is encouriging to see the commitment to quality:

"The renewed focus on quality extends to IDE performance, responsiveness, stability and usability."

Conclusion: Borland is commited to Delphi!

Now only hope Dexter will rock again!

Win a superhero!

Win a superhero, Delphi man or Doctor Deadline as a cut our character!

Or win an inflatable version, go www.delphisuperhero.com

Cool marketing!

C# events compared to Delphi events

Events in C# are, like in Delphi (or should I say Object Pascal) just properties of a class. Events are method pointers that delegate a call to the calling class. Just as in Delphi for .NET you can add multiple event handlers to an event.

An event has three main parts:

1. A method pointer property
2. The raising of the event
3. An event handler

1. A method pointer property.
Delphi and C# have a lot standard method pointer types. The most common Delphi method pointer type is the TNotifyEvent. In C# (or in .NET framework) this is the System.EventHandler.
You can use this methods, but you can also make your own.

Defining a method pointer type:
In C#:
public delegate void OnSomething(object Sender, int Value);

In .NET you could, of course, store the parameters in a (derived) System.EventArgs object.

In Delphi:
TOnSomething = procedure(Sender : TObject; Value : Integer) of Object;

They are just types that must be available for the object that uses them.

The class that wants to raise the event must have a public property for it:
In C#:
public event OnSomething BeforeSomething;

In Delphi:
property BeforeSomething : TOnSomething read FBeforeSomething write BeforeSomething;
(Where FBeforeSomething is a private field of the same type)

2. Raising the event
In this example the BeforeSomething event is raised. If the calling class has assigned the property to the (event) class this one can raise it.

In C#:
public virtual void LetItHappen()
{
// The class should add a valid integer value for the event, here 10
if (OnSomething!= null) OnSomething(this, 10);
}
}

In Delphi:
procedure TSomeClass.LetItHappen;
begin
if Assigned(FOnSomething) then FOnSomething(Self, 10);
end;

You must check if the property is assigned else you will get an access violation.

The code for C# and Delphi is amazingly similar. You can make it more similar if you like:

private bool Assigned(object AObject)
{
if (AObject != null)
return true;
else
return false;
}

the C# code then could be:
if Assigned(OnSomething) OnSomething(this, 10);
;-)

3. The eventhandler
In the calling object you should first make an event handler method:
(Suppose the calling is SomeObject : TSomeClass)

In C#:
private void MyBeforeSomething(object Sender, int Value)
{
MessageBox.Show(Value.ToString());
}

In Delphi:
procedure TSomeClass.MyBeforeSomething(Sender : TObject; Value :
Integer);
begin
ShowMessage(IntToStr(Value);
end;

The last thing you should do now is assigning the property:

In C#:
SomeObject.BeforeSomething += new OnSomething(MyBeforeSomething);

A new handler is added to list of handlers (or listners). You can remove them by using '-='

In Delphi:
SomeObject.BeforeSomething := MyBeforeSometing;

In Delphi for .NET you can also add multiple handlers (listners) for an
event, using the Include en Exclude methods.

Events in C# are basically the same as in Delphi. C# must be Delphi's little brother, no doubt about that.
More information on events in C# can be found on MSDN here.