Today we’ll have a slightly different post, delaying a little bit our other favorite themes, speaking about “new” (note the quotes) patterns in today’s software landscape.
Well, one can write an entire book on this theme, that’s why we’ll stop today on just one pattern: The Open Project.…
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{$IFDEF Danger}...
Nobody can harm me, except myself.
St. John Chrysostom, speaking about his executioners
While preparing the FileSuite for release (already a beta is available for download) we will dig(g) once again in the dark areas of Delphi’s source code.
While in one of ours last posts we spoke about an opinion which now and then is a hot theme in Delphi community (the legendary var block) – and enough programmers expressed their concerns about the safety issues tied to this – today we’ll speak about something opposite… Continue reading
The one who runs from his soul’s reality is a liar.
St. Valeriu Gafencu
In this night we celebrate the Nativity of Christ. The only new happening on Earth from the beginning of existence. And I think that isn’t astonishing that God is almighty, because he is God, isn’t it? But I do think that it is astonishing that God could became so small. Small and weak like a man, giving to the others the possibility to kill Him. And of course, “the others” didn’t missed the opportunity…
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There is an interminable thread on the public.non-technical battlefield called ‘Delphi for the Mac’. At the time of writing, there are approximative 500 (five hundreds) posts on that. (493 to be more exact). No, I won’t provide a link. Because I think that is better (at least now after 500 posts) to start a concrete discussion in order to enhance our tool of choice.
Don’t get me wrong, I do think that defending a tool is good, but this defense must take the form of enhancing our product, and not denigrating the other one just because it doesn’t fit with “my/our” philosophy.
So, in my humble opinion, we must take and adapt what is good on the other product (XCode / Interface Builder in this case) and avoid what is bad. I know that you are willing to do give feedback on this, the vast majority of you proved it many times, including in the last poll which we made. The results are depicted in our classical pie on the right.
However, our community has a long lasting disease – we transform ourselves in a community of talkers in order to be a team of doers. We had this also with .NET and now it seems that we start to have it with Mac. Sons, the better covering of user’s needs through innovation is the thing which will ensure our survival.
So, in short: …and correct me if I’m wrong. 🙂
Battle of Wikipedia
Don’t sign my doom because is unfair. But support the next Patriarch which will come after me, if he’s chosen accordingly with the rules. The schism is the worst thing.
St. John Chrysostom
Our biggest strength is unity. Even if everyone from us has his own paths. But the conscience of a community makes us strong, stronger than others who are alone trying to compete one with each other. I think that the reason of our existence is to cover as good as we can the needs of our user base and not so much to compete with other entities (commercial or not) which might target the same market segment. We know what happened when a certain company tried to make different “killers”, finishing with .NET ‘killer’, forgetting about the real needs of its community.
On the other hand, if someone will do a study… Continue reading
The Green Grass of Home
Yesterday, David I passed by and congratulated in a comment all the winners of “Delphi Legends” Community Award. (Look at the comments in that post).
It was a very nice gesture, but I really want to comment some of his words here because I think that they are really important.
We now have more people working on Delphi than ever before. Even with increased resources, we still need the vibrant Delphi community to make programming in Delphi the best way to build applications.
David Intersimone “David I”
Well, I think that is the time to speak about the Omega Effect…
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Hi guys, once again. We have one week since we published the results for Delphi Legends 2009 Community Award. We have also a lot of interesting info to publish both technical and some points of view regarding to important community events which we pass now (including the somewhat unrelated mySQL matter), but today we have a very special post. You will have the occasion to see who are the winners and what your chosen ones are thinking about. The post is rather long (it seems that is a fashion nowadays) but the content (in my humble opinion) really worth the effort… Continue reading
We reached at the final of our poll and we are ready to present the one who will receive the “Delphi Legends Community Award” this year.
First of all, a big thank you for all which voted (you are approx. 500 coders who voted). We should also be grateful to the Team members who passed by and casted also their vote, but, most importantly, we applaud the Embarcadero’s decision to give this year the “Spirit of Delphi Award”, hence we happily renamed our prize. If you want to review once more who were the finalists you can have look at our previous post.
But let’s advance to see the prizes and comment accordingly… Continue reading
Hi guys, a quick post: Guess who has a blog on one of the most famous IT sites?…
It is… … Continue reading
Brancuşi
“Any IT problem is human in its very core”
Few days ago I spoke about a war of thoughts which is present in our community – basically saying that somewhere in the future Delphi will die. And I proved that this isn’t founded – it is a perception which others exploit. But it seems that we should add much more data on this. Well, let’s start… Continue reading
The devil seeks the accord in your mind. It is enough for him to start the war.
St. Mark the Ascetic
There is a constant thinking culture which questions the future of Delphi, “Delphi is dying”, if it is (still) a reliable tool etc. And now I don’t want to focus on the incurable nay-sayers which are among us, programmers, because these kind of characters are always a more or less useful presence for the community… Continue reading
Autumn again. And I hope that also this year we’ll have (again) a winner for Spirit of Delphi Award. Besides of marketing speak I do think that this form of recognition is quite important in order to keep the community together, like a family… Continue reading
Hi guys, WordPress started a nice contest – more details here. This should give us an idea how to leverage the community potential and be on target while keeping a fast paced advancement of a “certain product” ;-). Why shouldn’t we follow their example?
Also, please don’t hesitate – if you have more ideas to win the contest I’m eager to listen – I really want to make our tool of choice more popular, and bringing new guys here is one of the ways.
Anyway here are my entries to contest:… Continue reading
“Father, what we are missing in order to become saints like the ones from the past?”
“Determination”
St. Seraphim of Sarov
Preamble: This post is a humble addition to a comment made by someone from you. I’m sure that he knows what I’m talking about… …feel free to skip if you wish…
…On the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 8, 1941, in Manila),… Continue reading
Yes it matters. And this just because we are developers and we really try to improve our tool of choice.
Because some of you are asking about the polls if they are valid. The short answer is: Yes.
I humbly dare to say that here, with your help, we have more votes per issue than in any QC report ever… Continue reading
Comments bellow. First see the roadmap here.
My first impression is “Nothing new”. This roadmap was presented in general lines at Delphi Live! and outlined in different blog posts like this one, for example.
2nd impression was… Continue reading
“Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances”
Sun Tzu
The father of modern strategic study, Carl von Clausewitz, defined military strategy as “the employment of battles to gain the end of war.” Hence, he gave the preeminence to political aims over military goals, ensuring civilian control of the military.
Of course, this applies also to the software development where any IT problem is human in its very core… Continue reading
Some interesting topics about RAD Studio 2010:
With few days before release, there was a very hot thread in .public.non-technical forum, called ‘Fatal threading model!’. The issue mentioned there was fixed in the official version released shortly after:… Continue reading
RAD Studio 2010 is released!
We wish to thank to all Delphi / C++ Team Members which did a really great job with this release. Perhaps they’re not perfect but what was really impressive was the fact that they tried a lot to focus on what the community as a whole really needs. That’s why I think that their love which is embedded in this product will last in time.
That’s why we had beta reviews of it and we still have. But let’s have a look upon them… Continue reading
Some time ago we had to write an impossible application. And like any other such application, it doesn’t showed up from the beginning how “impossible” it was. It was about a team scheduler which would assign different task to different team members, based on various constraints related to each member’s capabilities as well as to the project time line.
Why I remembered this? Because of some comments on a previous post made by Chris Rolliston and Ken Knopfli. Both made good comments with regard to the hidden complexity which most of the times surfaces during the application lifecycle.
And remember, the most common cause of failure of a software project is (according to Steve McConell) is it’s uncontrolled complexity. Also, Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister note in their reference book (Peopleware – a must read) that not even a single project (from thousands which authors examined) failed because of a technical reason.
So, we took our weapon of choice (Delphi of course) and started to build the impossible… Continue reading
Some nice guys made a list of most influential programmers ever. While this list, as any Top 10 (ok, Top 30) is subjective, and each one of us has his favorites, I cannot hold myself to not remark some notable absences. The #1 (based on the comments of the readers) is Anders Hejlsberg. Also, Philippe Kahn was mentioned.
And now I wonder… Continue reading
