The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Software Development’ Category

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.NET/C#: Getting volume free space from UNC path requires PInvoke of GetDiskFreeSpaceEx in Kernel32.dll

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/26

For some remote monitoring, I needed to get information on UNC paths.

Though suggested, you cannot do this using the System.IO.DriveInfo class (not through the constructor, nor through the VB.NET FileSystem way) as that is about drives, not UNC paths. The System.IO.DriveInfo constructor clearly indicates it doesn’t work with UNC paths. And if you still try, this is the error you will get:

System.ArgumentException was unhandled
HResult=-2147024809
Message=Object must be a root directory ("C:\") or a drive letter ("C").
Source=mscorlib
StackTrace:
at System.IO.DriveInfo..ctor(String driveName)

Same for WMI: that only works when the UNC path has already been mapped to a drive letter.

You could do with adding a temporary drive letter but since there is nothing as permanent as a temporary…

P/Invoke

The actual solution is based on calling Windows API functions using P/Invoke. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in .NET, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, C#, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C# 4.0, C# 5.0, CSV, Development, Missed Schedule, SocialMedia, Software Development, WordPress | Leave a Comment »

Optimize your Delphi installed disk size

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/26

Another instalment in the WordPress Missed Schedule series (:

Each version, Delphi gets more features, and grows bigger.

Especially in testing environments (where you want to have a cut-down base machine you can clone from), it is wise to cut down on the installation size.

A few directories you might want to consider compressing for your Delphi installation:

  • C:\Users\All Users\{*}
    The directories with GUID names contain the installer cache. You can ditch the whole installer cache if you keep ISO images of all installations. I prefer just to compress these directories.
    Compressing usually saves 50% of the storage there, which can count for 5+ gigabyte of savings for the newest Delphi version.
  • C:\Users\Public\Documents\RAD Studio
    Contains (among others) the help files and SVN examples, and (for the most recent version) the Platforms SDKs.
    Saving is usually a couple of 100 megabytes for less recent Delphi versions until about 1 gigabyte for the most recent.
  • C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\RAD Studio\#.0\lib
    This contains all the precompiled files. Since they are readonly in nature, it pays of compressing them, usually saving 50% or more.
    Saves 5+ gigabytes for the most recent Delphi version.

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Development, Missed Schedule, SocialMedia, Software Development, WordPress | Leave a Comment »

Remote Android screen monitoring and viewing

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/25

Another one in the “WordPress Missed schedule” series.

Below are the Android remote screen monitoring/viewer/mirror tools I know about:

  • For a long time, I have used Droid@Screen: an Open Source,  Java based mature cross platform tool that uses ADB (it can even restart it for you in case it hangs) with lots of features (zooming, no temporary files, device recognition, disabling emulator devices, etc). There are some Screen Shots | Droid@Screen.
  • A while ago, I saw android-screen-monitor – Android Screen Monitor – Google Project Hosting. It is a mixed Java/C++ solution that only works on Windows.
  • Recently, Jim McKeeth open sources his Android Screen View: Android Screen View | The Podcast at Delphi.org. It is written as a quick hack in Delphi XE5, so right now it has less features and works in a more crude way than the two Java based tools, but it shows the potential of doing similar things with Delphi.

I primarily use Droid@Screen as so far it works best for me.

But I keep a close eye on the other two just to make sure I don’t miss improvements.

–jeroen

Posted in Android Devices, Delphi, Delphi XE5, Development, Java, Missed Schedule, Mobile Development, Power User, SocialMedia, Software Development, WordPress | 1 Comment »

silverlight – How to capture combobox selection in Caliburn Micro? – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/23

Interesting how you can this in such a concise way in Caliburn Micro: silverlight – How to capture combobox selection in Caliburn Micro? – Stack Overflow.

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

30 years of Turbo Pascal: Integrated Approach Revolutionized Software Development (via: heise Developer)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/21

Thanks for the German heise Developer people that reminded me yestarday was a special birthday of Turbo Pascal: 30 Jahre Turbo Pascal: Integrierter Ansatz revolutionierte die Softwareentwicklung | heise Developer.

The Google Translation into English isn’t bad at all.

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Development, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | 2 Comments »

When the Delphi XE5 commandline compiler fails with `error F1026: File not found: ‘False.dpr’`

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/20

If you an error like below when compiling Delphi XE5 .dproj files using msbuild … then note the documentation for Debug information (Delphi) – RAD Studio. has not been updated yet as it still lists the values {$D+} or {$D-} {$DEBUGINFO ON} or {$DEBUGINFO OFF}.

(_PasCoreCompile target) -> C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\RAD Studio\12.0\Bin\CodeGear.Delphi.Targets(187,5): error F1026: File not found: 'False.dpr'

With Delphi XE5, you can specify 3 additional values: {$D1}, {$D2} and {$D0}, or {$DEBUGINFO 1}, {$DEBUGINFO 2} or {$DEBUGINFO 0}

In the msbuild .dproj files , the values are stored as DCC_DebugInformation elements. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Delphi, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Development, Missed Schedule, SocialMedia, Software Development, WordPress | 13 Comments »

ITDevCon 2013: speaker; Last=Pluimers

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/19

This summer was rough with some intestine issues, so I was really happy the recovery worked out and I could make it to a couple of conferences this fall.

ITDevCon 201 3was one of them, and I had great fun!

The BitTime people organizing the conference took many nice pictures of which one of me when I was explaining MVVM.

Note that the conferences downloads are online at https://bitbucket.org/jeroenp/conferences/src/tip/2013, so even if you didn’t make it you can still watch he slides and play with the examples.

Thursday there is one more conference to go: Be Delphi, and I will upload the materials from there as well.

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Delphi XE5, Development, Software Development | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

Android 4.2+: enable USB debug mode (Nexus 4, Nexus 7, etc)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/15

Researched this a long while ago, but just presented this at my Delphi cross-platform session on ITDevCon 2013 (of which some sessions have been broadcasted on YouTube):

With Android 4.2 and up, they did hide the debug mode a bit.

Perform these steps one to enable debug mode:

  1. Go to “Settings”.
  2. Scroll down to “About phone” or “About tablet”.
  3. Tap on “About phone” or “About table” to go to the “About” screen.
  4. In the “About” screen, scroll down, to “Build number”
  5. Tap on “Build number” seven (7!) times. It will give you some messages until finally it shows “You are now a developer”.
  6. (On some devices): confirm with the PIN code for your phone.

The above steps unlocked the “USB debugging” mode.

To enable or disable “USB debugging” mode:

  1. Go to “Settings”
  2. Choose “Developer Options”
  3. Choose “Debugging”
  4. Choose “USB Debugging”

–jeroen

via:

Posted in Android, Android Devices, Delphi, Delphi XE5, Development, Missed Schedule, Mobile Development, Power User, SocialMedia, Software Development, WordPress | 1 Comment »

.net/C#: you can pass anoymous types to a generic method, but not return them as a method result

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/12

You can pass anonymous types to a method, if that method has a generic parameter type. I regularly use this to Resolving a parameter name at runtime using the Generic Type Cache technique described by Rinat Abdullin.

The other way around however is impossible, as return types cannot, as Alexander M. Batishchev writes in his StackOverflow answer:

You can’t.

You can only return object, or container of objects, e.g. IEnumerable

Jared Par does a bit more elaboration:

You cannot type any method in C# to be the explicit type of an anonymous types. They cannot be “named” so to speak and hence cannot appear in metadata signatures.

If you really want to return a value which is an anonymous type there are 2 options

  • Have the return type of the method be System.Object. You can then do evil casting hacks to get a typed value in another method. This is very fragile and I don’t recommend it.
  • Use a generic method and a type inference trick to get the return type correct. This would require a very interesting signature definition for your approach.

Anonymous types were not really meant to be passed around in this fashion. At the point you need to pass them around between your functions in this manner, you’re better off explicitly defining a type.

Bummer (:

–jeroen

via:

Posted in .NET, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, C#, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C# 4.0, C# 5.0, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Cyber-Dojo: practice unit-tested programming in pairs/groups using Katas

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/11/07

Wow, I’ve been living under a stone (:

Just discovered the online Cyber-Dojo by Jon Jagger. It is an online manifestation of a Coding Dojo. Both have been there for years, and I think both are brilliant.

They take the concept of a Dojo as being a place to practice sports like martial arts in a pair or group setting with a series of Katas or practices.

Katas in a Dojo are a means for performing deliberate practice in order to learn new things. For instance, acquire new movement techniques, learn about your balance, gain strength, all in both a physical and mental way.

The aim of both is do more deliberate practice.

When performing Coding and Cyber Dojo, you should use Test Driven Development using pair programming and BabySteps. Those help you to slow down, as one of the Dojo Principles is for Katas to slow down. It reminds me of the “if you are in a hurry, sit down” mantra and is a key part of the Coding/Cyber Dojo Principles too.

The aim is to learn, and part of that is to first un-learn and open you to new thoughts. That’s why it is so cool that the Cyber-Dojo provides you with:

  • a bunch of pre configured programming languages*,
  • preformulated practices** (including a few cyber-dojo refactorings),
  • a small boilter plate to get started.

You’d think they speed you up, but that is not their aim. Like a regular Dojo it gives you an pre-set environment and gives you piece of mind to get started.

The Cyber Dojo does without a Sensei, whose purpose in a Coding Dojo is to ask questions in order to guide the participants.

That’s why it is good to use the Cyber Dojo as part of a Coding Dojo: basically the Cyber Dojo provides a standardizes set of tools to quickly setup a Coding Dojo.

Cyber Dojo languages

(a prime number, so the table is a bit distorted)

C Go PHP
C# Haskell Perl
C++ Java-Approval Python
Clojure Java-Cucumber Ruby
CoffeeScript Java-JUnit Ruby-Rspec
Erlang Javascript

Cyber Dojo practices

Many of the practices come from rosettacode.org.

100 doors Harry Potter Print Diamond
Anagrams LCD Digits Recently Used List
Bowling Game Leap Years Reversi
Calc Stats Mine Field Roman Numerals
Count Coins Monty Hall Tennis
Diversion Number Names Unsplice
Fizz Buzz Phone Numbers Verbal
Game of Life Poker Hands Yahtzee
Gray Code Prime Factors Zeckendorf Number

–jeroen

via:

Posted in .NET, Agile, C, C#, C++, Development, Java, JavaScript/ECMAScript, Perl, PHP, Scripting, Software Development, Unit Testing | 3 Comments »

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