Posted by jpluimers on 2013/03/14
Variant Records are a feature that has been in the Pascal language since Standard Pascal.
A cool page for historic perspective is R3R: Pascal Features in Popular Compilers, hopefully someone will update it to more modern versions of the mentioned compilers.
There is not much official documentation on the Delphi side on this, so below some parts of a case I used for a project that started in 1997 and is still in use to day. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in APPC, AS/400 / iSeries / System i, ASCII, COBOL, Communications Development, Conference Topics, Conferences, CPI-C, Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Development, Encoding, Event, HIS Host Integration Services, Internet protocol suite, MQ Message Queueing/Queuing, SNA, Software Development, TCP, Unicode, UTF-8, WebSphere MQ | 9 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/12/05
Lots of people think CSV is easy: it’s just a bunch of values separated with commas. But in practice it is not. Various reasons can make CSV very hard, especially since “CSV” is not a single, well-defined format. As always importing is always harder than exporting. A few reasons that make it hard:
A few links that helped me a lot getting input and output of CSV right in C#:
Thanks to Jabulaza:
–jeroen
via: Comma-separated values – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, CSV, Development, EBCDIC, Encoding, Event, Software Development | 4 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/09/19
While scheduling this year’s projects, it was clear that it would become impossible to have the summer holiday in the summer (last year was also outside, as we fulfilled Nicolette’s dream: visit the Antarctic region).
So we moved this year’s holiday to early November, hoping that would be outside the Fall conference season.
Alas, EKON (Entwickler-Konferenz.de), this year in Düsseldorf, Germany, moved themselves to November, so this will be the first EKON ever that I won’t attend (out of 3 or 4 people that never missed one). Sorry guys I will miss the great speakers, sessions and workshops (:
I am going to speak on two other European Delphi conferences though:
I’m really looking forward meeting the attendees, speakers and organizations there. Conferences are always a lot of fun and a great way for me of learning new things.
--jeroen
via:
Posted in About, Antarctic, Conferences, Delphi, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi-Tage.de, Development, EKON, Event, ITDevCon, Personal, Software Development, Travel | Tagged: antarctic region, attendees, düsseldorf germany, Delphi, delphi conferences, delphi language, delphi tips, early november, eco system, education, ekon, heidelberg germany, hidden gems, nicolette, operator overloading, public appearances, right tools, summer holiday, tips and tricks, Travel, verona italy | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2012/07/05
Recently I was asked to investigate a performance problem with a certain .NET application.
The first error I got when getting the app to build in Visual Studio 2010, and then run it was like this:
System.ComponentModel.InvalidAsynchronousStateException was caught
Message=An error occurred invoking the method. The destination thread no longer exists.
Source=System.Windows.Forms
StackTrace:
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WaitForWaitHandle(WaitHandle waitHandle)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.MarshaledInvoke(Control caller, Delegate method, Object[] args, Boolean synchronous)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method, Object[] args)
at UI.Splash.SetStatus(String status) in C:\...\Splash.cs:line 395
at UI.Menu.Main() in C:\...\Menu.cs:line 4275
InnerException:
Someone built their own splash logic with multi-threading.
Funny that today, this got answered on StackOverflow by [WayBack] mgie: [WayBack] multithreading – TMonitor synchronization / Application.ProcessMessages – Stack Overflow.
Though that is a Delphi link (and points to the nice libraries [Archive.is] AsynCalls and [WayBack] OmniThreadLibrary), the most important link it contains is to [WayBack] Borland Newsgroup Archive :: borland.public.delphi.internet.winsock :: Re: Disconnect TIdHttp in thread.
That sounds like a Delphi link too, but the subtitle “‘Ways to get into avoidable trouble with threads, V1.2′” hints the essence: it is a post that describes in an environment-agnostic way how to avoid multi-threading problems.
Recommended reading!
Anyway: Building multi-threaded code is hard. Even harder fleshing out all the corner cases and potential error conditions.
No matter what kind of programming environment: If you have not done lots of multi-threaded programming, then please don’t do it yourself: go ask someone that does know how to do it. Or better, try to avoid it.
I try to let libraries to the handling of multi-threading for me, if I use multi-threading at all, as others are far better at this than I am.
–jeroen
Posted in .NET, C#, C# 1.0, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C# 4.0, C# 5.0, Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Java, Software Development, VB.NET, VBS, Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio and tools, WinForms | 6 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2011/11/03
I uploaded the EKON15 conference download materials to http://bo.codeplex.com.
The changeset you are after is http://bo.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/changes/70872
It contains most of the materials for the Delphi Tage and the Delphi Live conferences too, though I will upload the missing pieces soon.
With the [WayBack] demise of codeplex, these links now have moved to
–jeroen
Posted in Conferences, Delphi, Development, EKON, Event | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2011/10/11
EKON 15 – first day has many English sessions
From 26 till 28 of October, I’ll be speaking at the 15th EKON conference at the Renaissance Hotel in Düsseldorf, Germany.
I just sat next to the conference organizer, and he proudly announced that well known and long time Delphi guru Cary Jensen will be presenting the keynote on the evolution of Delphi from Delphi 1 to XE2.
I still have the disks marked “Wasabi” and “Mango” from the early 90s (and funny that Microsoft is using the same name for a 7.5 product, where Delphi 1 was a real revolution).
Next to the German sessions, there will be English sessions as well: Cary also does his other sessions that day (on cross platform development, windows services, and RESTful webservices).
Being a German conference, most of the other sessions will be in German, but it is good that the English ones are all in one day: you get a one-day visit to conference as a non-German speaker, get a discount and visit the beautiful city of Dusseldorf (especially the Altstadt is recommended).
Contact me for more information on discounts: there are both discounts for the English day and the full the whole conference.
On the EKON 15 site there is a nice conference planner and session overview.
Last but not least, on friday after the conference, Edwin van der Kraan and I will present a full day Delphi XE2 workshop covering x64, new VCL and of course FireMonkey cross platform development (so bring your Mac and iOS devices with you!).
15. EKON Konferenz – Delphi XE2 und mehr…
Vom 26. bis zum 28. Oktober findet die 15. Entwickler Konferenz (EKON) im Renaissance Hotel in Düsseldorf statt. Ich werde als Speaker ebenfalls vor Ort sein.
Als ich gerade mit dem Organisator der Konferenz zusammen saß, verkündete er mir stolz, dass Cary Jensen, bekannter und langjähriger Delphi-Guru, auf der EKON 15 eine Keynote zu Delphis Evolution von Delphi 1 zu XE2 halten wird.
Ich bin immer noch im Besitz von Disketten aus den frühen 90er Jahren, die mit „Wasabi“ und „Mango“ beschriftet sind (witzig dabei ist, dass Microsoft den gleichen Namen für ein 7.5-Produkt nutzt, während es bei Delphi 1.0 eine richtige Revolution gab).
Neben den deutschen Sessions werden auf der EKON auch Sessions auf English angeboten: Cary wird unter anderem auch über Cross-Plattform-Entwicklung, Windows Services und RESTful Web Services sprechen.
Zwar werden die meisten Sessions auf Deutsch gehalten, jedoch gibt es diesmal eine Besonderheit bei den englischen Sessions: Diese finden an einem Tag statt!
Somit können auch die Nicht-Deutschsprachigen für ermäßigten Eintritt an den Sessions auf Englisch teilnehmen und ganz nebenbei die schöne Innenstadt Düsseldorfs erkunden
(besonders die Altstadt ist sehr empfehlenswert).
Zu guter Letzt präsentieren Edwin van der Kraan und ich am Freitag einen ganztägigen XE2 Power Workshop zu x64, New VCL und natürlich zur FireMonkey Cross-Plattform-Entwicklung (bringen Sie also Ihre Macs und iOS-Geräte mit!).
Bei weiteren Fragen, Interesse und Infos über die Ermäßigungen können Sie mich gerne kontaktieren (Ermäßigte Preise gibt es sowohl für den English-Day als auch für die Gesamtkonferenz). Auf der Website finden Sie eine übersichtlichen Zeitplaner, die Sessions im Überblick und alle weiter Informationen zur Entwickler Konferenz.
–jeroen
Posted in About, Conferences, Delphi, Development, EKON, Event, Personal, Travel | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2011/09/27
This morning I gave a well attended session at the BASTA.NET conference on .NET Cross Platform Mobile Development on Windows 7, Android and iOS
If you were attending my session, or just interested in Cross Platform Development with a touch – pun intended – of .NET (and Mono, MonoTouch, MonoDroid, MonoMac, Xcode) then you can download the materials here: http://bo.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/changes/70132 and http://bo.codeplex.com/SourceControl/changeset/changes/70133 (yes, 2 change sets: somehow with SVN “Check for modifications” I still missed part of the batch).
It consists of the PDF with session slides and the demo apps based on an old (.NET 1.1 and .NET Compact Framework 1.0 era) C# tic tac toe demo (which was based on some Turbo Pascal sources from 20+ years ago), now revived for the Windows Phone 7 (with Visual Studio), iOS (with MonoTouch) and Android (with MonoDroid) platforms.
The conference is held at the beautifully designed Rheingoldhalle conference center adjacent to the Rhine (German: Rhein) river in Mainz, Germany.
Oh: and I enjoyed a bit of the great weather outside (while it lasts <g>).
–jeroen
Posted in .NET, BASTA!, C#, Conferences, Development, Event, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2011/09/09
Right now, I’m porting a bunch of stuff over to FireMonkey in Delphi XE 2 so it can run cross platform.
(Be sure to attend the RAD Studio XE2 World Tour when possible, this stuff is way cool!)
Having avoided Windows x86 assembly in my own sources for years, I’m astonished by the number of 3rd party libraries that do.
Right now, third party libraries that you want to use with FireMonkey need these requirements:
And the fact that you should have separated your business logic from your UI logic years ago :)
Of course that was what the Future proofing your Delphi apps seminar from Simon Stuart was about.
What baffles me is that so little 3rd party code adheres to that.
–jeroen
PS:
Today and tomorrow I’m be at the German Delphi-Tage.de conference; I’ve already met a lot of people in the Delphi XE2 tutorial and look forward to meet more tomorrow.
Contrary to what the schedule says, my session on a pragmatic Delphi code generator will be in German, I’m sure most attendees will like that.
Sunday I’ll fly to SFO to speak at the DelphiLive.com conference in San Jose, CA.
There, my preconference tutorial on Delphi Certification and sessions on XML and XSLT will be in English, as I’m sure more people there understand that better than German :)
Posted in About, Certifications, Conferences, Delphi, Delphi-Tage.de, DelphiLive, Development, Event, FireMonkey, Personal, Software Development | 6 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/18
In the past I wrote about a Simple example to show DateTime.Now in ISO 8601 format on ideone.com | Online C# Compiler & Debugging Tool , using ISO 8601 in batch-files, and how ISO 8601 is used in Google Calendar URLs.
Time to write something about ISO 8601 Date, Time and DateTime and Delphi.
First of all the DateUtils unit contains a bunch of routines (for instance DecodeDateWeek) that understand ISO 8601 week numbers, where:
Otherwise the week containing January 1st is week 52 or 53 of the previous year
ISO 8601 also specifies how to format Dates, Times, DateTimes and durations according to some basic principles.
XML uses ISO 8601 to format Date, Time and DateTime and some other formats as text too.
So it is no wonder that since Delphi 6, it contains a XSBuiltIns unit covering (among other things) ISO 8601 formatting.
Given the many Delphi ISO 8601 relates questions on StackOverflow of which I answered two, and my need for ISO 8601 DateTime conversion for exporting Excel XML, here is are some samples to get started in the unit below (and in this codeplex changeset).
The unit covers Date, Time and DateTime.
You can write similar code for Duration.
Oops, I covered it already in ISO 8601: Delphi way to convert XML date and time to TDateTime and back (via: Stack Overflow)
Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, ISO 8601, Power User, Software Development | 4 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2011/08/04
I’ll be speaking at a few conferences this fall.
The furthest for me will be DelphiLive! 2011 in San Jose, CA, which will be held from September 12th to 14th (slightly more than a month from now).
Note that if you want to come, the early bird discount is until augusts 15!
Part of the sessions and speakers lists are already published, but it will be extended shortly (some nice Delphi XE2 sessions are in the pipeline), followed by a workshop tutorials list, and agenda.
My sessions are going to be these:
Not everything for those sessions is set in stone yet, so if you have ideas for things I should include, exclude, emphasize or understate, please let me know.
I’m looking forward to meet (often again!) a lot of attendees and speakers.
The social part of conferences is very important too.
Last year, after the conference, a few speakers, attendees and other people had a marvelous steak dinner. Great fun!
Hope to see a few of my blog readers at one conference or the other.
–jeroen
PS: Like last year, the conference will be held at Crowne Plaza Hotel San Jose Downtown, 282 Almaden Boulevard, San Jose, CA 95113, USA (it has a special room rate of USD 139 per night for conference attendees).
PS2: Some more events will follow shortly.
Posted in Conferences, Delphi, DelphiLive, Development, Event, Software Development | 1 Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 