tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23695402919799300222012-01-17T09:19:36.553ZThoughts from a long time daily userJason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.comBlogger291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-61401630509382285642010-11-16T15:35:00.000Z2010-11-16T15:35:46.215Z

Not strictly a Delphi-post this one, but still a programming issue nonetheless. We have several Windows Services that have the ability to add an entry to people's Outlook Calendars or Task Lists. This cannot be done using Outlook Automation, because that requires Outlook to be accessible to run which it cannot be from a Windows Service. Furthermore, it mandates that Outlook is installed on the

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-82076845636421184172010-09-06T16:06:00.000+01:002010-09-06T16:06:33.318+01:00

I am currently rewriting our standard Crystal Reports (over 250) in ReportBuilder, so that we can standardise on one report writer. I have been so impressed by ReportBuilder during this development process that I felt compelled to write to Digital Metaphors and let them know. I just wanted to drop you a line to say how continually impressed I am with ReportBuilder. We have been a customer

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-74238945510585648782010-08-13T14:09:00.000+01:002010-08-13T14:09:41.384+01:00

I hadn't realised that my last post was January, 6 months has just disappeared. 6 being the magic number, in that we still have not found the time to stop development on our products in order to migrate up to Delphi 2009 that we bought a while back. Since then, Delphi 2010 passed me by without a great deal of interest, and now I find myself with even less enthusiasm for Delphi 2011 XE, there is

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-27380674835834150172010-01-26T14:53:00.004Z2010-01-26T15:02:27.088Z

Well that was judicious timing (for once)! Just as we decided to take the plunge and do away with ODBCExpress in favour of dbGo, I had an email from Pieter Myburgh at Korbitec. In it, he stated that the management had rejected the proposal to make ODBCExpress open-source and instead have "end-of-lifed" the project.Now, Pieter has been nothing but helpful and this decision was out of his hands.

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-59926142427346519982010-01-21T09:23:00.003Z2010-01-21T09:37:36.935Z

You don't have to look very far for people asking the question "Is Delphi Dead?". StackOverflow had a recent question on it, and Delphi developer JamieI recently created a website to answer the question succinctly.OK, so it was a darling of the 90s and these days it isn't as high profile as it used to be - .NET hurt Delphi badly because it took Delphi's edge away. However, isn't it part of the

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-55235414590844258812010-01-19T14:03:00.005Z2010-01-19T14:43:25.194Z

A new year and time to make a decision about how we are going to move our ten year old codebase from Delphi 6 up to Delphi 2009. If you've followed my other posts in this "road to Delphi 2009" thread then you'll know that I hit a stumbling block when migrating a third-party component, ODBCExpress. This is a third-party database connectivity component that was well written, well documented and had

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-4447358559153124632009-12-18T11:42:00.002Z2009-12-18T11:49:03.766Z

The always excellent Tim Anderson, writing for the always excellent The Register, has put together a nice article on the relative success and failure of .NET as a platform and as a Java-killer.I've made it clear in the past that I'm no fan of .NET and I don't see any clear benefit to our industry by its introduction. This paragraph sums it up nicely:A long-standing gripe is that Microsoft itself

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-18401319257925481012009-11-26T10:24:00.003Z2009-11-26T10:35:35.630Z

So it has been a while since I last updated on my progress with the migration from Delphi 6 to Delphi 2009. There's a reason. I'm still on Delphi 6 and I've got nowhere fast with ODBCExpress!To be fair to its developer, Pieter Myburgh, it isn't his project anymore and he has been very good in keeping in touch with me and letting me know how the open source status is coming along. Very slowly,

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-29715983181754110762009-07-09T08:45:00.003+01:002009-07-09T08:56:42.527+01:00

Still calling this Part 1 (Act 3) as I'm not actively pushing anything forward until I've overcome the ODBCExpress hurdle. I've had some positive steps forward with this.I have been in regular contact with Pieter Myburg, its original author. Even though he is no longer actively developing it, he has very helpfully made some changes to 3 files that allow the packages to compile and install into

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-17690124475019411092009-07-01T16:49:00.002+01:002009-07-01T16:52:58.165+01:00

So I haven't really got any further yet because I'm waiting to hear back from the author of ODBCExpress whether or not he will look to upgrade the packages for Delphi 2009. He's emailed to say he is "looking into it". From the newsgroup I can see I'm not the only one crossing my fingers.If he doesn't then D2009 will be put on hold while I port 10 years of software to another database connectivity

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-16487972459541250752009-06-25T16:24:00.004+01:002009-06-25T16:33:32.597+01:00

OK, so I started with the easy stuff. Installing third-party components.Raize Components - CheckTMS Component Pack - CheckReportBuilder Enterprise/Server - CheckOK, these were easy because they were designed for Delphi 2009.ODBCExpress - Oh. Well, according to its lead developer Pieter Myburg on the support newsgroup, "we have stopped active development of ODBCExpress, and we won't be porting it

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-58370208143302263682009-06-23T21:09:00.003+01:002009-06-23T21:21:31.299+01:00

So, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a Delphi upgrade, to D2009. The offer was too tempting and I have started to become frustrated with being left too far behind with Delphi 6.Thanks to one of the distributors in the UK, Grey Matter, we got the D2009 upgrade for 20% off. This was a promotion they were running for those who didn't want to take advantage of June's "Buy Delphi and get RAD

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-21489307888288186572009-06-01T13:59:00.000+01:002009-06-01T13:59:04.451+01:00

Lars Dybdahl has posted an excellent summary of his experience converting older Delphi projects to Delphi 2009. Very relevant to me and many Delphi users, I'm sure:Compas Pascal: Upgrading a major project to Delphi 2009: "g"

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-24662561877181027922008-12-10T16:19:00.004Z2008-12-10T16:48:15.422Z

CodeRage 3 seems to have gone pretty well judging by those who were involved with it. I'm pleased, it's good that CodeGear/Embarcadero does this because it shows that they're focusing their mind on the developers (and possibly trying to showcase for potential new customers).There will always be an argument between real vs virtual conferences and I don't want to restart that one off again. Real

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-25325745667152629522008-08-05T10:10:00.002+01:002008-08-05T10:20:56.336+01:00

I've just watched Nick Hodges go through some of the VCL enhancements for Delphi 2009, and two things struck me. Firstly, I can't understand why the PasswordChar feature on TEdit was being demonstrated; I was running Delphi 6 side-by-side with the video, and was changing this property with the same results. So why is this being advertised as a VCL enhancement when, if I recall correctly, it's

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-12482935616960081732008-06-03T12:51:00.011+01:002008-06-03T14:02:34.986+01:00

In our drive to produce the fastest, most optimised code out there, sometimes we can leave ourselves with a sprawl of code that no one else is going to be able to follow - or quite possibly you may not be able to follow a few months down the line, even though you wrote it!I'm not talking about real down-to-the-core assembler or machine code here, just general high-level code that you might look

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-44964243383372939242008-01-24T10:55:00.000Z2008-01-24T11:27:15.033Z

Despite the claims that I don't like to have reams of different component packs installed in Delphi, there is often a case that a particular component set just has that killer component that demands its use. I've been aware of Raize Components for years but never made the leap of using them because I'd committed myself to TMS and JEDI, and that was enough for me.Late last year, I attended a UK

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-12696564851113180592007-09-20T15:01:00.001+01:002007-09-20T15:31:27.277+01:00

It's been a while and for that I apologise, although perhaps many of you are grateful that it's taken 2 months for me to post. Usual stuff, I know you're all up against the same things. Deadlines, massive development schedules, testing, meetings... you know, real-world stuff.I wanted to get back into this by explaining briefly why I chose IP*Works! from /n software. It came about because part of

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-84099743644966861542007-07-27T11:24:00.000+01:002007-07-27T11:54:42.563+01:00

A reasonably common question we get asked these days in tender documents or over the phone is "is your product written in .net?" or similarly "do you have a .net version of your software?". At this point I bite my tongue, take a breath and try to find out exactly why they've asked such a ridiculous question.Do they understand what they're asking for? Usually not. A .net "version"? As if we have a

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-44441998201050080252007-07-12T15:47:00.000+01:002007-07-12T16:01:44.505+01:00

On July 6th, Nick Hodges blogged about a new wiki page he has created entitled the Business Case for Delphi. This is a great idea (admittedly not his own) and for a moment I thought he had stolen my thunder on a topic I've been meaning to write about myself. However, Nick's topic is about why Delphi should be taken on in the first place.This is not that story.About 6 weeks ago I wrote an internal

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-38995471192967212622007-07-03T14:25:00.000+01:002007-07-03T16:05:36.496+01:00

When I was first brought into my company to port the software from Unix to Windows, Windows 95 was the latest OS and Microsoft were very proud of it. Although I didn't read any official literature from them at the time, I was already aware from my own use of Windows that there were certain standards to be maintained. Not standards as in quality (heaven forbid), but standards as in consistency.

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-71324527971328076332007-06-29T11:53:00.000+01:002007-06-29T12:51:56.378+01:00

For as long as there has been Delphi, there has been Project JEDI: Joint Endeavour of Delphi Innovators (or Endeavor if you're Stateside). Initially it was created in order to write API header conversions for Delphi that weren't provided as standard. APIs such as DirectX, ODBC, MAPI, TAPI and Winsock were written and offered up for free with full source code - this was a labour of love and

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-3149506296732418542007-06-27T11:02:00.000+01:002007-06-27T16:08:09.228+01:00

I'm not a fan of component packs. As I said before, I'm a conservative developer who (rightly or wrongly) believes that the less third-party tools I can get away with using the better, purely for future-proofing purposes. When a third-party vendor I already use provides a component similar to some other component I found somewhere, I'll switch to that one to reduce my dependencies. If Delphi then

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-30935806623880831122007-06-26T11:52:00.000+01:002007-06-26T12:05:09.883+01:00

When I mentioned yesterday about time zones, it reminded me of an issue I came across a few years ago with the Windows WM_TIMECHANGE message.Whenever the time is changed on Windows, the WM_TIMECHANGE message is broadcast for any applications to handle if they wish. This was something that was extremely useful to us for our Time & Attendance software because it meant, in theory, that if the time

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-20450597500334913502007-06-25T09:11:00.000+01:002007-06-25T15:50:02.109+01:00

How many of you joined in on one of the CodeGear Developer Network Delphi/C++ roadmap chats last week, hosted by David I? I did on Friday afternoon (well, Friday 4pm UK time, which was 8am PDT; I nearly missed it as the UK is currently on British Summer Time which is GMT+1 but that's another story).It was an hour well spent and had a star-studded cast as I wasn't expecting Nick Hodges & Anders

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-59679182626564442982007-06-22T13:57:00.000+01:002007-06-22T15:19:00.717+01:00

OK, so yesterday I was on pretty sure footing with talking about ReportBuilder. Some of your comments and emails reflected that this is a popular third-party toolset and ranks up there with other report writing tools in Delphi. At least, undoubtely, most of you have at least heard of it. Today, I'm going to discuss a component set at the other end of the scale, although I may be proved wrong. One

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-72426985120734948822007-06-21T12:33:00.000+01:002007-06-21T13:29:41.423+01:00

There are some third-party components I use that I'm still not sure about, but that are so embedded in my work now that the thought of changing them isn't all that appealing. ReportBuilder (RB), by Digital Metaphors, isn't one of those. This, it turns out, is one of the best decisions I ever made. My experience below is based on version 10 Enterprise.I think I first read about it in the Delphi

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-65949454431114457912007-06-20T10:53:00.000+01:002007-06-20T11:16:47.437+01:00

I should explain what it is I do with Delphi every day, which will maybe give a background as to why I've become what I consider a conservative developer. Conservative, that is, in terms of what software we use. The company I have worked for for the past 9 years develops three main products (payroll, HR and Time & Attendance, combined as a suite), written for Windows using Delphi.Although we sell

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2369540291979930022.post-17766784059512740432007-06-19T15:12:00.000+01:002007-06-19T15:32:42.067+01:00

dis·ci·ple (dĭ-sī'pl)n.One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another. An active adherent, as of a movement or philosophy.OK, so does the Delphi Community need another blogger? Probably not, but the reason why Borland Inprise Borland CodeGear has survived is because of the strength of that community, like none other. I have used that community, I have given back to that

Jason Swebyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17816129627979839377noreply@blogger.com1