The Podcast at Delphi.org

Delphi Live! debuted in 2009, and it was a hit. So much so they are doing it again. Great line up of speakers.
I have 3 sessions planned for this year:

• Silverlight in Delphi Prism – Both a half day workshop and a regular session
• Delphi Bots Live!  - Using Delphi Prism and Unreal Tournament to create bots to battle it out in 3D

I hope to see you all there August 23-26th down in San Jose, CA.

Also, EKON 14 has their speaker list up now too.  They have sessions in both English and German.  I will have 4 English sessions there:

• Advanced Downloads – Great session on downloads and file transfers
• Silverlight in Delphi Prism – Again with a half day workshop or regular session
• Delphi Prism half day workshop

That is September 27th through 30th in Darmstadt, Germany.

I am sure I will see a few of you in both places, but it will be great to see you at whichever one is closer to you.  I will be updating the titles and descriptions soon, and have some good preview information available for you as well.

Today we talk with David I, chief Developer Evangelist and VP of Developer Relations from Embarcadero Technologies.

We talk about

• DataRage 2
• Delphi Application Showcase (Now with 75 applications!)
• Embarcadero Developer Network
• Delphi Roadmap
• David I’s contact information:
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• 831-431-5399

 

 42 - David I [01:01:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I planned to have David I’s interview posted over the weekend, but it might not be available until tomorrow.  However I wanted to get a post in to let you know that tomorrow is the start of DataRage 2.  If you are working with Databases then check it out.  I am not presenting this year, but I am sure there is other good sessions.

Primoz is a long time Delphi developer as well as writer for The Delphi Magazine, Monitor and Blaise Pascal magazines.  You may know him from his blog TheDelphiGeek.com or his OmniThreadLibrary for threading in Delphi.  You can also find his articles at 17th Elephant and he is on Stack Overflow.

• We discuss Delphi Mac support
• Delphi Garbage Collection
• 64-Bit Delphi
• The OmniThreadLibrary
• and more!

 

 41 - Primoz Gabrijelcic - OmniThreadLibrary [57:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is part 1 of my interview with Nick Hodges, the Delphi R&D Manager with Embarcadero.  He was a good sport and answered all the questions, but I accidentally stopped recording part way through.  He has already agreed to a second half.

In this episode we talk about :

And more.

 

 40 - Nick Hodges - Part 1 [31:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I need your questions for an upcoming interview with Nick Hodges, the Delphi & RAD Studio R&D Manager with Embarcadero Technologies. Leave them as a comment to this message and then listen to his answers in our next episode.

Comments closed in preparation for interview.  Thanks to all who commented!

There has been a lot of fuss lately about the lack of openness on apple’s platform.  There is still time for things to change, and hopefully this ends as a win for developers and consumers, but unless Apple changes their tune there will be no winners, only losers.

The general consensus among the developers falls into two camps:

1. Apple should open their platform and let people develop however they want.
2. Objective-C and XCode is all roses, why use anything else?

Personally I fall in the first camp (which you probably guessed from my opening paragraph.)  I think it would be great if Apple’s platforms were open and I could use most any tool as long as I called the correct API and use the right UI controls.

At the same time I disagree with those who believe laws should be passed, or lawyers retained to regulate how open Apple makes their platform, all in the name of freedom.  I’ve got news for you, freedom means Apple can decide to not have an open platform.

I may disprove of Apple’s actions, but I will defend their right to do it.  That is what is known as freedom, and I will not give up freedom for the benefit of openness.  If I want openness to be an option in the future, then that means allowing Apple the freedom to have a closed platform today.

Giving up freedom for openness means loosing both.

Voltaire wrote “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too,” which Evelyn Beatrice Hall summarized as “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Ben Franklin said “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power,” which was later paraphrased as “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

Seeking to take away Apple’s freedom for the sake of openness is to sacrifice the very freedom that allows others to make open platforms.  So if we take away that freedom and we give up our freedom to be open.

I’ll just remind you of Hodges 1st Law before someone makes another car analogy, they don’t work anyway.

Apple announced their new iPhone SDK and license agreement today. Part of the change in the license agreement to use the SDK and publish apps to the app store includes

Changing Section 3.3.1 from:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.

To now read:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

This is most likely the latest volley in Apples war against Adobe Flash, since Adobe announced that their new Flash Studio would include the ability to translate Flash applications into iPhone applications.  A lot of people are also saying that this will kill MonoTouch (which allows C# and Delphi Prism iPhone development).

I checked Miguel de Icaza’s twitter stream to see his take on this.

Someone suggested that maybe MonoTouch add an option to generate Objective C for X Code to compile, to which Miguel responded:

MonoTouch already has an option to compile to C + XCode, just call mtouch –xcode program.exe

Then TheZDuck asked:

@migueldeicaza I just saw this. Does this mean the end of MonoTouch!? http://bit.ly/cT2Zyn

Which seems to be a pretty direct question, and Miguel responded:

nope.

Sure, it would have been nice if he elaborated more, but it is a direct answer.

Earlier in the day Miguel tweeted:

Started work on iPhoneOS 4.0 support in MonoTouch.

Miguel is on the beta and has Novell’s legal department to pour over the license agreement, so he has more information then those who are speculating wildly about the end of MonoTouch.  So go back to learning and using Delphi Prism and MonoTouch.  You iPhone and iPad apps are safe for now.  It would appear Apple doesn’t hate MonoTouch as much as it hates Flash.

I was reading Mason’s post about Stack Overflow closing the Delphi documentation gap where he advocated Embarcadero setting up a new feature of the Delphi Doc Wiki so people could submit questions and someone else provide an answer there.  The problem with that is Stack Overflow is the ideal place to ask Delphi questions and get answers.  Even better then a Delphi specific Stack Overflow. The Doc Wiki is a great reference site.  Even pasting the question / answer pair from Stack Overflow into Doc Wiki wouldn’t fit the context.

So what can be done to improve the Doc Wiki?  At first I was thinking Embarcadero could hire a tech writer to copy edit the content from the questions into the Wiki, but that is just passing the buck.  What can I do, and more importantly, what can we as community members do?

I propose the Delphi Overflow Doc Wiki Initiative

The basic idea is based on the fact that both Stack Overflow and the Doc Wiki are can be edited by the community.  Of course you need to email and request edit permissions on the Delphi Doc Wiki or the Delphi Prism Wiki, but that is easy enough to do, and hopefully the permission will be given.  On the Stack Overflow side you need 2000 rep to edit someone else’s question, but only 50 to leave a comment – you can get 50 rep in an afternoon if you try.  If you want to help in this, then you need to have the above “qualifications”.

Here is the process:

1. A new Delphi related question is selected on Stack Overflow.
2. If the question is unsuitable for inclusion in docs, then it is edited with the following added:
   [Rejected for Doc Wiki]
   Which links to the page: http://www.delphi.org/so-doc-wiki/rejected/
3. If the question (and it’s future answer) is suitable for future inclusion in the Doc Wiki, then the following is added:
   [Candidate for Doc Wiki]
   Which links to the page: http://www.delphi.org/so-doc-wiki/candidate/
   It could also optionally include a link to the perspective page in the Doc Wiki where the content could go.
4. Once the question is answered,
   1. The question and answer(s) are combined and used to update the Doc Wiki.
   2. The Doc Wiki discussion page is updated to include a link to the question on Stack Overflow.
   3. The question is edited again, this time with the text:
      [Doc Wiki Complete]
      Which links to http://www.delphi.org/so-doc-wiki/complete/
   4. A link is added from the question to the page of the Doc Wiki that now answers it.
   5. If you don’t have enough rep to edit the question, then these links can be added as a comment on the question.

The reason for the links is so we can use Google to help us find pages in different statuses by using it’s link: search operator.  We could have used Stack Overflow’s tag system instead, but that would be hijacking that feature away from its intended use since each question is limited to 5 tags.  Also the page each link leads to will explain what the Doc Wiki Initiative is and why someone included this in their question.

The contents of Stack Overflow are all licensed under the CC Wiki license, which I believe allows this usage, as long as we site the source, which we do by including the link back.

This has the advantage of keeping all the questions and answers on Stack Overflow, plus capturing the content in the Doc Wiki for future reference.  Each step of the process can be done by a different person – many hands make lite work!

Update: Posted to Meta for feedback.  I was thinking that with the Delphi Wiki’s it tracks contributions.  Maybe we could arrange prizes or compensation for the top contributors.

I’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions on this initiative!  In the mean time, request edit permissions on the Delphi Doc Wiki or the Delphi Prism Wiki.

Talking with marc hoffman of RemObjects talks with us about what is new in the Oxygene compiler in Delphi Prism and what to expect when developing applications on the Mac.

 

 39 - marc hoffman on Prism and Mac [53:23m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I remixed the audio to remove the 5 minute gap.