Category: News

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News

Return of Delphi Man

My friend Jamie sent me a Twitter earlier that he found an original Delphi Man.  Jamie said he has actually had Delphi Man at his side on his desk for quite some time.  He is actually planning to patch him to say CodeGear instead of Borland, although the Borland is fairly discrete now.

So print out Delphi Man and take him with you on all your Delphi Programming adventures as you fight the evil forces of Doctor Deadline and his sinister sidekicks Bug Boy and Feature Creaper.

Does anyone out there have Doctor Deadline pdf?  If I remember correctly Borland released them as a pair, and some lucky developers actually got a inflatable of them!  I actually made up Bug Boy and Feature Creaper, but maybe some one is talented enough to make them. . . . .

For those who don’t know Jamie he was the first Delphi developer I connected with on Twitter and actually encouraged me to start the Podcast, so if you like the podcast send Jamie a big thanks.  He also recently updated his blog to include Delphi Programming on every page.  Way to go Jamie!

Delphi is sure to be language of the year with support like that!

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Torry’s Updates

I remember when I was getting started in Delphi programming (I started late with Delphi 2 as a long time Turbo Pascal developer) and I discovered the huge catalog of mostly free components on Torry.net I thought I was in heaven.

Not only is Torry’s still updating with new components, tools, code samples and applications (see the list of updates in the last 7 days) they just updated their footer to include the following:

The Ultimate Source of Object Pascal and Delphi Programming Knowledge.

That should shift some more of their 19,900 pages about Delphi onto the TPCI.  Previously only 35 pages contained the phrase “Delphi programming”.  That is a boost of up to 19,865 pages (depending on how many Google and other search engines index.)

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Delphi could be 2008 Language of the Year

So I have been emailing with Paul Jansen of TIOBE about the Community Programming Index.  He has added Delphi for .NET as part of the grouping for Delphi, but is not adding Lazarus because it is the IDE not the language.  I also told him I was working with the community to make sure we refer to Delphi as “Delphi Programming” and he sent me the following email:

Hi Jim,

Thanks. For your information, I think your action has already some effect. Tonight’s run shows that Delphi is #8 at this moment. There is a realistic chance that Delphi will become “TIOBE’s Language of the Year 2008”. This will be announced the 1st of January 2009.

Regards,

Paul

--
Paul Jansen - TIOBE Software, http://www.tiobe.com
De Zaale 11 Postbus 80 5600 AB Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Phone: +31 40 239 0870 Mobile: +31 617 400 620
*** TIOBE Software - The Coding Standards Company ***

When I asked him to be sure it was ok to share this information he said it was, but that I was clear that it is provisional as there may be other movement that happens before the end of the month that could change its position. I am hopping we just go straight to #7.  It is a very exciting possibility, and great to know that our efforts are paying off already.

Additionally, Neil Moffatt of DelphiBasics.co.uk has updated most every page there to say Delphi Programming and I am working with the Sysops for the Delphi Wiki to get it updated to the Delphi Programming Wiki. The comments on my last couple posts show that a lot of other people are updating their blogs and sites as well.  Keep in mind, as Dr. Bob pointed out, it might take a bit before Google indexes your site again (might be worth setting up a Google site map if you haven’t already) the sooner you update the better!

Where else can we encourage to update to Delphi Programming?  If you have been meaning to start a Delphi Blog now is the time!  Not only do we stand to pass C#, but we could be Language of the Year!

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The Many Faces of Delphi

Question for you:

Q: What do Delphi, Kylix, Object Pascal, Free Pascal, Chrome and Oxygene all have in common?

A: They all count towards Delphi’s score on the TIOBE index when you follow them by the word Programming!

I remember when the Delphi IDE used the Object Pascal Programming language, then it changed to the Delphi Programming Language.  After the DevCo broke off from Borland it was referred to as both.  But as far as TPCI (TIOBE Programming Community Index) is concerned, you can call it what you like, as long as you say Programming after it.

Noticably missing:

Soon to come:

And TCPI counts seperately:

I was looking at the grouping and exceptions list at the bottom of the TCPI Definition last night and was surprised at the size of the Delphi group.  I’ve already contacted them about adding Delphi for .NET.  Once Prism is actually announced, then we can get it added too.

A number of bloggers (Gabr, Allen and Malcolm to name a few) have already updated their templates to include Delphi programming on every page of their blog.  That is a great way to make sure your existing Delphi content is counted towards the index.  I am not suggesting we game the system, just that we help TCPI get an accurate count.

As Olaf Monien pointed out, there are a lot of sites with a lot of room for improvement: CodeGear.com being one of them!  In addition to his great list, check out the following:

How does your site measure up?  Update your Delphi related blog or site to say Delphi programming on every page in visible text (update the template).  Stand up and be counted.  You can make a difference!

Once you have updated your site, contact authors of other sites and encourage them to do the same!

UPDATE: Is the TPCI relevant?  There are 12,900 hits in Google where people have refernced them, and an Alexa traffic rank of: 111,776. (Thanks RIF)

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Delphi Keeps Climbing

Last month Delphi was back in the top 10 for the TIOBE Programming Community Index for September. Well the numbers for October are out, and Delphi has kept on moving to position #9.  It bumped JavaScript.

I truly believe we are in the Delphi Renaissance.

The way the TIOBE Index works is it looks for the phrase “Delphi programming” in various searches.  Then compares the numbers for all the languages it indexes.  So be sure you say “Delphi programming” in your pages that are talking about Delphi, instead of some shorthand that doesn’t meet that search criteria.

That is why I have Delphi programming in my subtitle here.  Then I know it is on every page.

Call to Action

  1. Update your blog or web site to say “Delphi programming” on every page.
  2. Contact the authors of other Delphi blogs to remind them to do the same.
  3. Include the phrase Delphi programming in forum posts you might make.
  4. Contact people behind other Delphi related web sites and remind them to do the same.

Together we can take #8 in November! (And in the US you thought November was just about the presidential election!)

Update: If you update your site or blog to say “Delphi programming” on every page, leave a link here, and add a comment to your blog so others will see it and do the same.  If you look, C# is in number 8, and it wasn’t that long ago that Delphi was ahead of C#.

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Code Rage III: Call for Speakers

As was mentioned in this week’s Podcast, CodeRage III is coming.

Anders is currently looking for speakers.

As Anders mentioned, this is not to replace a face-to-face conference, but is only until a physical conference is scheduled.  I planning on submitting a few sessions.  I’ll see you all in the chat rooms!

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Craig Peterson’s favorite blog links

Back in Episode 7 I neglected to publish the links to the favorite blogs of Scooter Software‘s Craig Peterson.  Here they are for anyone who didn’t find them.  Most of these are favorites of mine too:

I am sure Craig also frequents the Beyond Compare forums too, which have their own RSS feed.

If you still have not taken advantage of that 25% discount code on Beyond Compare 3, please listen to Episode 7 again, and get the code, or just upgrade without the code.  Seriously, Beyond Compare is one of my favorite tools, and it is Jeff Atwood’s too.

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Free Delphi 2009 Handbook by Marco Cantu

Hopefully you all just got an email from Michael Swindell with the subject line “Product Update: Delphi and C++Builder Changes.”  The email address it comes from is “CodeGear from Embarcadero” <e-update@email.codegear.com>.  If not, then check your spam folders and furiously refresh your in-box until it shows up.

The email is a request to update your contact information (which seems like an odd request since they obviously have my email address), although I think it is just a matter of getting us to agree to a privacy policy / terms of use with the new company. I’m happy to maintain contact with CodeGear & Embarcadero, but the carrot they offer in return is a free PDF copy of Marco Cantu‘s yet to be released Delphi 2009 Handbook.

They will email the download link later.  I can hardly wait.  Now I just need to get an autographed hard copy.  I’ll be sure to pack a copy when I go to the physical Delphi conference CodeGear is planning.

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Audio Quality

As a new podcast creator audio quality is a big deal to me.  In this last podcast I tried a few things differently to get better audio quality.  In my opinion it is a lot better, but the voice levels are uneven now – with me a lot quieter now.  The odd thing is my headphones I use when editing actually made it sound like they were equal.  Now when I am listening to it at my headphones at work it is obvious that they are unequal.  I wouldn’t have expected the two pairs of headphones to be that different.

I am curious how it sounds to everyone else?  Is it better?  Are the voices equal volume for you?  Do you care?

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News Video podCast

Intro to Generic Collections with Delphi 2009

A very short introduction to Generic Collections in Delphi 2009. Create a TList of Integers and show adding and removing items from it. Showing some of the differences in types, gotchas and errors you might get.

Generics, or parametrized types, are a type that works with another type that is defined later. Collections are a great example of using them. You create a generic TList, and then when you use it you declare what type it will contain. Then it will be strongly typed to that specific type, both in adding items and removing them.

Delphi Generics work with all types in Delphi: native types (Integer, string, etc.), Records, Objects and Interfaces.

This is screen cast episode 2, shot with Camtasia and hosted on Vimeo.  I had to shoot it at 1280×720 so they will offer it in HD and not downscale it.  Let me know how it works for everyone.

As was pointed out in the comments, the download link only works after you sign into Vimeo.  If that doesn’t work for people let me know and I will come up with a different solution.