We just launched a MVP Blog Feed on the Community page. You can get to it at embt.co/mvp-feed. Eventually we will expand it to contain all the MVPs, Tech Partners and other Embarcadero Partners that may be of interest to the general public.
We are just getting warmed up!
So go bookmark it today and check back next week for more fun and excitement.
February 14th is Delphi’s birthday (and some other holiday). What a great time to talk about how much we love Delphi.
I moved from Basic to Turbo Pascal back in the DOS days, and then started using Delphi with version 2. Since then I’ve used a number of other development tools, including Objective-C, Java, JavaScript, C# and others. Delphi has always been my favorite. It is the tool I turn to when I need to get something done quickly, and it is the bar which I use to measure every other development tool (and none of them measure up).
My son took a class in JavaScript through school. He was really frustrated with it, and wanted to give up programming. I told him I’d be happy to sit down with him again and teach him Delphi (I’d done it a few times in the past, but he lost interest). He reluctantly agreed. After a few minutes he was blown away. All the major frustrations he had from JavaScript was alleviated right away. Soon he created a mobile app that was useful and solved a problem for him in one of his games. He was telling his mom about how much better Delphi is than JavaScript when he said “No wonder everyone loves Delphi, it is the best!”
What about you, why do you love Delphi? Create a video, a blog post or whatever works for you, and share it with the hash tag #ILoveDelphi.
We’ve launched a new competitions section on the Embarcadero Community. This will host competitions for you to show off your creativity and technical skills. It is kicking off with two competitions, the Delphi 10.2 T-Shirt Graphic Contest and the #FunWithDelphi: NASA API Mashup.
You can have a little fun with Delphi in the new year by entering into our Fun With Delphi contest! Delphi makes it fast and easy to build REST clients using powerful built in components like TRESTClient and TRESTResponseDataSetAdapter. You can easily load up the JSON data retrieved from a REST API into in-memory components like TFDMemTable. Finally, you can use LiveBindings to visually display the data in your apps with very little code required.
We are excited to see what creative ways the Delphi community can come up with to utilize the REST libraries so we are announcing a contest where you can showcase your best REST client mashup using the NASA API.
Disclaimer: This contest is not sponsored or approved by NASA.
The next release of Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio is 10.2 Tokyo. While the release is still some time away, we can start having fun now. If you want to play with the technical bits, make sure you are on Update Subscription and join the beta. For a little fun we have a contest to create T-shirt designs. Break out your creativity and artistic skills.
It is official, I am rebooting the Podcast with Nick Hodges. Right now I am calling it the Podcast @ Delphi.org since my friend Richard helped me get this domain working again (did you notice it wasn’t working?)
Who knows what the future will hold, but for now you can expect weekly half hour episodes with both Nick and I discussing the news and technology of our community.
I wanted to spotlight a recent return to the Delphi community as an MVP: Dr. Holger Flick. He’s started blogging again and hasn’t slowed down producing good quality technical content.
Like many of us, Holger started programming with Turbo Pascal and GW Basic. For him it was at the age of 7 (with Basic) and switching to Delphi 2 at the age of 14. In 2003 he became very active in the forums and was a member of Team Indy. During that time he was blogging at “Holger’s Thoughts on Delphi,” and also wrote several articles in German and Dutch Delphi magazines.
Holger even spent some time freelancing for QA at Borland and CodeGear. Later for Embarcadero he reported bugs on the localization in German. He also freelanced on the Borland and CodeGear Developer Network. Eventually he earned a place on the Delphi 2005, 2006 and 2007 credits screen (Help > About press ALT key and type TEAM.)
Holgar regularly spoke at conferences on Model-Driven Application Development, ECO (Enterprise Core Objects), and ASP.NET (with Delphi for .NET naturally). I met Holger in person in San Jose at the Delphi Developer Conference in May of 2009, and again in Las Vegas at the Delphi Developer Solutions Conference in 2011.
Holger studied Computer Science at Technical University of Dortmund, Germany, and earned his Ph.D. in Engineering at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. He then founded his own IT consulting company in 2011 before joining Korfmann Lufttechnik GmbH as head of IT. Now with his company Flixments, LLC. and new brand Flix Engineering he is blogging about Delphi development again. As an Embarcadero MVP I’m sure his professional skills will be a huge benefit to the Delphi community and IT landscape in South West Florida in general.
Holger says it was hard to find a recent picture of him without sunglasses as they are pretty much required in Florida.
Join me in welcoming Holger back to the Delphi community as an MVP!
As part of the Delphi Boot Camp and Delphi Starter Promotion, you can also get a copy of Marco Cantu’s updated Object Pascal Handbook, all at no cost. (Limited time offer)
If you want a physical copy of Marco’s book, you can pick one up on his website, or just check out the table of contents . . .
Tried something new where I went over the current issue of Blaise Pascal with Detlef Overbeek. The video is available on YouTube.
INTERVIEW WITH ATANAS POPOV
Atanas agreed after being asked immediately to be interviewed. That was about two months ago. About two weeks ago there was quite a lot of turbulence in the community and vendors went nervous, some people even saw some kind of armageddon for Delphi. Even the more reason to talk the new Chief, ask him all the questions about their new policy, what is going to happen to and with Delphi. An explanation sometimes even in detail follows in the magazine.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
CREATE AND TRAIN YOUR FIRST NEURAL NETWORK
BY BOIAN MITOV
The quest for intelligent machine has started long before the first computers became reality. For centuries mechanical devices have been created to mimic human behavior, and grab the imagination of the spectators with the promises of mechanical intelligence. But only after the first electronic computers appeared, creating such intelligence became feasible.
The first attempts at such intelligence were focused on teaching the computers to play games and solve mathematical problems. They have proven fairly good at both tasks. However when an attempt was made to connect a camera to a motorized cart and have a computer navigate it through a room full of obstacles, it became apparent that such simple task represents a major challenge to the computer, and so began the quest for creating the intelligent computer.
HOW TO BUILD AN APP IN XML AND
CREATE AN ANDROID PACKAGE
INCLUDING HOW TO USE THE EMULATOR
with code and working APK
BY DETLEF OVERBEEK
In this article we will create a Multi Device Application on an emulated android device.
We are going to use the Multi Device Application we also used in Issue 4 2016 ‘How to build an app in xml’.
We also show where you could find the information to use any of your devices to run a Multi Device Application. How to do this varies per device so we can not explain it fully within the scope of this article. However we hope to point you into the right direction by showing how to do it with a Samsung S5 -android version 5.0.1. and for the emulator we chose for the NEXUS 6 -because it seemed to be a smaller item and that might run faster…
You can download the latest issue on the Blaise Pascal site.
There are two hard things about computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors. That little witticism is true of computer science, and my Top 11 list of Programmers post.
If you Google that quote you may see where Martin Fowler attributed it originally to Phil Karlton of Netscape fame. Jeff Atwood also tweeted it, and Tim Bray confirmed it was Karlton.
Here is part 1 of my supplemental list of great software developers. It is in no particular order, and is of no particular magnitude. It is rather arbitrary. Part art, part science, a lot like software development.
Let’s start with Martin Fowler. He is probably most known for his book on refactoring, which he co-wrote with Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, and Don Roberts. I don’t think they invented the idea of refactoring code: a controlled technique for improving the design of an existing code base. But that book really did a lot to promote the idea or refactoring and testing, and also to define related concepts, including the code smells that suggest a refactoring may be necessary. There have been a lot of books on refactoring since then, but this is still the authoritative tome in my mind. Fowler is also a proponent of software design and agile methodology. He was one of the original “signers” of the Agile Manifesto.
How in the world did I miss Alan Turing in my first list? Clearly an oversight on my part. While Ada Lovelace was the first Computer Programmer, Turing was the first Computer Scientist. He’s design of a “universal computing machine” became known as a “Turing machine” and is the fundamental basis for computers today. It lead to the idea of a programming language being “Turing complete” as being theoretically capable of expressing all tasks accomplishable by computers. His name was also lent to the “Turing test” which invented as a way to test machines that exhibit intelligent behavior.
One of Turing’s greatest contributions was one that he was not known for because it was kept secret. He was instrumental in the cryptanalysis of the Enigma cipher during World War II. This is a photo of me using an actual Enigma machine at the NSA museum in Maryland, USA.
Would you like to play a game? Chances are you are familiar with Carmack’s work in game development. He was the lead programmer for id software’s Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, Rage and their sequels. Currently he is the CTO for Oculus VR, Inc., the folks that are making the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality headset.
Carmack was originally attributed with coming up with the Fast Inverse Square Root, a piece of mathematical black magic to approximate an inverse square of a 32-bit integer 4 times faster than using floating point math. While that one turned out to originate elsewhere, he is responsible for a number of innovative technologies that are common in many games.
Shannon was more of a mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer, but he is also the father of information theory, which has a huge impact on computer science. He met turing in 1943, and discussed his Universal Turing machine as many of its ideas complimented Shannon’s own.
Shannon had many inventions and contributions, but possibly one of his greatest is the Ultimate Machine: A simple box with a single switch. When the switch is flipped, the box opens and a finger reaches out to flip the switch back, retracting the finger and flipping the switch back. Although the flame-throwing trumpet is a close second.
Shannon also co-invented the wearable computer and used it to make a fortune counting cards in Las Vegas. His technique inspired the book Bringing Down the House and the movie 21. He later applied the same technique to the stock market with even better results. Shannon is one of those people that the more you learn about the more he sounds like a myth or a legend.
This isn’t a complete list. I’ve got more to cover, but this is enough for now . . .
Samuel “Muka” David is a Certified Delphi Developer since version 7 and a Certified Delphi Master Instructor. He specializes in software construction and building components. He loves Object Oriented development and is addicted to refactoring and agile techniques. He is always in search of perfect technique, following development teachers to acquire more knowledge in the art of programming. Delphi official instructor in RS by Aquasoft. Speaker at numbers Delphi Conference and one of Delphi Users Group coordinators of Rio Grande do Sul (DUG-RS). Also a lead instructor for the Extreme Delphi events all over Brazil.
I’ve met Samuel 3 times while visiting for the annual developer conference in Brazil. One thing he does to make things memorable is creating his talk around a move theme or some other external influence. In 2014 he was dressed as a Ghostbuster and did Bug Busters. Here is picture I got with him, Marco Cantu and my flaming hair.
He also creates matching promotional posters for the conference . . .
Not only is he a master Delphi developer, he is also a master with Photoshop, creativity and costume design. He makes all his outfits himself, including the cool Delphi helmet patch on his shoulder above. Here he is dressed as Indiana Jones in 2013.
If you live near Brazil then I encourage to to plan on attending the 2016 Embarcadero Conference there. Not only will it be filled with great developer technical content, but you’ll get to meet all the great Brazilian MVPs and see what Samuel is dressed as this year.
In 2015 he was dressed as a member of the Elite Squad, although he isn’t wearing his beret in the picture above.
The next contender in our cool app contest is SUMOTORI DE CHU.
Are you fond of wrestling, sumo or other fighting games? You should surely try SUMOTORI DE CHU app. Inspired by Japanese national sport SUMO; it is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring. It is an amazing minimalistic network game for two players.
It uses Wifi to synchronize the position, score and sound on a local network. Users can update their player image by taking snaps from their camera which will automatically get updated in the other player profile as well. Players can control the motion by tilting their device in the intended direction. This unique game also senses the physical motion of the user and this makes it able to control the motion in the game by those physical movements.
It is not just tilting the mobile device that makes the wrestler movie, but for acceleration you need to make big movements. The simplicity, physical involvement and the realistic touch to this game makes it a great contender for the cool app contest.
This game is designed using Delphi and it is aimed for iOS and Android devices. It used some of the best Embarcadero product features such as FMX Application Platform, App Tethering, Box2D, Sensor manager for the gyroscope, Motion sensor for the accelerometer, component Camera (accessed through an action), and JSON. To enable running simultaneous audio files it uses free Game Audio Manager Class provided by FMXexpress.com.
Watch the video to understand the basic features and use of this cool app.
