From the Trenches
Directions / Commentary
The Joy of Demos
Live technology previews — or “demos” as they’re commonly known — are typically nothing more than a façade, cobbled together to chug along on the inside, while giving the appearance of grandeur on the outside. Demos are loathed by developers because of the extra work required to simply meet an “artificial” milestone. To make matters worse, a demo is never accounted for in the schedule, forcing the developer to make up the time somehow.
Of course, demos have their merits. Management can get a product in front of a user and start to solicit feedback early in the development process. This lowers development costs and keeps the product’s features closer to user expectations. It can also provide positive reinforcement that a course is worth pursuing.
Which takes us to the recent Borland/Inprise conference, held the third week of August, in Denver Colorado. In front of nearly 3,000 people, Chuck Jazdzewski, Delphi’s principal architect, demonstrated a pre-release Delphi compiler that produced Java byte code. The result was a thundering round of well-deserved applause.
The demonstration created a TDatabase component, and attached it to a JDBC datasource through a new TDatabase property. After flushing the sample out to loop through and display records, a replacement command-line compiler, dcc32j, was invoked to produce Java byte code. The intended use of this technology is to allow non-visual applications created in Delphi to run on any platform that has a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). It’s an interesting idea: Write your application server for a multi-tier solution in Delphi, and you can run the application server on another platform, e.g. a Sun box.
Although the demonstration was relatively simple, it illustrated Inprise’s commitment to create tools for developers that must provide solutions for multiple platforms. Granted, this feature won’t be on your desktop tomorrow; there’s plenty of work left, but the demonstration was impressive. All the more so considering the venue. How many times have you demonstrated a pre-release compiler to 3,000 people, including the international media? It must have been a serious temptation for Dilbert’s Dark Angel of Demos.
The demonstration drove home some additional points as well:
§ Inprise is at the forefront of interoperability, and is second-to-none in technical ability.
§ You can leverage your Delphi skills and experience to throw your pail and shovel into the Java sandbox.
§ The Delphi team has shown that a significant shift in the marketplace doesn’t mean the end of Delphi. In fact, as Delphi embraces these technologies and innovations, it gives developers a way to play in that arena quickly and easily. I’ll go out on a limb and state that Java won’t be the last innovation in our industry. It’s nice to know that Inprise has the ability to react when the industry changes.
Like every seasoned developer, your initial reaction is: “Fine. How does this help me today?” With Inprise giving you a sneak peek at tomorrow’s vision, you have a unique opportunity to prepare for that future. You’ll reap the rewards as you find each piece of software you write becoming available to a larger segment of the computer population.
Who knows where the Delphi compiler will go next? More and more people are asking for things like Delphi/Linux and Delphi/Windows CE. While this technology preview is a far cry from implementing these products, it shows that Inprise could provide these tools if the market demanded.
Advances like MIDAS client for Java further strengthen Inprise’s commitment to get “Any Data. Any Time. Anywhere.” It looks like it’s not just a slogan at Inprise — it’s a way of life.
Dan Miser is a Design Architect for Stratagem, a consulting company in Milwaukee. He has been a Borland Certified Client/Server Developer since 1996, and is a frequent contributor to Delphi Informant. You can contact him at http://www.execpc.com/~dmiser.
Mr Miser discusses “demos,” using Inprise’s demo of a pre-release Delphi compiler that produced Java bytecode as an example.
Mr Miser discusses a Delphi demo.