After a year off from BorCon, I'll be back this year again. I'll be presenting a couple of topics: "Win32 WebServices" and "Multi-tier Applications in .NET for Delphi Programmers". The "Win32 WebServices" talk will focus on using and writing web services with Delphi 7. The Multi-tier talk will cover how to create a multi-tier application in .NET. There will be some analogies between DataSnap and ADO.NET, with a dash of Remoting how-to.
Please feel free to email me or leave comments if there are aspects of these topics that you would like to see covered. Hope to see you there!

Steve Trefethen is at it again! Now that you're using IndexServer to index your PAS files, check out his sample to search through the IndexServer catalogs. Searches are now lightning fast!

One tidbit: using the Windows Search dialog, it does not appear that you get the option to search through a catalog (hence the creation of this tool). If you setup your catalog to contain c:\program files\borland\delphi7\source as one of the directories, you get very fast search times if you specify that directory in the Search dialog. If you search from c:\, the search still takes a loooong time to execute. So, either you need to scope your searches, or download Steve's tool (with source) to search based on catalogs. Be sure to pay attention and setup a proper catalog structure!

For those that know me (or those that read about me), you know I like to play a little GoldenTee. What does this have to do with this blog, you might ask. Well, good question. Rather than spamming the remaining people in my address book , I decided to post this publicly. I'll be playing in a GoldenTee tournament on June 5th and 6th. The big twist on this tournament though is that this is the Player's Charity Championship. Much like other fund-raisers where you get people to sponsor you by pledging x cents per lap walked (or mile biked, or whatever), this tournament is set up where you can pledge x cents (or dollars!) per stroke under par that I shoot during the 3 qualifying rounds. While I'm sure to regret posting this publicly, I typically shoot 50-60 or so under par for 3 rounds. Rest assured, I am practicing my butt off so I can maximize the donation! Things have gone really well for this event so far. In fact, we now have committed to sponsoring 2 kids' wishes through Make A Wish. If things keep going this well, we will get to sponsor more kids. Here is the info on the 2 kids we have committed to so far:

Hollis is a 10-year girl living in the northern suburbs of Chicago, not far from Splinters, the site of the 

Players Charity Championship. Hollis's favorite hobby is playing sports, pretty much any and all sports. But she especially
loves to swim...Only she doesn't want to swim alone. Hollis has it in her mind that she would like to swim with dolphins. 
She is crazy about dolphins.

Hollis has a disease called Acute Lymphocytic Luekemia (ALL). This is the most common form of Leukemia for children. ALL 
is responsible for 80% of all children with Leukemia. 

Hollis and her family leave for Hawaii in May. We should have pictures from the trip at the PCC.

And I always said this is only a video game. Silly me.  

Meet Little Joe. He's only 4 years old. He also has ALL, the most common form of Leukemia in children. 
But Joe has other issues right now.

Seems that he has a playmate who has quite an outdoor swingset set-up. It has slides and tunnels and all the 
cool stuff that any mega-swingset should have. Joe and his little brother have gotten to play on the contraption 
a couple of times...And they fell in love with it!

Problems is: Joe and his brother only get to play on the set-up every now and then. Going back home after spending 
a day playing on that set-up has got to be a bummer.

If Joe had a wish, it would be to have his own swingset playground in his own backyard, so he could play on it 
whenever he wanted to. Luckily, Joe has two things going for him. First, he does have a 
Wish....and second....he's got you.

Oh yeah...as of Monday, he's also got a swingset on order set to arrive at the end of May. Unfortunately, 
he won't be able to attend our tournament the first week of June. He and his brother have other plans 
for that weekend.  

I should have some pictures at the PCC.

I don't know about you, but just thinking about what these kids (and their families) must be going through tears me up. I hope you can find a way to pitch in and help. It's quick and painless. Just go here, and fill in the form with your pledge amount (per stroke). Everything gets taken care of automatically. The amount you end up pledging is 100% tax-deductible, too. I can't thank you enough for helping out. If you have any questions, please email me. Oh, and I promise not to abuse my blog again like this until next year's 2nd Annual Player's Charity Championship.

Some people emailed me to let me know that they were having problems downloading the files. Not sure how the problem came up, but it is fixed. The released projects have been updated on the DelphiVNC project. Since it's a SourceForge project, you can always get the latest files from CVS. Instructions for this specific project can be found here.

This is a nice example of using Delphi 8's new class operators. It converts temps between units easily.

Borland has posted an updated license for Delphi 8. This new license explicitly allows the Borland.Delphi.dll assembly to be redistributed, which is especially important to component developers.

Marc Rohloff posted a pretty nice list copmaring and contrasting Delphi and C#. Feel free to add comments on other things here. I'll keep a running list going here.

Features C# has that Delphi doesn't
===================================
1) foreach
2) operators using, lock, checked and unchecked
3) block scoped variables
4) case statements with strings
5) assembly internal classes
6) namespaces can span code units
7) implicit array dimensioning: int[] a = new int{1,2,3};
8) ternary operator ( ? : )
9) can use classes from namespaces without importing the whole namespace
10) circular references are possible
11) try..catch..finally
12) assignment operators (+=, ++, -=, etc)
13) multi-file assemblies
14) You don't need to distribute Borland.Delphi.dll
15) Compiler warnings can be emitted if you omit XML documentation

Features Delphi has that C# doesn't
===================================
1) sub-range types
2) enums and sets are first-class types
3) class type support
4) virtual constructors
5) virtual class methods
6) nested procedures
7) non-default index properties
8) can defines constant arrays and records
9) resourcestring s
10) default parameters
11) variants
12) arrays with non-integral subscripts
13) sets with more than 64 elements
14) message handlers
15) unions (variant records)
16) untyped parameters
17) const parameters
18) class helpers 
19) smart linker 
20) named constructors 
21) array properties 
22) unmanaged exports 
23) super fast single pass compiler, compiling any project faster than C#, using less memory at the same time.

Edited to bring the comments up to the main page. Thanks for the input everyone!

This messsage is from Andrew Conrad, on the ObjectSpaces team:

ObjectSpaces is not participating in Whidbey beta 1, however, it remains 
part of the Whidbey/Yukon wave and will be made available as a downloadable 
add-on pack for the .NET Framework Whidbey shortly after Whidbey ships. 
This additional development and stabilization period will be focused on 
improving the overall ObjectSpaces programming experience and providing 
tighter integration with WinFS, the next generation file system in 
Longhorn. The schedule for the ObjectSpaces mapping tool is also being 
adjusted accordingly.

So not only is Whidbey being delayed, but now ObjectSpaces is delayed beyond that delay. While I like the promise of OS, I think it's time to do some in-depth digging for code that can do more than OS can - and can do it today.

I've seen some people bemoaning the "lack of innovation" from Borland. That got me thinking a bit, and that's never a good thing.

The main argument people seem to make when arguing "lack of innovation" is something along the lines of "Delphi 7 isn't anything more than Delphi 6 with a bunch of 3rd party software packed with it" or "Even the MDA work Borland is doing was done via acquisition". While this is provably false, even if it were true, I don't see the problem. If a company looks at the develop vs. acquire decision (a logical extension to the build vs. buy decision) and comes to the conclusion that it is more cost-effective to acquire, then it is the smart thing to do. By recognizing that you are finite, and allocating your resources accordingly, you make wise business choices. To develop technology yourself despite a cost-effective alternative is nothing more than pride to the point of hubris.

Secondly, if one company - be it Borland of Microsoft - continually adds features to their product that are addressed by existing third parties, then they will cause a collapse in the third party market. After all, why should a third party innovate when they know that a company with deeper pockets will just come along and implement the same thing in their core product (more on this later). In addition, the same people that argue that Borland has just been acquiring technology argue that Borland should reinvent that exact same technology and bundle it into the core product. So they are effectively advocating that one company should address all needs for all developers. I would rather have choice and competition in the market to spur the industry to greater heights. Besides, making both of the first two arguments in the same post is illogical. Either you think a company should innovate everything, or it should innovate nothing. If you argue in between, then you are just arguing with which things got bundled in.

Lastly, innovation is only innovation in the short-term. In the long-term, the first product to market rarely gets a stranglehold on the market no matter how good it is. For examples look at Macintosh, IBM DOS, MIDAS, and countless other technologies. They were ahead of their time, but were not immediately accepted. Instead, they served as the thing that others wanted to "emulate". After the innovation had time to mature, another company came along and "borrowed" from that innovation. Typically, people who pish-poshed a technology (e.g. Delphi or MIDAS), come around and extoll the virtues of the new technology (e.g. .NET FCL or ADO.NET). So it isn't as much about innovation as it is about marketing or brand allegiance.

Interview with Clippy is a hilarious read. Great satire.