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Searching in Delphi Part 1 : Regular Expressions

Being able to find elements in your code quickly and easily is critical to being productive in any IDE. Spend too long looking for things and you start to lose your train of thought. Over the years Delphi has introduced lots of different ways to search your code, some of them simple text-based matching, [...]

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Storing code in a collection : TDictionary and Anonymous Methods

In my earlier post, I mentioned you could use the new generic collection classes in Delphi 2009 to store anonymous methods instead of data. I wanted to try this out so I came up with the scenario of implementing factory classes as an excuse to experiment. Factories can be a very useful way to centralise [...]

Asides

• Marco Cantù is presenting a webinar on building RESTful clients and servers in Delphi and RAD Studio, at the Asia-friendly time of 3pm AEDT on Thursday the 4th of March. More details here #
• Quite an interesting UX examination of the Family.Show WPF Sample App by David Platt. I especially liked his summary of his 3 Programming Principles: “Users don’t care about your program in and of itself. Never have, never will. Your mother might, because you wrote it and she loves you, and then again she might not; but no one else does.” #
• The C++Builder Developer’s Journal is a great magazine run by some really dedicated guys. I’ve been a subscriber for quite awhile and find it almost always has a couple of articles I’m interested in. They are very often applicable to Delphi as well. Anyway, the May 2010 issue will be an open one, meaning it will be freely available to anyone, not just subscribers. They are running a Call for Papers right now, so if you’ve had an idea for an article burning away in the back of your mind, or just like the idea of the fame and fortune that comes with being a published author (yes, I kept a straight face while typing that. Getting good at this, aren’t I?) go and check it out. #
• This is extremely interesting. It’s technology that uses a wifi signal to produce electricity. There are two places they are planning to use it so far: 1) a USB charger and 2) built into a battery itself. I assume the plan for the latter is to license it to manufacturers, but I’m interested in the former as well. Carry it around in your bag/pocket, anywhere it picks up a wifi signal it starts replenishing itself, when you’re phone/camera/whatever starts to run low, plug it in and charge it up. If they produce an iphone adapter, and succeed in getting this to market for $40, they’ll make a fortune. #
• Dodgy Y2K fix comes back to haunt us. Some sort of hex/bcd problem, maybe? Probably seemed like a cool hack at the time.  http://www.smh.com.au/business/welcome-to-2016-eftpos-glitch-spreads-20100105-lqus.html #
• Thought this might be of interest to others. I’ve been considering buying Designing Interfaces by Jennifer Tidwell, but some of the Amazon reviews left me unsure and Amazon’s “Look Inside” didn’t show me anything actually useful. Fortunately, I stumbled across the very book, as well as half a dozen others, available to read online here. #
• "As it is platform agnostic, Microsoft can..." Sorry...what??? When did that happen?  I’m guessing this is one of those subject/object quirks of the English language, otherwise I’ve just blacked out and missed an eventful few years.    Update: It seems I need to be more clear. I’m not critical of MS for having a platform bias. As a platform company, that sounds like a perfectly reasonable position to take. I’m just staggered that a journo could seriously suggest they’re not.  #
• Just an FYI, the Delphi/C++Builder 2010 Updates 4 and 5 are available. These are cumulative, so regardless of whether you installed Update 2, update 1, or nothing, you can install these. Read Me : http://dn.embarcadero.com/article/40174 Bug List : http://dn.embarcadero.com/article/40204 Install by running “Check for Updates” or downloading from the registered users page. #