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Debugging Initialization and Finalization sections

  There was a discussion on the ADUG list recently about Initialization sections. During the discussion I mentioned a technique for stepping through all the Initialization and Finalization sections in your project.   Afterward, I got a few emails from people saying they had not heard of it before, so I thought I’d do up a [...]

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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

• You may have thought that Spain won the world cup, but according to sitepoint.com, it was the JQuery: Novice to Ninja ebook. Go here to grab it quickly, as the 24 hours started some time back and I’m not sure when it expires. #
• I’ve been watching two lectures from UC Berkeley’s CS61A course, on MapReduce in general and (in the second lecture) Hadoop specifically. If you’re looking for a good, deep kick-starter on both the concepts and the implementation, I’d recommend them. They’re a little dry (hey, they are university CS lectures), and you’ll need to focus on them as they move relatively quickly, but they reward the concentration with, I think, a really good launching point for playing with Hadoop. The lectures are up on YouTube here and here, but note there is a download link so you can watch them offline. #
• The C++Builder Developer's Journal have made their latest issue free and open to everyone to download. It focuses on more recent features that maybe people haven't had time to play with, and includes articles on Datasnap 2010 by Bob Swart, Unicode migration by Josh Kelley, changing the default C++Builder directory by Curtis Krauskopf, multi-touch by ByeongCheol Nam and Ki-Tae Bae, and porting from BCB6 to CB2010 by Curtis Krauskopf The CDJ guys put a significant amount of work into each issue, so if any of the above grab your interest please go and show your support by downloading the issue. You can find it here http://bcbjournal.org/?loc=special or here http://cc.embarcadero.com/item/27769 #
• Glenn Crouch from ESB Consultancy just posted about this on the ADUG list. It’s basically a “deal of the day”-type site for Delphi-related tools and components. Right at the moment it has LMD DockingPack at 50% off (for the next few hours anyway). Seems to have a few different vendors promoting their products on it. Worth keeping an eye on I think.  #
• The new features in Google Docs look quite interesting. The real-time collaboration pieces look similar to Wave but will probably come with less head-scratching about what to use them for. Were these done in parallel, or should we now assume Wave was just a research project and pieces of it spin off into their real public homes? The new spreadsheet also seems to address some of the things I missed when I first played with it. #
• Quite interested in this. Somehow doubt I’ll keep to the timeline, nor learn them in any serious depth, but as a tasting platter of a bunch of languages from different families I am considering it. Not sure of the whole beta book thing though. Guess it depends on just how “beta” the content is that they release. #
• There have been some exec changes at Telstra, including the announcement of Kate McKenzie as CMO. Nothing unusual, or terribly noteworthy about that, but I was struck by one sentence in the announcement, regarding the new CMO appointment: "For the first time, Telstra's product developers will be brought together with those people responsible for the strategy, pricing, promotion and market analysis of those products." Read that a couple of times. Essentially, for the first time in Telstra’s history, those responsible for product strategy will be working with those responsible for product delivery! Strategy and implementation talking to each other? No good can come of this! Does beg the question, though, what happened before this? Don’t misunderstand, I’m not shocked that this is true. I suspect it’s true at lots of companies. What shocks me is their honesty, even if it might have been unintentional. #
• 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 #