Oregon Delphi User Group

Spring4D is an open-source code library for Delphi 2010 and higher. It consists of a number of different modules that contain a base class library (common types, interface based collection types, reflection extensions) and a dependency injection framework. We will go over the basics, covering the most useful parts with the broadest appeal, especially concentrating on lists and all the cool things you can do with them. A discussion about the main reason Spring4D came into existence, Inversion of Control, and what Dependency Injection really means will also be addressed.

One of our members has been diving into the FireMonkey framework and has written his first Android app. This is not a formal presentation–he will simply share some of the journey he undertook as he used FireMonkey and REST services in both a Windows and an Android app to control home automation devices with Delphi XE7. PRESENTER Mike Shkolnik is a Project Manager in the Portland area and while he’s been “using Delphi since it was Turbo Pascal on a CP/M card in an Apple II,” he is completely self-taught and does not consider himself an expert.

Many Delphi developers have not upgraded in quite some time. Some say Delphi 7 was the last great IDE, others got up to Delphi 2007 but never jumped into Unicode. There were some great language enhancements in Delphi 2010, but then the XE line started and the update rate increased dramatically adding 64-bit, FireMonkey, FireDAC, add-on tools, cross-platform capabilities, REST and JSON support, and many other things. For some, the updates were considered little more than paid bug fixes.

Recently, the OCCA’s monthly meeting was on My Favorite App. It was a roaring success and sounded like a good idea for this group. So this month, our topic will be on a similar vein, but with a focus on developer tools. This will be an open forum led by David Cornelius but with the hope that each attendee will have something to share. To help generate some ideas, tools could cover (but are not limited to): source control, code compare, deployment management, script editors, macro libraries, search tips, programming aids, keyboard short-cuts, IDE plugins, or database analyzers.

In March, we introduced the concept of Shared Projects using Oxygene, a Pascal compiler that works inside Visual Studio and generates applications for all the major platforms–including Windows Phone. This month, we’ll continue that exploration by branching away from the Windows desktop and take a look at how the same shared classes we used previously can also help us build ASP.NET web sites and Android apps. CODE The code for everything demonstrated during both parts of this presentation is on GitHub.

There is no formal presentation for this meeting. We will meet as friends in the programming industry and talk about whatever geeks will tend to discuss when they get together!

A little over a year ago, we discussed one application in several different languages covering Delphi, C#, Oxygene and even JavaScript. It’s very unusual that a company would want to do this in real life given they’d have to support several different languages, but it made for some interesting discussions and comparisons. Usually, a company attempts to minimize the number of supported environments to prevent fractured development teams and keep support costs down.

There is no formal presentation for this meeting. We will meet as friends in the programming industry and talk about whatever geeks will tend to discuss when they get together!

There is no formal presentation for this meeting. We will meet as friends in the programming industry and talk about whatever geeks will tend to discuss when they get together!

Are you yearning for capabilities or libraries that you see available for .NET but have a solid Delphi application that you don’t want to throw away? Would you like to start a new .NET application and utilize large sections of code or a third-party library you have in Delphi? Or what if you just want to add a plug-in architecture to your application (either .NET or Delphi) that allows for the eventual possibility of incorporating the other environment?