Oregon Delphi User Group

Many times when people talk about open source, they talk about Linux or having to download source archives, read lengthy HOWTOs and follow cryptic installation instructions. And when people want really easy-to-install and user-friendly tools, they often look first to high-priced ones from big-name companies. But there are two nearly indispensible products that many Delphi developers use which are not only user-friendly and easy to install, but also completely free! The two products discussed tonight are InnoSetup and GExperts.

Given the fact that I don’t have time to put together another presentation and that people are probably tired of listening to me anyway, I’m just going to host a general question-and-answer period, a networking session if you will. We can combine that with attempts stump-the-programmer where anyone can give or take a challenge, man the keyboard and test their Delphi skills. I’ll bring my laptop with Delpi 6 Professional, Firebird, DBISAM, Access, and several third-party components including the TurboPower libraries, Rave Reports, Raize Controls 3, InfoPower 3000, Indy, CodeSite, WPTools, and some custom components I’ve developed.

This year’s Borland Conference was, as usual, packed full of information and previews. Diamondback and SDO were just two of the buzzwords used this year. This presentation will bring you up-to-date on the latest technology from the Borland world. Some specific items that will be presented include: DiamondBack (the next release of Delphi) hear about the new IDE and compiler features see Diamondback in action Is Kylix dead? The Borland Roadmap and SDO PRESENTER Phyllis Helton is the Information Services Manager, Analyst, Designer and Lead Developer for The JESUS Film Project where she has been programming for the past 10 years.

Come see the Ultimate Delphi at your local user group and learn everything about Delphi 2005 for .NET, Win32 and C#, including but not limited to, refactoring, unit testing, Enterprise Core Objects II, etc, etc. The list of incredibly cool stuff in this feature packed release just goes on and on. You don’t want to miss this chance to see it all, and be able to win a copy, as well as getting a show special.

RemObjects SDK is the complete remoting solution for Delphi developers. It allows you to easily build multi-tier applications, publish server logic via SOAP or a custom binary protocol (even at the same time), or even access existing WebServices from your Delphi applications. RemObjects’ concept of Smart Services (services accessible at the same time using different message formats and/or network protocols) are designed to take remoting into the future by providing all of the benefits of exisiting Web Services, but eliminating their drawbacks, which include the notoriously slow and inefficient communication via SOAP, the complex setup issues involved with DCOM, etc.

Tonight’s topic title indicates getting out in the trenches of Delphi development–and that’s exactly where we’ll be. David Cornelius will share his experience of working on a project that has several interesting aspects. The application utilizes TurboPower’s Async Pro serial port communications library, takes a screen-shot of another application using Windows API calls, has custom-written components (both visual and non-visual), and uses some new features of the recently released Raize Components version 3.

This month, David Cornelius will explore several of the recently open sourced libraries previously sold commercially by TurboPower Software, one of the largest Delphi and C++Builder 3rd-party tools vendors over the last decade. Not all the libraries available can be adequately covered in one night. Therefore, we will look at the following code packages (descriptions taken from SourceForge.NET where these code libraries can be obtained): Abbrevia is a compression toolkit for Borland Delphi, C++Builder, & Kylix.

There is no formal presentation this month. David Cornelius will provide a laptop with Delphi 6 Professional and several 3rd-party components (including all the TurboPower open source libraries). If anyone has a small project or some questions about code or techniques, please bring your questions or a disk with code that we can load to share and discuss with any others that may attend.

Learn what’s new in the upcoming release of the Advantage Database v7.0 scheduled for Fall 2003. Highlighted features for ADS v7.0 included, Full-text Search and Triggers among many others. The Advantage Database Server is a scalable, high performance client/server RDBMS for networked, stand-alone, Internet and mobile database applications. The Advantage Database Server supports many development environments including Borland Delphi and C++ Builder. Advantage Database provides native connections for most developments environments, facilitating easy integration with new and existing applications.

Borland has announced C#Builder, an IDE for Microsoft’s .NET platform and the C# language. Even if you have no intention of using C# or .NET, you should pay attention to this product because it is a major milestone for Borland. Borland has created a new IDE core, which will be used in the next Delphi for Windows and Delphi for .NET products. Also of interest to Delphi programmers is a glimpse at Borland’s new strategic focus on Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM).