Latest News from Bob Swart

Update #1 for Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio 2010

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:27:25 EDT

Embarcadero has just released Update #1 for the Delphi 2010 and C++Builder 2010 personalities of RAD Studio 2010.

Delphi and RAD Studio 2010 Essentials on Nov 16-18, 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:43:40 EDT

From Monday, Nov 16nd until Wednesday Nov 184th, 2009, I'll also be in Stockholm, Sweden, for a 2.5-day RAD Studio 2010 Essentials seminar (spoken in English) covering Delphi topics like the IDE and Language enhancements (Generics, Anonymous Methods, Touch/Gesture), UNICODE, VCL Database Development (DBX4 and DataSnap), Web Development (IntraWeb, ASP.NET and AJAX), and XML, SOAP and Web Services. The .NET topics will be covered using Delphi Prism 2010.

Delphi 2010 Masterclass on Nov 2-4, 2009 in Helsinki, Finland

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:40:27 EDT

From Monday, Nov 2nd until Wednesday Nov 4th, 2009, I'll be in Helsinki, Finland, for a 2.5-day RAD Studio 2010 Essentials seminar (spoken in English) covering Delphi topics like the IDE and Language enhancements (Generics, Anonymous Methods, Touch/Gesture), UNICODE, VCL Database Development (DBX4 and DataSnap), Web Development (IntraWeb, ASP.NET and AJAX), and XML, SOAP and Web Services. The .NET topics will be covered using Delphi Prism 2010.

SDN Conference, October 19-20 2009 in The Netherlands

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:47:44 EDT

The SDN Conference 2009 will be held on October 19-20, 2009 in Papendal Arnhem, The Netherlands and contains 15 interesting Delphi sessions.

Synopsis and Slides from my CodeRage 4 session

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 03:25:06 EDT

You can now download the slides for my Smart Clients with Delphi and RemObjects SDK session from CodeRage 4, scheduled today from 8:00-8:45 (PDF), which is 17:00-17:45 (GMT+1, my time-zone).

My Delphi Events this week - all FREE

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 02:52:30 EDT

The week from 7-11 September 2009 is full with Delphi related technical events, including CodeRage 4 and my own free Delphi 2010 seminar in Helmond Brandevoort (The Netherlands) on September 11th. We start off tomorrow with CodeRage 4 - the 4-day FREE virtual conference with more than 90 technical sessions.

Delphi and RAD Studio 2010 launched

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:28:26 EDT

On Tuesday, August 25 2009, Embarcadero launched the 2010-editions of Delphi, C++Builder, Delphi Prism and RAD Studio.

Delphi 2009 Development Essentials Reviewed

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 16:00:00 EDT

Robert Meek has written a book review about my Delphi 2009 Development Essentials, which is sold as paperback from Lulu.com, or offered as free bonus for anyone who purchases Delphi or one or more courseware manuals in PDF format from me.

Help Update #3 for Delphi 2009

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:35:03 EDT

The Help Update 3 for C++Builder 2009, Delphi 2009 and (the C++Builder and Delphi for Win32 parts of) RAD Studio 2009 is now available for download.

Michael Li and Bob Swart at SDE on June 26th, 2009

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:51:24 EDT

Michael Li (with three sessions) and Bob Swart (with 1 session) will be the speakers for the Delphi track at the Software Development Event on June 26th 2009 in Houten, The Netherlands.

Buy Delphi 2009 Upgrade - get RAD Studio 2009 instead

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:40:57 EDT

Special Offer for June 2009: order Delphi 2009 Upgrade (Professional, Enterprise or Architect) and get a corresponding edition of RAD Studio 2009 instead! This means C++Builder 2009 and Delphi Prism 2009 for free.

Delphi 2009 and Delphi Prism Updates

Fri, 29 May 2009 02:15:24 EDT

Recently, both Delphi 2009 for Win32 and Delphi Prism 2009 for .NET have received updates: the Delphi Prism May 2009 release for .NET developers, and Update 3 (IDE/VCL/General), Update 4 (database) for Delphi 2009 developers, plus Update 3, Update 4 and a Boost update for C++Builder 2009 developers.

Call for Papers for SDN Conference 2009, 19-20 Oct in The Netherlands

Thu, 21 May 2009 11:42:13 EDT

The Software Development Network (SDN), has opened the call for speakers (deadline for proposals: June 14, 2009) for it’s 18th annual SDN Conference (SDC) to be held at the “Papendal” Convention Center in Arnhem in The Netherlands on October 19 & 20, 2009.

Free Blaise Pascal Magazine and 1-year subscription from Embarcadero

Wed, 20 May 2009 17:14:09 EDT

A special 100-page free issue of Blaise Pascal Magazine has been published and includes a free one-year subscription for registered users of Delphi 2009, C++Builder 2009, Delphi Prism 2009, CodeGear RAD Studio 2009 and/or Embarcadero All-Access.

Twittering eBob42...

Thu, 14 May 2009 02:01:28 EDT

It took a while, but I'm finally twittering too as ebob42.

The End of an Era

Fri, 08 May 2009 02:21:19 EDT

As most of you may have read by now: Borland will be bought by MicroFocus for 50 million pounds, which may also mean the end of (the use of) the name Borland; truly the end of an era.

Project CrossTalk

Mon, 04 May 2009 17:30:33 EDT

Check out this recent announcement of something that will be very interesting for Delphi developers: Project CrossTalk - a project for Delphi that allows native Delphi code to consume .NET code in a very transparent way, very much like referencing a package.

Delphi 2009 Implicit String Conversion Penalties

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:25:00 EDT

Delphi 2009 Implicit String Conversion Penalties

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:30:00 EDT

When migrating existing source code from previous versions of Delphi to Delphi 2009, you may encounter warnings about implicit conversions from AnsiString to Unicode Strings or vice versa (the other way may also have a potential data loss) and while it's easy to ignore these warnings, ignorance comes with a price! The particular real-world example I want to talk about in this post comes from a third-party library (who shall remain nameless) compatible with different versions of Delphi, including Delphi 2009.

LinkedIn Group for IntraWeb Developers

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:28:51 EDT

I've created a public LinkedIn group for IntraWeb Developers using Delphi or C++Builder.

Help Update 2 for Delphi 2009

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:46:40 EDT

The English Help Update 2 for C++Builder 2009, Delphi 2009 and (the C++Builder and Delphi for Win32 parts of) RAD Studio 2009 is now available for download.

Delphi 2009 behavioural change of "Val"

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:37:23 EDT

During the recent migration of a large Delphi for Win32 project (which was started in Delphi 3, and migrated to 5, 7, and 2007 along the way) to Delphi 2009, I encountered some differences in behaviour which were - after some debugging time - ultimately tracked back to the System.Val routine.

Daniel Wischnewski as guest speaker at SDE

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:49:07 EDT

Daniel Wischnewski will be the guest speaker for the Delphi track at the SDE meeting of March 30th 2009 in The Netherlands.

Blaise Pascal Magazine issue #5

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 06:32:52 EDT

Blaise Pascal Magazine issue #5 is now released and available for download from http://www.blaisepascal.eu/.

Remote Desktop /admin Connection to VMWare at 1920x1200

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 10:56:51 EST

The Remote Desktop Connection Client 6.1 has been modified, enhanced, and causing me some grief (which I've been able to solve).

Delphi Prism and ASP.NET SOAP Web Services

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:35:59 EST

This weekend, I've published two new articles on building, deploying and consuming SOAP Web Services with Delphi Prism (using ASP.NET), showing also how to make asynchronous calls from Delphi Prism clients.

IntraWeb 10 keys for Delphi and C++Builder 2009

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:05:55 EST

Users of Delphi and C++Builder 2009 can finally request their key to install IntraWeb 10.x updates.

The Future of the Delphi Compiler

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:01:01 EST

Nick Hodges has just published an article with an overview on the status and future of the Delphi compiler.

Delphi Prism 2009 available for purchase

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:58:14 EST

For those of you who do not own RAD Studio 2009 (with or without subscription): you can now purchase just the Delphi Prism 2009 SKU - the plug-in for Visual Studio (Shell) to do .NET development. As a reseller for CodeGear in the BeNeLux, I offer Delphi Prism 2009 Professional for 499 Euro and the Enterprise edition for 1399 Euro.

Help Update 1 for Delphi and C++Builder 2009

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 02:46:13 EST

Help Update 1 for RAD Studio, Delphi and C++Builder 2009 is now available for download from the Registered User Downloads, with more details in the Release Notes.

Unicode tip #11 - Stringchecks Off

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:21:55 EST

A final Unicode tip concerns the compatibility of UnicodeStrings between Delphi and C++Builder. The UnicodeString in Delphi can containUnicode or ANSI data at any given time, and in order to ensure that C++Builder code can correctly index the items, a hidden call to UniqueStringX is being made.

Unicode tip #10 - ANSI vs. Unicode UpperCase

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:55:29 EST

There's an overloaded version of function UpperCase in the SysUtils unit as well as the AnsiStrings unit.

Delphi 2009 Essentials in Stockholm, Sweden

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:46:29 EST

From Monday, Feb 23rd until Wednesday Feb 25th, 2008, I'll be in Stockholm, Sweden, for another 3-day RAD Studio 2009 Essentials seminar (spoken in English) covering Delphi topics like the IDE and Language enhancements (Generics, Anonymous Methods), UNICODE, VCL Database Development (DBX4 and DataSnap), Web Development (IntraWeb, ASP.NET 2.0 and AJAX), and XML, SOAP and Web Services. The .NET topics will be covered using Delphi Prism.

Unicode tip #9 - Console Output

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:29:22 EST

First the bad news: console I/O does not support reading (UTF-16) Unicode strings, and writing only suports AnsiStrings.

My CodeRage III session replays

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:58:54 EST

Apart from the source code for my CodeRage III sessions, you can now also view the replays from my own server (100 Mbps fibre-optic connection).

Unicode tip #8 - Integer and Float To AnsiString

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:24:36 EST

SysUtils defines the well-known IntToStr and FloatToStr, which return a Unicode String - but not an AnsiString.

Unicode tip #7 - Unicode Text File Output

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:18:07 EST

The TextFile of Delphi 2009 can only write AnsiStrings and not Unicode Strings, which means we can only write ANSI data to text files, right? Wrong! Since UTF8Strings are also (special) AnsiStrings, we can still write Unicode data to text files, provided we convert the Unicode String to a UTF8String (with no data loss) before writing to the file.

Delphi 2009 Generics and Anonymous Methods

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:02:06 EST

Delphi 2009 introduces Generics and Anonymous Methods for Win32, and I've written some examples that not only demonstrate how to use Generics (specifically Generic Methods) and Anonymous Methods these features separately, but also how we can combine Generics and Anonymous Methods in a useful way.

Unicode tip #6 - Character Literals

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:38:28 EST

Character literals between #128 and #255 – the so-called high ASCII values – have a specific value depending on the ANSI code page.

CodeGear RAD Studio 2009 Trial with Delphi Prism ISO

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:38:13 EST

You can now download the CodeGear RAD Studio 2009 Trial with Delphi Prism ISO (at 1.4 GB), and request a trial key, in order to install a 14-day trial edition of the Delphi Prism portion of RAD Studio 2009 (or, if you already have a real key for RAD Studio 2009 or Delphi Prism 2009, you can use that key to install the full non-expiring version of Delphi Prism).

Blaise Pascal Magazine issue #4

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:07:38 EST

Blaise Pascal Magazine issue #4 is now released and available for download from http://www.blaisepascal.eu/.

RAD Studio 2009 subscription e-mails

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 02:56:36 EST

RAD Studio 2009 pre-orders started last week (when the pricing was announced - see www.bobswart.nl for BeNeLux prices), but although no actual boxes have shipped yet, last night the subscription e-mails have been sent (and received) for the ESD (Electronic Software Delivery) upgrades to RAD Studio 2009, which includes Delphi Prism.

Unicode tip #5 - FillChar and Fill/ZeroMemory

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:47:36 EST

The FillChar routine fills a string or buffer with bytes, which means that we need to multiply the length of the string with the size of the string elements in order to fill the complete size of the string.

Free Delphi Prism Seminar in Helmond, The Netherlands

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 08:03:12 EST

Thursday, December 4th is your chance to attend a free Delphi Prism seminar in Helmond Brandevoort (NL) from 13:00 until 17:00.

Unicode tip #4 - Using and Extending TCharacter with IsVowel

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:34:50 EST

A helpful Unicode support class in Delphi 2009 is the TCharacter class, which is a sealed class which only consists of static class functions to check whether a character is a Digit, a Letter, etc.

Delphi 2009 Development Essentials published

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 14:16:37 EST

I just published Delphi 2009 Development Essentials on Lulu.com as paperback (24 Euro) or PDF download (16 Euro) as a 127 page A4-size book (38,638 words) that covers the new IDE, Compiler, Language, RTL/VCL and Unicode features in Delphi 2009.

Unicode tip #3 - UTF-16 Number of Printable Characters

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:14:10 EST

The number of elements of a string can be retrieved by calling the Length function.

Unicode tip #2 - UTF-16 Surrogate Characters

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 06:35:24 EST

Although UTF-16 characters are simple WideChar characters, there are also surrogate characters (also WideChar items) that are used to produce a special Unicode character on a different plane than the default plane 0.

Unicode tip #1 - don't forget the font

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:58:32 EST

Delphi 2009 adds Unicode support to our developer toolbox, which enables us to express written languages but also Klingon or musical notes.

Paperbacks on Lulu but PDF directly from me

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:33:17 EST

Some people have noticed that my recent Delphi courseware manual titles can still be purchased in printed paperback format from Lulu.com, but PDF downloads are only available directly from me.