Computer Language/Compiler Development

In addition to everything else I have going on my life, I am a full time student.

I have to write a research paper on the basics of computer language development.

I am required to do a survey as part of this class.

If any of you would be so kind, would you please take my survey.

Update: Thank you for those that helped.

Delphi Live RTTI Session

For those that attended my session, and any others who may ask.

The source code and the 3 slides from my RTTI session are on my SVN Repository.

DelphiLive Pictures

I uploaded several raw pictures of DelphiLive. I will be uploading more to the same location later. Hopefully some from the What is cooking in the Labs session.

Slide Show below...

BDE to DBX

Well I have finished my session on converting BDE to DBX.

My slides and code are available in SVN at my Google Code Site

The BDEtoDBXDataPump was a quick and dirty application but it should work, let
me know if you have a problem and I will update the code in SVN.

The ComponentConverter will convert TQuery and TTable to TdbxQuery components.
It will also convert TDatabase to TSqlConnection, and few other things to help in the conversion, such as removing the BDE Units and adding in the DBX units.

DelphiLive - Where is Delphi Going?

Here is the disclaimer I have done my best to get my notes correct, but I may have missed something, slides go by sometimes too fast for those transcribed what is seen and heard.

Here are some of my raw notes from the first two sessions:

Four Delphi Projects going on at the same time.

• Project Weaver
  
• Main Themes
  
• User Experience
  
• Enhance Connectivity
  
• Documentation
  
• IDE usability
  
• Team Productivity
  
• Touch
  
• IDE – Insight (easy Keyboard access to almost everything)
  
• Improvements to DataSnap
  
• Firebird Support
  
• .NET AOP
  
• SCM Support
  
• Enhanced RTTI Support
  
• Attribute Support
  
• Seamless .NET <> Native communication
  
• Windows 7 APIs and Direct 2D
  
• Full Support of SOAP 1.2 Clients
  
• Project X
  
• Cross-platform Windows, Mac OS, and Linux
  
• Cross-platform component library
  
• DataSnap on all platforms
  
• Project Chromium, Quality, Quality
  
• Quality, Quality, Quality
  
• Pascal Code Formatter
  
• Documentation of the OTA
  
• New Data binding model allowing binding to almost any property on a control
  
• More integration with the database tools.
  
• Project Commodore
  
• 64 Bit native
  
• Full compiler, RTL and VCL support for 64 native
  
• Multi-Core. Multi-threaded applications.

Sure it's not much more than a bullet point list... But several of the items are very intresting. The order is not defined... Other than Weaver is expected next.

I am sure more details will be coming from the Labs sessions.

We did see a really cool Touch Demo!

DelphiLive - Just getting started...

Well I am now sitting in Multithreading Master Class with Marco Cantu and Cary Jensen.

At the break I will be switching and sitting in on the Delphi DataSnap 2009 Deep Dive. I have considered using the new Datasnap more than once. However, I have always ended up switching to something else. I have explored the source, written several demo apps, and feel like I understand it, I am really looking to see another perspective.

On the plane flight out, I was thinking about all of the questions I might be asked during my BDE to DBX session.

One of the questions I realized I could be asked was... How do I convert paradox and/or another BDE database to a DBX supported Database.

There are several options, but I don't feel like there is a really, really easy way to do this.

So hopefully I can finish before my session tomorrow a BDE to DBX DataPump application.... But no commitments :-)

Finalizing DelphiLive Material

Well today I am putting the finishing touches on my DelphiLive presentations.

I will be presenting:

• Power of the RTTI In Delphi
• Moving from BDE to DBX

I have this love hate relationship with PowerPoint, sometimes I find its the best way to communication information. However as soon as things get technical I really dislike seeing a bunch of code on slides.

In My Power of the RTTI in Delphi Session I currently I have grand total of 3 Slides for this presentation the rest is code.

I will be covering:

• Interacting with Published Information
• Dynamic Method Invocation
• Dynamic Class Creation
• Ideas on how you might use it your applications.

In My BDE to DBX Session, I have several slides, but don't worry I have plenty of code and examples to show.

One of the things I like the best about this presentation won't come till near the end, but at the State of Utah we wrote a simple DFM parser and combined it with Martin Waldenburg Delphi Parser (TmwPasLex) and wrote a simple but effective conversion utility. It saved us tons of time when converting a BDE Application to DBX. The application we converted was not a simple demo program, It has 650+ DFMs. And several more units 500+ with no associated dfm. That does not count any third party code, or our own internally developed components.

I have updated the conversion utility to be slightly more generic as the original was specific to our needs. I will share that code with the attendees.

I hope to see you there!