The Podcast at Delphi.org

Delphi Bots Live!

Jim McKeeth — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:18:49 +0000

Tonight at Delphi Live! is my Delphi Bots Live session. In this session I will show everyone how to use Delphi Prism to create a virtual bot to do battle in the 3D Unreal Tournament 3 game. So bring your laptop this evening and join in the fun.

You will need:

Delphi Prism, the trial or the command-line compiler.
The VS2010 template, the VS2008 template, or the sample bot (use the sample bot with the command-line compiler.)
The Intro To Delphi Prism Bots guide (included with the templates or sample).
Your laptop!

You do not need Unreal Tournament 3 to play along, since I will be hosting it.

CodeRage 5 Call For Papers

Jim McKeeth — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:00:17 +0000

The call for papers for the 5th CodeRage virtual conference is out. Deadline for papers is August 17th, and the conference is scheduled for October 4th – 8th. It isn’t a hard and fast rule, but generally speaking CodeRage is pretty close to the release of the new version of Delphi, not that anyone will be surprised by that time frame.

My question is, do most people who attend CodeRage also attend EKON or Delphi Live!, or is it a different crowd? I ask if people will be offended if some of my sessions are recycled. . . . Although I am sure I will have something new too. It is all just too exciting to not put something new together.

43 – Simon Kissel

Jim McKeeth — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 06:59:49 +0000

In episode 43 I have a nice conversation with Simon Kissel about his projects:

Thanks to Simon for his time and my apologies to him and everyone else that this took a while to post.

Update: The links were broken due to server issues. They are working now. Simon reported over 1000 downloads of CrossKylix since the update.

Delphi Live! 2010

Jim McKeeth — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:36:47 +0000

Delphi Live! debuted in 2009, and it was a hit. So much so they are doing it again. Great line up of speakers.
I have 3 sessions planned for this year:

Silverlight in Delphi Prism – Both a half day workshop and a regular session
Delphi Bots Live! - Using Delphi Prism and Unreal Tournament to create bots to battle it out in 3D

I hope to see you all there August 23-26th down in San Jose, CA.

Also, EKON 14 has their speaker list up now too. They have sessions in both English and German. I will have 4 English sessions there:

Advanced Downloads – Great session on downloads and file transfers
Silverlight in Delphi Prism – Again with a half day workshop or regular session
Delphi Prism half day workshop

That is September 27th through 30th in Darmstadt, Germany.

I am sure I will see a few of you in both places, but it will be great to see you at whichever one is closer to you. I will be updating the titles and descriptions soon, and have some good preview information available for you as well.

42 – David I

Jim McKeeth — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:14:21 +0000

Today we talk with David I, chief Developer Evangelist and VP of Developer Relations from Embarcadero Technologies.

We talk about

DataRage 2
Delphi Application Showcase (Now with 75 applications!)
Embarcadero Developer Network
Delphi Roadmap
David I’s contact information:

Facebook
LinkedIn
831-431-5399

DataRage 2 starts TOMORROW!

Jim McKeeth — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:23:28 +0000

I planned to have David I’s interview posted over the weekend, but it might not be available until tomorrow. However I wanted to get a post in to let you know that tomorrow is the start of DataRage 2. If you are working with Databases then check it out. I am not presenting this year, but I am sure there is other good sessions.

41 – Primoz Gabrijelcic – OmniThreadLibrary

Jim McKeeth — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:05:16 +0000

Primoz is a long time Delphi developer as well as writer for The Delphi Magazine, Monitor and Blaise Pascal magazines. You may know him from his blog TheDelphiGeek.com or his OmniThreadLibrary for threading in Delphi. You can also find his articles at 17th Elephant and he is on Stack Overflow.

We discuss Delphi Mac support
Delphi Garbage Collection
64-Bit Delphi
The OmniThreadLibrary
and more!

40 – Nick Hodges – Part 1

Jim McKeeth — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:00:38 +0000

This is part 1 of my interview with Nick Hodges, the Delphi R&D Manager with Embarcadero. He was a good sport and answered all the questions, but I accidentally stopped recording part way through. He has already agreed to a second half.

In this episode we talk about :

And more.

Questions for Nick Hodges

Jim McKeeth — Wed, 05 May 2010 16:08:02 +0000

I need your questions for an upcoming interview with Nick Hodges, the Delphi & RAD Studio R&D Manager with Embarcadero Technologies. Leave them as a comment to this message and then listen to his answers in our next episode.

Comments closed in preparation for interview. Thanks to all who commented!

Openness vs. Freedom

Jim McKeeth — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 06:18:15 +0000

There has been a lot of f u s s lately about the lack of openness on apple’s platform. There is still time for things to change, and hopefully this ends as a win for developers and consumers, but unless Apple changes their tune there will be no winners, only losers.

The general consensus among the developers falls into two camps:

Apple should open their platform and let people develop however they want.
Objective-C and XCode is all roses, why use anything else?

Personally I fall in the first camp (which you probably guessed from my opening paragraph.) I think it would be great if Apple’s platforms were open and I could use most any tool as long as I called the correct API and use the right UI controls.

At the same time I disagree with those who believe laws should be passed, or lawyers retained to regulate how open Apple makes their platform, all in the name of freedom. I’ve got news for you, freedom means Apple can decide to not have an open platform.

I may disprove of Apple’s actions, but I will defend their right to do it. That is what is known as freedom, and I will not give up freedom for the benefit of openness. If I want openness to be an option in the future, then that means allowing Apple the freedom to have a closed platform today.

Giving up freedom for openness means loosing both.

Voltaire wrote “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too,” which Evelyn Beatrice Hall summarized as “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Ben Franklin said “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power,” which was later paraphrased as “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”

Seeking to take away Apple’s freedom for the sake of openness is to sacrifice the very freedom that allows others to make open platforms. So if we take away that freedom and we give up our freedom to be open.

I’ll just remind you of Hodges 1st Law before someone makes another car analogy, they don’t work anyway.