Learn any of these 16 programming languages and you’ll always have a job

Posted on January 27, 2016 by TDUG Administrator

Delphi is one of them

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TDUG meeting – Tuesday, January 19th

Posted on January 13, 2016 by bmcgee

Happy new year!

Our first speaker for 2016 will be Wayne Niddery, our resident Delphi guru and Team-B member for as long as I can remember.

Continuing with our ongoing theme of improving software development practices, Wayne will be talking about how he uses UML to create and flesh out object models. Not necessarily Delphi specific, but an absolutely essential skill for any software developer. A little but of forethought and common sense design up front can save all kinds of grief later on.

Don’t expect a highly theoretical discussion on UML. I think this is going to be a pragmatic, hands on approach with a heavy emphasis on getting things done from someone who has given the subject a lot of thought.

 

Tuesday, January 19th, 2016
North York Central Library – 5120 Yonge Street
6:00PM to 8:00PM

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November meeting follow-up

Posted on November 24, 2015 by bmcgee

As promised, we did a review of some of the static code analysis tools from last month:

Roman Yankovsky from SourceOddity was kind enough to donate a FixInsight license. Rick Scheibl was our lucky winner.

The topic for November was about automating builds. It was a good meeting that covered a lot of different topics. Some of them were even related to the subject at hand. 🙂

Here are some relevant links:

We will be taking a break in December for the holidays. Our next meeting will be Tuesday, Jan 19th, 2016 at the North York Central Library. We will send out a reminder ahead of time.

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Reminder of reminder for next meeting

Posted on November 17, 2015 by bmcgee

Hi guys,

I suffered from another copy/paste error in my last message. Our next meeting is in two days on November 19th.

Sorry about that. I’ll try to be more careful in the future.

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Reminder – Meeting Nov 19th at 6:00 PM

Posted on November 17, 2015 by bmcgee

The next user group meeting will be Thursday, November 19th at 6:00 PM at the North York Central Library.

We will be talking about automating the builds for your software projects; Why you should take the time and how to go about it. It’s more straightforward than you might think.

Thursday, November, 19
North York Central Library – 5120 Yonge Street
6:00PM to 8:00PM

 

 

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October meeting follow-up

Posted on November 9, 2015 by bmcgee

Idera buys Embarcadero:

In October, Idera announced that they were purchasing Embarcadero, which raises some questions about the future of Delphi. By all accounts, they intend to continue investing in my favourite development tools, and even strengthen that investment.

I look forward to hearing more.

Static code analysis:

Almost since there have been high level programming languages for developing software, we have had tools to check that software for correctness.

I believe code analysis tools are one of the cheapest and easiest ways to improve the quality of your code and avoid long term problems in your software before they even occur.

John Kaster once said that you should run these against your code before someone else does. I find them very useful in regular development and essential for evaluating projects that I am taking over.

Here are some of the ones we discussed:

  • The compiler’s own hints and warnings. This is your first line of defence. Ignore these at your own risk.
  • QA Audits and Metrics are also available out of the box. They could be easier to read, but they are comprehensive and worth taking a look.
  • CodeHealer from the CodeHealer Group takes a more minimalistic approach. This is one of my favourite tools because of how well it sniffs out legitimate and difficult to find problems. They currently have a steep discount available from CodeRage.
  • Pascal Analyzer from Peganza is the opposite of minimalistic, with comprehensive and detailed reports on all aspects of a software project. One really useful report lets you clean up uses clauses which helps reduce dependencies and improve build times. They have a free stand alone tool that does the same thing called ICARUS.
  • FixInsight from SourceOddity. This is a new tool that I have not had much experience with, but it looks very promising. The author has generously created a discount code just for us.  Use the code TDUG20 to get a 20% discount.

Future Meetings:

Our next meeting will be on Thursday, November 19th at the North York Central Library where we will continue the current series of presentations about software development best practices. We will send a reminder before the meeting with more details.

We will be taking a break in December for the holidays and start up again in January of 2016.

Please let us know your thoughts and what you would like to talk about.

Update:

I stand corrected. Apparently the audits and metrics built in to the IDE can be automated, at least in the Enterprise SKU. It was introduced in DElphi XE.

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TDUG Meeting Oct 13th between 6PM and 8PM – North York Central Library

Posted on October 8, 2015 by bmcgee

This meeting is a little earlier in the month than previous ones. This was because of room availability. Sorry for any inconvenience.

We will be talking about using code analysis tools to better understand your code as well as improve and maintain code quality over time. That should be a lively discussion.

In case you haven’t heard, Thomas Bravo has announced that they will be selling Embarcadero to Idera, another database tools company. We’ll take a little time to talk about this as well.

As always, bring your questions and comments.

Tuesday, October 13th, 2015
North York Central Library – 5120 Yonge Street
6:00PM to 8:00PM

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Reminder – Meeting Sept 22nd

Posted on September 21, 2015 by bmcgee

This is a reminder that our next user group meeting is Tuesday, Sept 22nd – 6:00 PM at the North York Central Library.

Warren is going to talk about the new Delphi 10 Seattle release and performance profiling.

We have some door prizes thanks to DevArt, Del123 and some swag from Embarcadero.

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015
North York Central Library – 5120 Yonge Street
6:00PM to 8:00PM

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TDUG Meeting Sept 22nd between 6PM and 8PM – North York Central Library

Posted on September 14, 2015 by bmcgee

Our next meeting will be at the North York Central Library on Yonge Street, north of Sheppard Avenue.

Warren Postma will give us a brief introduction to Embarcadero’s latest release – Delphi 10 Seattle, along with some changes to the subscription model.

Warren will also talk about performance profiling in your application. A subject that’s near and dear to anyone who has ever deployed any software to any user.

There will be a couple of door prizes and, as always, an informal get together afterwards for a drink and more conversation.

Please join us.

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015
North York Central Library – 5120 Yonge Street
6:00PM to 8:00PM

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WideOrbit is hiring in Toronto again

Posted on August 19, 2015 by bmcgee

According to Anders Ohlsson, WideOrbit is looking for some more Delphi Developers to work in Toronto.

Why are they looking in Toronto specifically? If I had to guess, I bet it would be that Canadian developers have a reputation for being well trained, hard working and unusually good looking.

Of course, if I were cynical, I might think that the exchange rate doesn’t hurt, either. 🙂

Contact Anders for more details.

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