Vanishing articles

I just happen to click the link to that wonderful bit of journalism from my previous entry and it appears that the article has disappeared. I can't locate it anymore on the Computer Weekly site. Maybe they caught some grief for some of the inaccuracies and decided to pull the article. Hmm...

Red Hat strives for corporate legitimacy

Red Hat strives for corporate legitimacy


"It's time for a change. Microsoft's competitors have tried to win by adding functionality - for example, Borland, Lotus and Corel. They're all gone. Now, with a major hardware refresh cycle under way, this is a great opportunity," Szulik said. [emphasis mine]

I had to glance at my paycheck and business card again... yep, Borland. Whew, that's a relief! I thought Szulik knew something I didn't. Hey dude, you're a little out of touch...

Thanks, Nick for the reference. I don't know if I should laugh, cry or be absolutely livid..

Danny's been "Scobleized"

http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/05/05.html#a7390

This could get interesting....

Put on a happy face...

Danny and I were having a discussion yesterday regarding the benefits that a company can gain by allowing its average-joe employees to maintain a blog hosted from their site or simply allowed to comment on what they do for they're "day job." I made the comment that blogs have the intangible effect of putting a collective "face" and "personality" on to an otherwise amorphous, cold and faceless corporation. It helps cement in the customer's minds that there are real people with real lives behind the products and services produced by the company. They have likes and dislikes, opinions, faults and emotions. Take, for instance, the fact that Microsoft has well over 400 active bloggers. Do you find that appears to make them more approachable and candid as a company? Does blogging help or hurt their public image? Do you find it satisfying that when you post a comment to a blog and the blog owner responds, even if it is a simple "thanks for your comments" response?

Sometimes Different == Broken.. maybe

Sometimes Different == Broken

I suppose I could rationalize this. I should mention that Delphi doesn't automatically box values, which is a potentially expensive operation; both in performance, and the potential backward compatibility problems. You can enable automatic boxing by using the (*$AUTOBOX ON*) compiler directive. Now your first question is going to be, "why not autobox by default?" The issue is backward compatibility. Consider some existing source code that has the following overloaded functions:


function Func(Value: Variant): Boolean; overload;
function Func(Obj: TObject): Boolean; overload;


Func(1); in previous versions of Delphi would call the Variant version of Func. Now if this code is compiled with Delphi 8 for .NET and autoboxing were to be on by default, the TObject version of Func would be called! The semantics of the code has changed. Since autoboxing is off by default, the user is now spared countless hours of frustration in wondering why the compiler is calling the "wrong" version of Func.

Now for the the auto casting to IComparable. This one is admittedly a little less defensible. I'll have to consult with Danny on the potential solutions. This will certainly depend on internal compiler architecture and other performance considerations.

C# has the benefit of not having any large base of existing source code; the semantics of the language could be defined in any way seen fit. Delphi having to maintain a high level of backward compatibility is both its strength and is a minor weakness.

Sun Policy on Public Discourse

Sun Policy on Public Discourse

This was just forwarded to me from John Kaster. It seems that Sun is picking up the blogging banner and has an official set of guidelines for bloggers. Eventually, we [Borland] will have a similar set of rules. After all the brouhaha about disclosing too much information, this set of guidelines seems reasonable, don't you. One thing to note about these guidelines is that they never say to err on the side of silence. They merely encourage the individual to seek approval for something that they are unsure of. Of course the one from whom approval is received may themselves be overly cautious, but at least there are checks and balances.

For now, these guidelines look very reasonable.

Enumerating array using for vs. foreach

Enumerating array using for vs. foreach

Here's an interesting tidbit over on Brad Abram's blog about the difference between for and foreach when iterating over an array. Apparently the C# compiler just code-gens an equivalent for statement when using foreach on an array. Something we'll need to keep in mind when/if foreach makes it into a "future" release of Delphi for .NET.

Monty Python..

The other day my children were being sneeky and absconded with my copy of "Monty Pythol and the Holy Grail" and proceeded to view it. Were it not for only a few objectionable scenes, this would not have bothered me and I would have probably allowed them to see it. The only way I knew that they had seen it was when they began quoting some of the funniest portions of the movie. When my son was being scolded for a completely unrelated matter and he started spouting "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" I couldn't keep a straight face. What is fascinating is that they found funny all the same crazy scenes that most adults (at least those that appreciate Monty Python humor) find funny. I suppose my sense of humor has certainly started to rub off on them, as it is a little off-kilter. I remember watching the movie when I was about their age (which is 13, 12, 11, 11), and a lot of it simply went over my head. Sure, I got a lot of the sight-gags, but the subtlties were lost on me. I'm quite impressed at their insight and overall sense of humor.

Oh, and yes, they've been banned from watching it again until I feel they are old enough... or I can transfer the video to my computer and edit out those few scenes and transfer it back to a DVD.

That which we dare not name

I'm a little behind on blog reading... so much so right now that I just now noticed that Danny has, ahem, posted this little ditty regarding some internal "chastising" as of late... Oh, and pay no attention to the Delphi 9 behind the curtain....

Delphi 7 patch imminent

Looks like the promised patch to Delphi 7 is about to hit the streets. Several others have mentioned it as well. This week looks promising for it being live on the registered user's site.