New Skin...

OK... I finally spent a few moments and created a new .Text skin (that probably works only in Internet Explorer... :-) that resembles the skin I use on my original blog site. It's not perfect, but it at least has most of the elements I wanted. Did I mention that CSS w/ HTML is about as enjoyable as slamming my hand in a car door?

Welcome...

Welcome to my new home on the web. From now on I'll be posting to this server which is officially hosted by Borland. However, please be aware that the same disclaimer still applies. Any views expressed here are my own and not those of my employer, Borland Software Corp. As soon as you begin to think that my views are a direct reflection on Borland, then please seek professional help immediately for the condition known as lackofhumoritis.

Anders Hejlsberg still evokes all manners of awe..

Chris Sells' post, My First Presentation For A Distinguished Engineer, underscores the level of respect and awe that Anders Hejlsberg still commands as a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft. It is just interesting when other folks seem to be thoroughly enthralled and "star-struck" about the fact that Anders requested a technical briefing. I worked very closely with Anders during the early days of Delphi (and TPW 1.5 and Borland Pascal 7.0), and I must say that he is certainly a very charismatic and approachable person. He has an uncanny knack of being able to tell you when an idea was complete bovine scatology, yet your ego and self esteem remained completely intact. In fact, while Danny and I were at the Windows 64-bit briefings back in March, Anders had specifically requested that we try and meet for lunch. Unfortunately, he is also a very busy man and we were unable to connect. Anders is certainly deserving of all the accolades he receives.

This ain't no one or two man show...

A little comment about Danny's post. While Danny and I have been elevated to new roles and responsibilities, I must also say that this doesn't by any stretch mean that we are the sole descision makers on technical matters. Quite the contrary in fact. In order for Danny and I to be effective at what we do, we also need a focused, dedicated, and talented team of engineers. Some of them you already know about some of them, like Steve, Corbin and Chris. Others are less visible, but every bit as important to the team. Then there are the managers and program managers, QA engineers, product management and marketing, regional product line sales managers and teams, even the administrative assistants. They are all crucial to the health of any team.

Moving day drawing near...

It looks like I'll be moving this blog to an official Borland hosted blogging site in the very near future. When that happens, everyone will need to update their links and RSS/Atom feed references. I also hope to be moving the existing content to the new server as well, however comments may be another issue entirely. We'll see..

Bootstrapping...

This is my first blog post to the new Borland blog server.   I'm now in the process of bootstrapping the new site... Stay tuned.  For how you can go to http://homepages.codegear.com/abauer.

 

Patent Trolls

Technology industry hits out at 'patent trolls'

This is an interesting article about the current state of the US Patent System. In general, I certainly think that there should be a government sanctioned method of granting exclusive rights to use a certain invention for a period of time. However, once the system starts to be abused, it ruins it for everyone. Patents for the mere purpose of using the legal system to bludgeon people or companies over the head, are certainly abuse in my book. This is of particular interest right now since I'm currently involved with several IP lawyers in order to submit a patent application.

I wish.

Danny posted this bit of information regarding his and my promotions to Chief Scientist and Principal Architect, respectively. Not much more I can say.

That which was old is new again...

This is going to rattle a few cages... I've been keeping a back issue of Byte magazine from August 1986 (yes, I said 1986) that has an interesting article about a brand new application framework for the Macintosh built with Apple's Object Pascal language, called MacApp. Here's the article as scanned from that issue of Byte:



The most interesing bit is diagram on the second page of the article. For those of you that remember Turbo Vision, you'll certainly see an interesting similarity. Also, the Delphi folks will probably see some familiar stuff as well.

I remember Anders Hejlsberg saying, "Good ideas just don't go away."

Not all of us drive "Subby's"

OK, Corbin not all of us drive Subaru's.... This is mine:



Your turn, Danny...

BTW, the red car in the background is a 1989 Taurus SHO. The Excursion has since been replaced with an '02 Mineral Grey one (the same color as the Cobra).