http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer Various items, tidbits, and ramblings related to Delphi Programming. Hosted by Allen Bauer, Embarcadero Chief Scientist. Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:17:50 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en-US By now you’re all aware that we’re getting ready to move to a new building here in Scotts Valley. This process is giving us a chance to clean out our offices and during all these archeological expeditions, some lost artifacts are being (re)discovered. Note the following: ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/02/23/38931 Is. This? I simply cannot explain this. At. All. This was on a bulletin/white-board in the break area. I’d never noticed it because it was covered with photos from various sign-off (final authorization to release the product) celebrations. Lots of photos of both past and present co-workers, many ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/02/19/38923 It seems that my previous post about FreeAndNil sparked a little controversy. Some of you jumped right on board and flat agreed with my assertion. Others took a very defensive approach. Still others, kept an “arms-length” view. Actually, the whole discussion in the comments was very ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/02/16/38916 When you’re cleaning out your office. Share This | Email this page to a friend http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/02/12/38915 I really like the whole idea behind Stackoverflow. I regularly read and contribute where I can. However, I’ve seen a somewhat disturbing trend among a lot of the answers for Delphi related questions. Many questions ask (to the effect) “why does this destructor crash when I call it?” Invariably, someone ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/02/05/38910 After having to deal with all the stack alignment issues surrounding our move to target the Mac OS, I’d started to fear that I would get more and more jaded cynical about the idiosyncrasies of  this new (to many of us) OS. I was pleased to hear from Eli that ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/01/29/38909 It’s time. It’s time to say goodbye to the extra behind-the-scenes codegen and overhead that was brought to us during the Ansi->Unicode transition. We’ve shipped two versions with this directive on by default. The Ansi world is now behind us. It’s only real purpose in life was to assist C++Builder ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/01/26/38908 Odd discovery of the day. Execute the following on a system running a 32-bit version of Windows (NOT a Win64 system!): program Project1; {$APPTYPE CONSOLE} uses SysUtils; begin try MSecsToTimeStamp(-1); except on E: Exception do Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message); ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/01/25/38907 While I let my little tirade continue to simmer, I figured many folks’ next question will be “Ok, so there may be something here that affects me. What do I need to do?” Let’s first qualify who this will affect. If you fall into the following categories, then read on: ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/01/15/38906 I’m going to start off the new year with a rant, or to put it better, a tirade. When targeting a new platform, OS, or architecture, there will always be gotchas and unforeseen idiosyncrasies about that platform that you now have to account for. Sometimes they are minor little nits ... http://blogs.embarcadero.com/abauer/2010/01/14/38904