Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene #135
25 Nov
- Phew – okay, been a while. I was “on the road” last week. Thanks to all the great folks that showed up in Philadelphia, Raleigh, and Minneapolis for my road show. I hope I was able to convey the great stuff in the latest version of RAD Studio. (Don’t forget to use your “special codes” to get at 20% discount on purchases. They expire soon.) It was great to get out again and meet with customers, developers, etc. Thanks to everyone who helped out with getting the events going. It was fun, and I even got to spend the weekend with my parents in Minneapolis. Great times.
- Developer Express has been a long time partner and provider of outstanding VCL components. I know that many of you use their stuff rather faithfully. I know that early every year they have a meeting to plan out what they will be up to for the coming year. This year, long-time community member and DevExpress guy Richard Morris is asking for input from the DevExpress VCL customer base. This is a great opportunity to give some feedback to a company that loves to hear from you.
- Here’s a curious phrase, or at least one that has become curious over the past few years: “Online help”. What does that mean to you today? Today, it means to me “Help that is on the internet somewhere, and that I can look at with a browser”. But of course, say, fifteen years ago, it mean “Help that is on my hard drive and connected via the F1 key”. I think if you say the phrase now, the former definition is what people will understand it to mean. So that begs a question: What should we call help that is on your hard drive? "Local help”? Anyone have any ideas?
- Marco is offering a nice special on his two latest books. These are the same books that many of you got as part of your Delphi/RAD Studio purchase, but if you haven’t gotten them yet, now is the time to buy. Marco’s books are always good, and these two are particularly good for folks moving to the new versions.
- And finally, I am thankful for many things on this Thanksgiving day here in the US – my family, my friends, my freedom. I’m also thankful to the Delphi community and to all of our customers that make it possible.
Hi Nick,
Please have a look at this post on stackoverflow. I think you would like to answer and get the answer voted up by other people thinking Delphi is a good answer for this person.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1800439/what-language-will-protect-my-source-code/
[Quote] I’m looking for something that can be only decompiled into assembly. Delphi, for example, cannot be decompiled like C# or Java, but from what I’ve heard, Delphi is dying.[/Quote]
November 25th, 2009 at 11:56 pmHi Nick,
Today I got an offer for the new RAD Studio Architect Subscription and was very surprised by an increase in price by nearly 50%. Where is this increase coming from??????
Regards Eelco
November 26th, 2009 at 1:50 amLocal help:
What about "The default help" or "The preinstalled help" or simply "Offline help".
I think, BTW, that "Online help" implies something more than just a help system on the web. "Online help" should be constantly updated (examples, demos etc), it should invite to Web2.0 behavior (comments, discussions, ratings, feedback, sharing etc) and it should make it easy to find more information outside the help system (links to external resources, search engine etc).
November 26th, 2009 at 4:14 am@ Jørn E. Angeltveit:
About Online Help:
What do you think about this:
http://wings-of-wind.com/2009/11/26/return-of-the-jedi/
?
FTR, the above post was published few hours before Nick’s post - we have somewhat similar thinking paths, this means that we are in the same community, isn’t it?
November 26th, 2009 at 5:33 amHmm … I’ve always, well since the popularity of *on-line* help, referred to help that ships with the product as "F1 Help". Speaking of F1 Help, although there has been a significant increase in the content speed and applicability of what’s presented … through a newbies eyes [mine unquestionably still qualify] it’s still missing the target.
Here’s a good question … "Where *exactly* should F1 take you?". Well, my very uninformed position, would think we should look back to the versions everyone raves about, like D5 or D7. How did it work there?
Have a pleasant Thanksgiving at home with your family and a well deserved bit of time off.
November 26th, 2009 at 6:08 amOnline help? Even fifteen years ago, that never meant my hard drive files - of course, I’ve been a hardcore modem abuser since the early 80ies. Lesse, 15 years ago…. that would have been more ZModem (and JModem!) than TCP, but I would definitely have have considered "online help" to be an out of machine experience even then.
November 26th, 2009 at 10:07 amTDelphiHobbyiest -> F1 should take you to help. Who cares where it is, so long as it’s relevant, accurate and reasonably fast.
Anyone else long for the days of D1 help where pressing the F1 key was actually useful? It seems to have followed a downward logorithmic curve ever since.
even now, when it does manage to EVENTUALLY find something, chances are it’s for C++ - or boiler plate "content goes here" filler (or worse, ‘x - the x property’)
I really REALLY hate pressing F1 now. If I accidently hit F1, I now lunge for the task list to force down the help engine. I *NEVER* use the help any more - it can be worse than not knowing.
The whole help experience is just awful - best avoided at all costs. Probably not a great thing for potential new users.
November 26th, 2009 at 10:15 amPlease do not forget : F1 "offline" help is the only help you can get if you are not online.
Although I live in a country with a high technology level (Germany), I still don’t have internet access when I’m at customer sites due to company policies and security concerns.
As a side node : the downward logarithmic curve seems to be worse over here. Comparing the US-Version of the online help to the german one makes me sick in the stomach (incomplete, unprecise translation - probably done by people lacking real world Delphi knowledge).
How do you sell a nice product with a POS online help to NEW customers ? As a Delphi developer (10+ Years), I still keep the Delphi 7 helpfiles in reach because 2007/2009/2010 help files do not really get better.
(Yes, I bought all of those versions and just as a side node : 2007 in my view is doomed to repeat the D7 history - for a small shop with some history and legacy (unsupported) components it’s almost impossible to switch from D2007 to 2009/2010 without a costly development effort and so D2007 will be in productive use for a very long time. I guess I’ll just wait till some Dxxx7 Version seems to be worth this effort. Just don’t expect me to buy every intermediate version till then…)
November 26th, 2009 at 12:37 pmNick,
I’m with the offline help crowd. As it stands right now, I’m using my dual monitor computer to do the programming. I have a secondary computer with a portrait monitor set up right beside it. I have the main help file loaded there and I have a Firefox session going, plus the file manager is in the folder where I keep third party utils. I don’t press F1 anymore, but I turn right and head for the resourses on the other computer frequently. I save bits and pieces to a clippings folder there and then load them into the main programming computer as needed. It’s a bit slower than keeping everything self-contained, but I get the advantage of seeing the help and the programming environment at the same time. Has worked out quite well. (thanks to the classic desktop, thanks again).
November 26th, 2009 at 4:00 pmOnline Help := onDrive Help
November 28th, 2009 at 3:13 pmWhen I press F1 I am expecting to see information about the topic in context, and I expect it to work that way even if my machine is not connected to the internet. There should be of course a way to easily sync/update my local help data stored on my computer’s hardrive whenever the new content is available.
I see no reason for EB to maitain two different help contents (online vs offline), both of them should be created from the same sources.
November 28th, 2009 at 6:24 pmZenon -> I believe their current toolset publishes a central database in multiple formats. They don’t actually have to maintain 2 totally different systems - they only have to remember to publish the various resulting outputs to their different locations once any modifications have been audited and approved (oh, I hope so anyways - past documentation could really have used a little auditing and approval)
November 29th, 2009 at 10:17 pmIn my app install I call the help that appears when you click F1, "Context-Sensitive Help". In my installer, I give the option to download/install local help which I call "Offline (Installed) Help". I also give the option to prefer "Online (Web-Based) Help" when it’s available. I use Help & Manual (written in Delphi) which gives me the ability to export web-based help as well as local "CHM" help from the same source.
Most of the time I have internet access, but not always. So I like the ability to have some help installed locally for those times I need it. If I have internet access, I’d prefer web-based help because it’s more up to date, and other users can leave comments.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:00 amI’d call the help that appears when you click F1, "Context-Sensitive Help". In my app installer, I give the option to download/install "Offline (Installed) Help" with the option to prefer "Online (Web-based) Help". (Help & Manual is a tool that enables me to maintain both the local and web-based help from a single source.
I have internet access most of the time, but when I don’t it’s really helpful to have local help.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:04 amI was interested to download Marco Cantu’s whitepaper from embarcadero but then I saw this
"Please register to download the white paper"
November 30th, 2009 at 10:12 amHi Nick,
Hope all’s well!
Just checking, although this is a bit off topic, any progress or changes regarding the TurboPower stuff? Still would love for there to be AsyncPro for Rad Studio 2009 and 2010.
Best Regards,
Frank T.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:50 amaaron –
You have to be registered with EDN to download the white paper.
http://edn.embarcadero.com
Nick
November 30th, 2009 at 12:16 pmRegarding help: I think perhaps it’s best to avoid the "online" preposition, and just call it "Help". Stick with the user’s mental model: I want help. Where it comes from should be as transparent as possible. So keep the number of entry points and menu items minimal. I know, it’s easier said than done.
Cheers,
December 1st, 2009 at 4:20 pmLee
Quality problem with delphi error from 30/10/2006 REF:35900
Hallo
The problem is that dbexpress thinks that this sentence
select * from databasex::tablex where fieldx=:parameter1
Says that databasex::tablex is a parameter but this is a supported language feature of informix where I can select a table from other database that is running in the same informix server
Example :
You have two BD`s one is named PEX with the table TABLE1 and the other is named GCOMERCIAL with the table TABLE2
If you connect to PEX and you try to execute this select:
select * from GCOMERCIAL::TABLE2
You get one error because dbexpress thinks that GCOMERCIAL::TABLE2 is a parameter
The correct form is that after preprocess of the sentence
select * from databasex::tablex where fieldx=:parameter1
results in :
select * from databasex:tablex where fieldx=?
I was debugging and found that if I change:
I have modified SqlExpr.pas to support this but now i haven t support to create parameters automatically readed from sql sentences . I have to create them manually.
and this only functions with selects using Open not with ExecSql
procedure TSQLQuery.QueryChanged(Sender: TObject);
begin
if not (csReading in ComponentState) then
begin
Close;
SetPrepared(False);
if ParamCheck or (csDesigning in ComponentState) then
begin
FCommandText := SQL.Text;
FText := FCommandText;
SetParamsFromSQL(nil, False);
// start of change
FText:=FNativeCommand;
// end of change
end
else
FText := SQL.Text;
DataEvent(dePropertyChange, 0);
end
else
FText := FParams.ParseSQL(SQL.Text, False);
SetFCommandText(FText);
end;
And I still can’t execute sentences UPDATE INSERT or DELETE
Example
Update GCOMERCIAL::TABLE2 set field1="A"
Only we can execute if we use Paramcheck:=False and change the sentence to
Update GCOMERCIAL:TABLE2 set field1="A"
I get an error .
I’m having a lot of problem because we have a lot of legacy code from delphi5 migrated to Delphi 2006 and we have to change this , but
Sometimes we need use in the same sentence a DATABASE ALIAS and parameters
For we is a very very big problem
We have bugs in our applications every day for this problem because we need share data logic between differents versions of delphi
Delphi 7, Delphi 2006 Win 32 and Delphi 2006 Dotnet
Thanks in advance for your help
P.D. To test this you need an informix server with two databases
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:49 pm@Alberto
http://qc.embarcadero.com
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:55 pmThe roadshow is awesome. http://clinirect.com
January 5th, 2010 at 4:23 pm