Dalija Prasnikar

You would not be able to install/use 10.3.2 (or any new version that will be released) without being on active subscription anyway. So having a bump approved is not an issue, it is the waiting for the bump that matters.

Indeed. I just always like to read MS documentation first. So those would be my first steps. After I collect all necessary API calls, I would search Delphi RTL/VCL source to see if anything is already implemented somewhere... and yes, then Google again for specific Delphi implementation if needed (I can generally manage using Windows API calls without additional searching, but that knowledge depends on how often one has to interact with Windows API directly - Delphi does good job at hiding and wrapping those parts so many developers don't have the need to do low level interactions)

Knowing what needs to be done is quite different than having that particular piece of code at hand for sharing.

1. Google create process 2 Google process pid 3. Google close process 4. Google wait for process David gave all necessary steps... you (or anyone) just need to go through that list one by one finding out how to do each particular thing if you already don't know how to do that.

I didn't say nothing could work, just that particular thing you mentioned does not work to save people trouble trying it.

I need to check whether or not current computer time is correct (with some tolerance) and currently have following code. LTime := TIdTime.Create(nil); try LTime.Host := 'time.nist.gov'; LTS := LTime.DateTime; // do something finally LTime.Free; end; It was working fine (AFAIK) until I upgraded the router and basic firewall setting now blocks port 37 which is used by TIdTime... but allows port 123 (UDP) so I switched from TIdTime to TIdSNTP and it is working again. So question is... is TIdTime obsolete... are there any gotchas with using TIdSNTP? Is it safe to switch to TIdSNTP and don't look back? I need to support Windows 7/8/10 with most common settings (software and hardware). If someone decides to specifically block everything... there is nothing I can do anyway.

AFAUK Documentation Insight has a problem with 10.3.2 and there is a hotfix available. Since 10.3.2 was freshly announced I guess hotfix is not publicly available (announced), yet. You should ask for it at http://www.devjetsoftware.com/

More like this Thursday https://community.idera.com/developer-tools/b/blog/posts/announcing-the-release-of-delphi-c-builder-and-rad-studio-10-3-2

Unified memory management only affects mobile compilers and if you are developing for Android you will have to use 10.4. Developers developing for iOS will still be able to use 10.3.2 for a while, but probably not for too long... and even for them it would be smart to switch to 10.4 as soon as possible to adjust their codebases. As far as LSP is concerned... code completion and navigation as well as code insight is pretty much broken as-is... I cannot imagine LSP in its first release being so bad that it would justify staying at 10.3.2. Also 10.3.2 and 10.4 can live side by side... so you can have both and use version that is more appropriate for any particular reason you may have.

Yes, and it says TIME protocol (the one that uses port 37) is obsolete... but I want to triple check that TIdSNTP is the way to go. Works if you only need to support Europe... if not...

Not really... Main problem with IDE is that it uses different parser... so when compiler changes and gets new features IDE part also needs to be updated with support for new features. That is what is missing here. IDE does not know about inline variables. According to May 2019 roadmap https://community.idera.com/developer-tools/b/blog/posts/may-2019-rad-studio-roadmap-commentary-from-product-management this problem will be solved by using LSP (Language Server Protocol) https://langserver.org/ That way, there will no longer be discrepancy between IDE and compiler.

AFAIK, that hack does not work, after all.

AFAIK, everything said at May 2019 RAD Studio Roadmap still stands. https://community.idera.com/developer-tools/b/blog/posts/may-2019-rad-studio-roadmap-commentary-from-product-management

I keep rediscovering those every time I go and write my own... done that few times already...

Considering that code completion and navigation is also broken by inline variables, that is currently the most appealing option.

It is a bug Editor marks inline variables as error https://quality.embarcadero.com/browse/RSP-22158 Until it gets fixed there is not much you can do. Either live with red lines or disable Error Insight.

Because true cross-platform development means that you reuse code and parts of GUI building blocks for your app. If you have to deal with both VCL and FMX then you lose that advantage,

It has more aligning options, but that does not change the fact basic logic is broken. Also fully flexible alignment and sizing solution must have separate horizontal and vertical logic. Deep layout nesting is death to performance. This is not Delphi specific issue. Native Android and iOS frameworks also recommend avoiding deep nesting for same reasons. Of course, some frameworks tolerate more depth some less. Basic idea is not the problem. It is inner code structure and architecture. If you for the moment ignore plain bugs (that can be resolved with time), then FMX as framework works and is usable. But it will never provide fantastic end user and developer experience because it will never be as fast as other solutions - its inner structure prevents ultimate speed optimizations (it still can be made faster than it currently is) and coding with it will always take more time to achieve goals than with some other better frameworks. And there is little hope for improvement in that area, because inner architecture that is already firmly baked in. Again, some improvements are still possible, but not all the way.

I said it cannot be reworked, not that it is unusable. That reworking part stands for any other framework, too. You cannot change foundations without demolition. Problem with FMX is that because foundations are not exactly great, many things that should be improved cannot easily be done. For instance, layout alignment logic is totally insane. It does not auto align layouts from insertion order, but from controls existing x, y positions. Try hiding one view and showing it again, and the whole layout will be broken. You have to manually recalculate the whole thing which completely defeats the purpose of auto-alignment. Then like I mentioned before, no separation between low and high level code. Separating those would totally dismantle whole thing. Poor support for multi-threading - because almost everything is directly connected to UI part that cannot be touched from background threads. It is hard to design fast and responsive UI under such constraints. And you cannot fix that without separating low level and high level code, as well as base, primitive classes. and list goes on...

If you have a building, you cannot change its foundations and floor plans without demolishing the building. You can do fair amount of remodeling and you can make it better, but you cannot make it perfect if the original foundation and floor plans don't fit your needs. Same is with FMX, it can be made better and it can be usable, but it will always be far from ideal GUI framework because its foundations are bad. Fixing the foundations would be like building the new framework... the framework code, user code, the workflow... everything would be different.

As far as I know they switched to bitmaps in order to simulate iOS design at the time (and Android, and Windows) that was anything but flat and drawing that kind of designs without bitmaps would be almost impossible and slow. However, world moved on in the meantime and current flat designs are more appropriate for vector based painting which then turns to be faster, scalable and less resource hungry. Of course, any fast framework will also include caching views and layers for faster drawing (and when appropriate), but that is different from plucking parts of the control from predefined bitmap and combining those parts at the runtime - all the time.

How to rework FMX? Burn it down and start fresh, with people who know how to properly structure GUI framework, would be the only proper choice. Not the viable one though.

It means that you touch one class in one (base unit) and the whole framework gets dragged in. Cyclic dependencies between units are enormous and there is no clean separation between low level code dedicated to direct interaction with graphics engine and high level code. Not related to the term... but there is also another architectural deficiency because a lot of layout and painting logic is totally illogical. Resulting in two things - harder to achieve your design goal (implement design you need) and second constant unnecessary recalculations and iterations through view hierarchy because changes that could be contained to small part are propagated all over - making the whole thing slower.

There are several things to consider here kitchen sink design... while it may look like working in proof of concept scenarios, it is hard to extend its functionality without breaking something originally it was meant to be fast vector based UI framework, and then it got a whole load of styling and pixel perfect baggage - combine that with 1. result is bugs and slow performance proof of concept library with limited set of widgets is easier to put together, to cover all that is needed to make usable cross-platform apps, FMX had to be extended with many additional widgets, behaviors, functionality - combine that to 1 and 2 - again bugs... different memory models on Windows and mobile platforms made it harder to debug various issues and aspects - more bugs FMX significantly improved over the years, but its original kitchen sink design is still holding it back. FMX on Linux is good (great) move considering the developer's needs. I just wonder how many kitchen sinks Embarcadero bought this time around.

You can still submit and publish to the store. But when you submit application that does not have 64bit Android support you get warning that your application is not fully compliant with upcoming rules and that you need to fix that to be able to update your application further after the deadline.