Vincent Parrett

I just used the build script, which has worked fine for me until this error recently (a few weeks ago I think). The file is there in my local copy too.. so must be a path issue?

I tried building GExperts for 10.4 from source but svn appears to be missing a file I:\GExperts\source\framework\GX_UnitExportsParser.pas(13): error F2613: Unit 'GX_UnitExportList' not found. [I:\GExpert s\Projects\DelphiXx104\GExpertsRS104.dproj] This is after running svn update.

Hi All I have been steadily working away on my package manager project - the latest update includes compile on install support. https://github.com/DelphiPackageManager/DPM When a package is first installed, it is automatically compiled (if the package spec has that support enabled) and then the project references the compiled version of the package. This speeds up builds on your own projects, since you are not compiling the dpm package sources each time. As an extreme example of this, the DPM build process (building for 12 versions of delphi!) previously took 13 minutes on my build server, after installing the latest dpm and running 2 builds (the first one compiled the packages), the build time is down to 2 minutes! Much of that speed up comes from the fact that older versions of delphi are quite slow at building Spring4D. I encourage everyone to check it out and provide feedback where possible. To get started using DPM, download the latest release from here : You will need to configure a package feed (folder) and download some packages - see the Getting started page Most of my open source projects have package files available under the releases tab on github - https://github.com/vsoftTechnologies/ I have also added a mirror project for Spring4D on github so that I could publish packages (bitbucket doesn't support that) - https://github.com/VSoftTechnologies/Spring4DMirror Same for JsonDataObjects - Andreas ignored my pull request for over a year so I closed it and just forked the project - https://github.com/VSoftTechnologies/JsonDataObjects I'm still working on getting design time packages loaded.. need to get proper project group support going first. Previous updates here :

Nice work @Carlo Barazzetta 👍

The simplest option here is to produce 2 versions for the dll, one for internal users, one for external. Any fancy trickery might stop casual users from getting access to the internal functionality, but it won't stop anyone who has the skills to dig in and figure out what is needed to expose it.

I would suggest that if you want everything synchronous then don't use messaging, there's no point and you are just adding overhead for very little gain. We use asynchronous messaging extensively in FinalBuilder, yes it takes a bit of thought but then that's what programming is about. We use our own messaging library which is thread safe. Under the hood we also use omnithread library for some of the more complex threading.

@Dalija Prasnikar something for the second edition 😉 - https://github.com/VSoftTechnologies/VSoft.Messaging It's the messaging system we use in FinalBuilder - uses TObject.Dispatch and unlike System.Messaging, it's threadsafe. Works with VCL and FMX, although I have not tested on mobile as I don't do mobile dev.

Nick doesn't seem to be active with Delphi much these days, doing web stuff last I looked (angular etc).

Nick Hodges did start a project to do this many years ago, but it never got much interest or contributions - I guess we were all too busy testing our own code to bother testing embarcadero's code (which they should be doing). That project was on bitbucket using mercurial, so it's no longer there (bitbucket dropped mercurial support).

I have had good results with Vector Magic - https://vectormagic.com/ The key though is having larger png's to work with. Converting a 16x16px png/bmp to svg is next to impossible as there just isn't enough detail to work with. FWIW, I'm slowly making my way through converting thousands of images to svg (either by converting or finding alternatives), it's mind numbingly boring and am losing the will to live..... 😒

Likewise, and I for interfaces. As for the RTL/VCL inconsistencies - well any 20+ year old large code base will have those, people come and go, with different ideas, eventually adherence to the initial standard will wane or evolve. My code is no different. These days I use camelCase naming for parameters and variable, with occasional lapses into the old style.

We use ssh from our dev machines (we're all working from home in Canberra) to the server (in Sydney, 300km away) over vpn's and have not had any issues with large files. We do have some issues with mercurial and filename encoding on windows as it doesn't fully handle unicode properly on windows - there has been a frustrating lack of urgency to fix this, since the main devs don't use windows.

Another vote for Fork - I've been using it for a couple of years now (with my open source projects) - for in house projects we use mercurial with tortoisehg (since 2013).

Nice (I knew that) 😉 Yeah too many variables in play there. My example above it was pretty much just the compile, with nothing else using much cpu on my desktop machine. Spring4D really makes the older versions of the compiler struggle. The biggest improvement was in 10.1 In our experience that is usually I/O contention more than anything else (workspace init & source checkout takes longer). Are you using a single vm for the server and the agent? An easy way to improve build times would be to give the agent it's own machine. You have probably seen this before but worth a read if you haven't - https://www.finalbuilder.com/resources/blogs/continuous-integration-server-performance

Nice - what tool is that you use 😉 My experience is that the 10.4 Win32 command line compiler is a lot faster than earlier versions. I have a project (package manager ide plugin) that makes heavy use of generics (spring4d) and it went from 1min (XE2/3) down to 6 seconds in 10.4, although most of the gains happened in 10.1 Berlin (7sec). I can't comment on the 64bit compiler perf just yet, need to setup a test.

Hi All A few weeks ago I did a zoom presentation about DPM to the Australian Delphi User Group (Melbourne branch, but anyone could attend). A link to the recording of that presentation is available on the ADUG website - https://www.adug.org.au/meetings/melbourne-meeting-november-2020/ along with some notes about dpm The video is nearly 2hrs long, but the presentation part is only the first 50 min or so (the rest is q&a/discussion). If you want to skip past the boring slides to the demo it starts at 24:40 😉

I can understand that, when I started my business back in 1997 I had the same issue.. add to that finding a domain name that wasn't taken! It's almost impossible to find a good domain name these days unless you make up a new word.

That's gold 🤣

Thanks David, I've been thinking about this issue with libraries etc for a very long time (I originally started on this in 2013 but was thinking about it long before then)!

I'm going to stick with DPM, I'm exhausted from look at all the suggestions (not just here, on the ADUG email list too) 😉

Yeah I get they were jokes 😉 FWIW, I like dpm, it's short, simple, meaningful (Delphi Package Manager) however an anther tool got there first and the author has requested I change it. However, it would have to be a very good new name for me to change it.

Ummm.. nope. Keep trying 😉

vraptor is a java mvc framework.

🤣 - I would hope that this project won't just be my personal package manager that only I use - that said, VPAM sounds like a kind of missile or weapon!

Sure, I'm still open to suggestions, I have had plenty already but so far nothing that has stuck (lots of bad puns, or names that are already in use for other things).