Darian Miller

Is there a resource that lists exactly what VCL Style Utils improves in 12.3? It sounds like a good idea to use it, but I don't know what it does exactly for each version without tearing through the code.

TThreadedQueue has had its problems, but it seems pretty stable now.

My preference would be similar, but I'd start with private const and end with private fields.

I believe many people prefer native desktop applications to the typical bloat of a web application. There are some exceptions, and I am an older guy with heavy bias, but I would pay double for a native desktop application over a browser based application for just about anything. If I wanted to use it on my phone, I'd take a scaled down version, targeted with features needed to be available on-the-go.

The first official entry into the challenge - please give him a star on GitHub! https://github.com/davidreed1666/davidreed @vhanla please finish your entry by adding your link to the GitHub discussion thread.

Congrats! You got two stars on your repo already. Don't forget to follow the rules and add a note to that discussion channel. Include your BTC public address for the potential receipt of tips.

There was a couple questions asked, but I haven't heard much. We'll see how many end up submiting a game. Maybe Marco's 25 year old game will win. 🙂 I plan on doing at least a few of these if there is some participation. These are some ideas for future projects - I welcome any suggestions: - AI ChatBot is the next-up - Specific GitHub build actions to help automate CI tasks for Delphi - VS Code add-ons - Perhaps a couple NVidia-CUDA library focused projects - Game Dev, AI, HPC, Video/Image Processing - Debug Visualizers of various types and other ToolsAPI based projects - Cross Platform Logging Framework (there's a few good ones already) I have some more surprises that I've been working on. One project turned out to be much, much bigger than I thought. We'll see what happens. I want to generate more traffic on social media and GitHub. In general, it seems like Delphi devs are way too quiet online. Yes, there are probably a lot fewer Delphi developers than we hope for, but I know the majority out there aren't actively increasing the visibility of Delphi online. Maybe we are just mostly old-farts who play solitaire on our computer in our off-times... More likely is we're busy at work and don't have time for vibe coding nonsense. 🙂

Thanks - I just joined that group

Sure - you may be the only entry so it could be an easy $500! LOL

Can you create a QP issue for this finding? It may help fix some outstanding issues...

I don't recall hearing that.. that sounds ominous to me. I wonder how long will it take to fix the completely new approach. But it's obvious the current approach isn't working as it's still pretty flaky after 5 years of trying.

Introducing the first RAD Programmer Coding Challenge! Check the blog post for details. https://ideasawakened.com/post/rad-programmer-challenge-number-1-minesweeper-game-build

AI chat is another tool in your toolbox that you can use, or choose not to. From my informal testing, the "best" right now for Delphi seems to be https://claude.ai/ I think we're nearing a point where local/private LLMs will become much more powerful and affordable.. you will train your AI tooling on your entire codebase, your help files, complete ticket system history, and specific industry knowledge sets so your LLM will be much more contextual. The companies that leverage this highly customized tooling may have an distinct advantage over those than do not. It's still going to be hard to beat the creative genius of a motivated mind, but even as those brand new ideas come to market, eventually the same leverage will be used to saturate the market quicker (so the large coprorations will eat up the small ones faster than they already do.) On the other hand, large corporations will continue to waste so much valuable time on micro-managing the creative types leaving gaps open for their eventual downfall. (Wishful thinking given the gigantic cash reserves of large corporations today.)

One step further... I worked with a Delphi developer who rarely used Free, and tried to only use Destroy. Everyone seems to have an opinion on Free vs FreeAndNil but he was the only one that ever went further and said Destroy vs Free. Some of the same arguments could be had for using Destroy vs Free. (But I still use .Free)

It is very likely that whatever decision you make now, you will adjust as you get more experience. This is a topic without a true correct answer... it simply depends. If you want to be strict and always follow a single rule - then use FreeAndNill all the time. After a while, you will wonder why you are doing that and you can revisit after you have some code in place. For me, I only rarely use FreeAndNil - only when it is part of the normal logic that instance again could/will be read in the future and that I will need to know it's correct state. (For example, treat nil as a special 'done' or 'not yet started' type flag.)