Delphi and C++Builder Coming Everywhere

- or it finally happened - a Delphi and C++Builder Community Edition!

The great thing about these editions is that they are free to use without being amputated like the Stater Edition was, feature-wise they are identical to the Professional Edition - with mobile now included.

I have personally been looking forward to this move, and that should help a lot of hobbyists get out of their Delphi 7 stasis and discover how much Delphi has evolved over the years.

The restrictions that has been applied has a lot to do with common sense - if you earn money and profit from the use of the CE license, you can afford and must convert to a paid license that includes some extra license benefits.

JSON Find / Rewind

- or using the TJSONIterator without wearing a Cardigan.

Working with JSON files has been made easier over the years with Delphi - which btw turns 23 today - by either third-party libraries or especially within the RTL.

The System.JSON and the REST.JSON units have added the one-lines ObjectToJSON and JSONToObject, which can add a tiny bit of fat to the JSON generated to enable to get it back into your TObjectLists - but makes your code cleaner to read.

Another way is the adding of the TJSONWriter and TJSONReader which by using the TTextWriter and TTextReader mimics the .Net equivalents.

The TJSONWriter includes easy formatting of the output and in the System.JSON.Builders unit there are a couple of extra goodies, two of these being the TJSONObjectBuilder and the TJSONIterator.

I will dig a bit into TJSONIterator, since only its Recurse, Next and Return methods is mentioned on its DocWiki page here.

Update Your Documentation

- or an unofficial temporary fix to the documentation tab in RAD Studio 10.2.2.

Update (16. January 2018): The official hot-fix can be found here: https://cc.embarcadero.com/item/30818

There is a lot of things that are fixed in update release 2 for RAD Studio 10.2 Tokyo - but one thing that is broken - and which is not crucial, but just a plain stupid oversight before RTM - is the documentation tab in the IDE.

The Latest (J)IDE

- or how to move to the dark side a day in advance

Star Wars - The Last Jedi has premier tomorrow the 13th December (at least here in Denmark), but some of us can already move to the dark side today - since the new update 2 of RAD Studio 10.2 Tokyo has just been released.

Using TensorFlow™ with Delphi

- or how to use a TStack<T> to simulate a RPN calculator.

This post is a very simple example on how to use "Google's" TensorFlow - which is an open source Machine Learning library. And this is also a tribute to the old HP reverse polish notation calculators I never had 😞.

Update: Hartmut David was so kind to now put his code on GitHub (https://github.com/hartmutdavid/TensorFlow4Delphi) - thanks!. And I did a pull request for the missing OpSub. The repository also includes the newest .dll so you might skip the renaming hassle described below.

Match of the Day

- or a simple example on using OpenCV Template Matching (or where is Billy Bunter these days?).

This post is not about sports or old Genesis songs - but a bit about comics and mostly about Delphi and OpenCV - the Open Source Computer Vision Library.

Why I keep preferring Delphi

- or why are we still discussion this - get updated.

There has been a trend in the various discussions that popup on the internet or in real life - that Delphi and the ObjectPascal language is mentioned in past tense. Which indicates to me that those who do that, have either not paid attention or are just simply ignorant on facts. Which also seems to be a trend in politics - that relates to the facts - not Delphi :D

The most recent version of Delphi/C++ Builder/RAD Studio - version 10.2.1, was just released a few days back - which I would not qualify for talking about Delphi in past tense in general.

But a thing that is very common in the long discussions I bothered to read - is that almost everyone says something in the lines of:
- "Oh I also remember doing my first program in Delphi - great times"
- "I really enjoyed programming (with Delphi) - I miss those days"
- "In those days programming was fun."
- "The best tool to create Windows desktop applications - period. Miss it."

..and the list goes on - oozing of nostalgia, longing, the fun and the enjoyment and productivity everyone had "back in the days" - well these days are not gone for those of us that kept around using the language and tools we preferred.

That is also the reason why Delphi is my preferred tool: Fun, readability, fun, productivity, multi-platform, performance, fun and enables me to get things done faster.