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.

The Old Vic

- or hopefully adding a nostalgic sample to a nice project.

This is actually short tribute to the work of someone else - I did just add a bit of "older" stuff.

A few days back Dennis D. Spreen posted a really nice post: MOS6502-delphi – a MOS 6502 CPU emulator for Delphi - if you haven't seen it already, check it out.

UPDATE: I did actually get the key matrix correct the day after - and submitted code to Dennis' GitHub where it is now included: https://github.com/Dennis1000/mos6502-delphi

The Game is On - in one line of code

- or how to play around with the Steam Web API and a honorable mentioning of a nice new game on Steam build using Delphi.

The title of this post could indicate that this is about the BBC series "Sherlock" - which I would highly recommend - but this is not what this is about.

Almost 4 years back I did a small client for myself that did consume various APIs to get a unified client and overview of the various games I had acquired over the years on various platforms like - Battle.net, Desura (now OnePlay it seems), Uplay, GOG, OriginEA, PSN and Steam - combined with data from TheGameDB and others.

Delphi Time Machine

- or how to communicate with the past is possible - kind of...

I am a bit late on congratulating Delphi's anniversary yesterday - so what would fit better than inventing a time machine - or communication setup that could communicated back in time.

Self-updating Application with SHA1 check and FireDAC

- or basic self-improvement with room for improvement.

There are many ways to keep the users windows applications updated, like pushing them out via enterprise distribution setups, click-once, Squirrel (not the scripting language or the animal). But what if I just want the basics - and as simple as possible?

Disclaimer: This is not a post about security - even if SHA1 is mentioned - this is solely intended as an example on how an update process could be done in a controlled environment - like in-house distribution.

Integrating with your favorite CRM/ERP web based client

- or poor mans integration?

Sometimes you need to integrate to other systems in the organisation. And the ways of doing it always matters on which interfaces/skills/tools are at hand - but also whether you need a tight dependency and if you want or can customized anything on that client.

In the below example I will just illustrate how a standard Microsoft Dynamics 2016 CRM "Lookup Up Record" dialog can be used to link some other data/application that has interest in the CRM data - so that doing BI across systems might be more fun.