Dimensional Data

cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics 11 months This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category “Analytics”. cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional 11 months The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category “Functional”. cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary 11 months This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category “Necessary”. cookielawinfo-checkbox-others 11 months This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category “Other. cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance 11 months This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category “Performance”. viewed_cookie_policy 11 months The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Despite the release of Windows 11 back in October 2021, Windows 10 is still the most popular version of the operating system. Although most people will update, many may avoid updating due to software compatibility issues. Therefore, targeting Windows 10 development will currently give you the most extensive customer base, and later on, you can change your development focus to Windows 11. For top-notch application development, one should adhere to the optimum tools and techniques available. Unfortunately, many programmers are not aware of the best practices of software engineering. This gap in knowledge hinders their current and future developments. Let us review the top 10 things most people don’t know about clean code Windows 10 development. 1. Do computer bugs exist? If we press a button on a microwave, the TV will not turn on, and vice versa – unless there is something horribly amiss with your wiring – so it is our mistake and not the mistake of the switch we pressed. Barring physical computer hardware malfunctions, computer bugs, the fault of the computer, do not really exist because a computer is only a collection of switches. A bug is an error in our explanation of the problem to the computer – in essence, we pressed the equivalent of a switch to turn on a microwave when we meant to turn on a TV. Clean code helps us in reducing these human errors, aka bugs. 2. Why is clean coding like painting? It is easy to find and appreciate a good painting, but it is challenging to paint it. Moreover, tools for amateur and expert painters might be the same, but internal skills make all the difference. The same is true for clean coding. It is easy to appreciate clean and extendable code, but it requires much effort to produce it. Also, tools available to clean coders are the same: only internal quality control, and determination are different. 3. Is source code an asset or liability? We regard our source code as an asset, but that might not always be true. For example, many companies with shipped products face all sorts of problems due to their codebase. Some even went out of business due to poor source code. Thus, a buggy, ambiguous and rigid source code is a liability because it is a nightmare to maintain adding to the overall, less tangible, overheads of retaining commercial competitiveness. A clean, maintainable, and easily extendable source code is an asset. 4. Why should untested code be considered broken? It is a crime to open a bridge for passengers without sufficient load testing in civil engineering. The same should be valid for software engineering. Code testing and quality control should not be an afterthought but an essential part of the development process. We should not use untested code in a production environment because it is risky, unprofessional, and inextensible. Instead, we should always assume any untested code is broken – testing then proves otherwise. 5. What is common between clean code and binary search? In binary search, data reduces to half on every step, which helps quickly search the required piece of information. Also, binary search is only possible on a sorted list of items. Similarly, we can easily review most modules in well-written clean code by reading their names and going […]

Click here to save your seat RAD Studio 11 Alexandria has been a significant and very well received release. Landmark changes to the IDE and support for high-DPI 4k+ screens have completely changed the app design experience. Windows 11 provisioning and a multitude of updates ensure our customers can target the latest versions, platforms and hardware. Meanwhile, since the 11 Alexandria release we’ve been hard at work figuring out how to further improve your application development experience, and listening to your feedback in search of bugs to fix and features to improve. What’s more, we’re not keeping our plans for RAD Studio under wraps but sharing it with everyone who cares (that’s you). You’re Invited to the “What Coming in RAD Studio” Webinar On 16 March at 11am US Central Time, join Embarcadero’s Jim McKeeth, Marco Cantu, David Millington and Kyle Wheeler on a highly revealing webinar on the latest in RAD Studio Alexandria. See what’s new in your favorite development tools, and where things are headed.  This is a must-see webinar for all fans of Delphi, C++Builder, and RAD Studio! Click here to save your seat

There are dozens of windows software makers; the powerful tools and programming languages used to create Windows GUI applications. Most of them require you to write thousands of lines to do even the simplest, most basic things such as drawing UI elements. Yes, several of them have their own RAD (rapid application development) tool, yet when you compare Embarcadero’s RAD Studio with other GUI development tools, it is immediately obvious why RAD Studio is a superior RAD development tool. Why should you choose RAD Studio’s Delphi & C++ Builder? Since I started my Windows software-making experience with C++ Builder and Delphi, I believe that most Windows app developers are making problems for themselves by choosing the wrong software development ecosystem.  When the Delphi with its Visual Component Library was introduced to software developers, it showed an accurate, productive tool to create Windows applications. For over 27 years now Delphi is still one of the leading, most productive ecosystems for Windows development. With its intuitive visual design environment and the unrivaled performance of a world-class optimizing native code compiler, you can achieve the best results in no time.   Moreover, the FireMonkey cross-platform framework is also one of the gems in the cross-platform development industry. Why? Because the architecture of the FireMonkey framework provides native development for most major platforms. For instance, you can create Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS applications from a single code base. It is straightforward to access device-specific and operating-system-specific features with APIs. Can RAD Studio 11 really build apps 5x faster than other methods? The RAD Studio 11 release supports High-DPI and 4k+ screens, provisioning for Windows 11, Android 30 API, and the macOS 64-bit ARM M1 processor. RAD Studio 11 – Alexandria is the latest version of the RAD Studio and provides developers with many more functionalities.  To learn more about why you should choose the RAD Studio for your next project, check out this article that analyzes: Are the original tools for Windows development making things difficult? What is the alternative? What is the best Windows development tool alternative to Microsoft? Is it hard to deploy a Windows app to the Microsoft Store? Do I need to use Microsoft tools to develop Windows apps? Did you know how easy it is to design beautiful desktop and mobile app UIs with RAD Studio? RAD Studio’s award-winning VCL and FMX frameworks are the best options in the GUI app development market. With hundreds of visual and non-visual components (packages of ready-made functionality and code) available to Delphi and C++ programmers alike, you can create complex and responsive applications in no time. RAD Studio IDE gives you a great environment to prototype and build applications.  Here, in the article linked below, we show you how to create great Windows apps in 2022. Difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11 app development How to improve Windows apps How to use AI in your Windows apps How to modernize UI and UX with futuristic styles How to update data access pipeline How to use WinUI 3 Are Delphi programs really stable? As Ian Barker, MVP, puts it, “Delphi’s biggest problem is that it is just SO GOOD at being silently successful.” Delphi programs are extremely stable – they run, in some cases for many years, without needing to be restarted coupled with an unparalleled ease of distribution – often just needing to […]

On 12 January Serge Pilko, Embarcadero MVP and founder of Softacom, a world leading Delphi software development services and software solutions provider, published a video of his interview with Alister Christie, author of the legendary “Code Faster in Delphi” and the creator of hundreds of videos that have shown many of today’s Delphi developers around the world how to program and accomplish things with Delphi. Download Code Faster in Delphi for free here Alister also has an upcoming book, “Code Better in Delphi”, scheduled to hit bookstores soon. We have chosen to publish the transcript of their conversation in a three-part series of blog posts, of which this is the third. Read Part 1 here Read Part 2 here Alister Christie And Serge Pilko Talk Delphi, Part 3 of 3 Alister So it’s a fairly easy read, and I’ve been trying to write short books. If you look at the old Marco Cantu books, they’re 800 pages or something like that, especially, they’re huge tomes. And you know, back in the day big books sold, but now I think the trend is for shorter books on targeted topics. So, there’s now books on design patterns and memory management and writing high-performance applications and stuff that are available. So you don’t get this huge book which kind of covers everything and only a little bit of detail. You get these highly targeted books on very specific topics. So you get to learn something in great detail rather than having to sort of work it out or for yourself, which is really good. I think that’s a really positive thing that’s happened over the last… probably starting with Nick Hodges’ books, Coding in Delphi, and then you know, More Coding in Delphi, and then there’s the Dependency Injection book. So, and yeah. You know,[inaudible] has written books and Primož Gabrijelčič has written a couple books and yeah, there’s now [inaudible] on all sorts of topics. So… Serge You’re my hero because you have to be such a self-motivated guy for writing a book because I have a similar dream, but I have such a lot of professional, like routines, like daily routines. Of course I will spend my time with family, relatives. I don’t know how you can do that, especially, but you even have cows and dogs, I don’t have cows… Alister Yeah, I have the advantage that I have a regular job now as well. So I’ve got all the time for tinkering with projects. In theory I’ve got a lot of time. It doesn’t seem to materialize, I seem to be spending a lot of time doing chores and, now I’ve got a two-year-old son, which is, you know, I’ve got a lot of time with him, which is good. Serge Okay. Talking about “Code Better in Delphi”, you mentioned the better cleaner code, but did you have an experience, like a migration like from a Delphi legacy project to up-to-date Delphi because it’s a little bit like migration and the better code and refactoring are similar things, so maybe there was an insight or idea for the book. Alister Yeah. Certainly a bit of code is generally easier to migrate because it’s generally more consistent and, and what have you. So yeah, if you’re doing, you know, if you’re trying […]

There are many benefits of using clean code for native windows development, but increased productivity might be the most important. A productive development tool will save developers time and effort. Moreover, it will also minimize system downtime and customer frustration due to lower error counts. But clean code has a dirty secret. In an interesting article on TechCrunch, “Why productivity gains will define success for developers this decade,” the writer describes developers’ productivity as the number one reason for the success or failure of any native windows development tool. Let us review some key points from this article and the resulting insights. What is common between Schrödinger’s cat and Moore’s law? There should be no link between these diverse concepts, but it is interesting to observe that both Schrödinger’s cat and Moore’s law are dead and alive simultaneously. Moore’s law is alive because RAW CPU speed doubles every 18 months, but it is dead because end users’ software performance is slower and slower. If the complexity of the original problem is not doubling every 18 months, then who is killing Moore’s law? The biggest reason behind this sluggishness is bloated software. For example, a 6KB webpage of yesterday is well over 6MB containing all kinds of files, cookies, and JavaScript libraries ironically called “assets.” First-generation programmers knew bigger was not better, but careless design and relentless resources usage are prevalent today and, in many cases, those early lessons have been unlearned. Development tools like Electron are an obvious example of such methodology, requiring thousands of files and gigabytes of memory to perform a simple task. Everyone hates bloatware, but who creates them? Apart from the deliberately created bloatware, there is only one reason for this much bloatware to exist: Bloated development tools make bloated software. In the article, under the title, is the bloat sustainable we read that there has been an excessive growth in development tools in the last decade. We came a long way from pseudo-intelligent functionality generators to projects like GitHub’s CoPilot. Although AI-assisted coding is in its initial stages, the future looks promising. But all these tools assisting developers also means that programming is much more complex than in the past. We have come a long way from a simple product catalog to today’s complex shopping apps. Unfortunately, all this development has unwanted side effects. Thus many development systems and shippable code are becoming more and more bloated with every new version. If we do not choose our development IDE carefully, we will be part of the problem. How to find the right native windows development tool? The solution to the above problem is very simple. As most bloatware results from bad design and poor development tools, we can move towards the best available. Embarcadero’s RAD Studio is the top development tool to increase the developer’s productivity and is also very tight on quality control. Everything is available for the developers, but the generated output will only contain the minimum code needed for the required functionality. This optimized solution is excellent for performance and productivity and requires easier shipment and reduced maintenance costs. What is the meaning of productivity? This article raised another thought-provoking point under the title: What does productivity mean in software development? Traditionally, most People think that free software is excellent because it […]

It seemed like many people thought Windows 7 was great and Microsoft should stop there. However, Microsoft recognized that what people thought of as their primary computing device was changing. Apple’s iPad and the inexorable rise of the mobile phone meant people were starting to interact with the internet and the new streaming services in ways which threatened Microsoft’s traditionally desktop-bound Windows operating system. Microsoft’s response was Windows 8 which brought with it a new user interface paradigm which leaned hard on the lessons learned targeting mobile tablets: simplified user interface, touch-friendly controls, flatter, simpler UI elements. Windows 8 was to intended to be a new era where non-PC devices such as an XBox would merge with desktops running Windows 8, MS’ own Microsoft Surface tablet/touch friendly devices and the beleaguered and ultimately doomed Microsoft Surface phones. While the idea of “one Microsoft operating system user interface to rule them all” eventually floundered – the Microsoft phones which were hugely loved by their users but failed to ignite enough sales to capture the interest of the carriers – the experience ushered-in some magnificent changes and new technologies that helped thrive with Windows 10 like WinRT (Windows Runtime – Language-Independent Application Binary Interface). This gave rise to a better Windows 10 app development environment for developers.  How did Windows 10 make things better for developers? Applications built with Windows Runtime may run inside a sandboxed environment to allow greater security and stability and can natively support both x86 and ARM. To point out, you can use highly productive development tools like Delphi and C++ Builder to create modern Windows applications that support Windows Runtime among other new sets of features. What is the difference between Windows 10 and Windows 11 app development? Windows 11 operating system promises massive changes with various user experience transformations.  The new Microsoft Store New native features for Windows apps The Fluent Design System and WinUI Advanced technologies for the Game Development industry It seems like a significant number of Windows users are staying with Windows 10 either because they are concerned about change and wish to seek stability, or they are shut out due to Windows 11 having a more rigid set of hardware requirements which many devices cannot meet. How to improve your Windows Apps Before discussing improvement, I would like to discuss Embarcadero’s Delphi and Visual Component Library briefly. With its Visual Component Library (VCL), Delphi programming language brought new graphical user interface development concepts. Using Delphi and VCL, you can achieve 5x faster development and a massive pool of components to thrive in any development field.  By creating with Delphi and VCL, you can make native Windows-based applications with direct access to the hardware. Be sure to check out this article called: What You Need To Know – A Beginner’s Guide To Windows UI Toolkits. Improve your Windows Apps by adding this sophisticated feature which is actually easy to do Start using AI in your Windows applications! AI is one of the most significant trends in the app development industry. You do not need to create new machine learning models to use in your Windows apps. You can use AI APIs from Cloud Computing platforms like Google, APILayer, DeepAI APIs, and other services. Be sure to check out this tutorial to learn how to integrate those AI APIs! Quickly modernize your user interface […]

Webinar on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022 at 11 AM CST The Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) brings native Android applications to the Windows 11 desktop. Learn how to set up and configure Windows Subsystem for Android for use in software development. See what is required to run WSA as well as what is required to target it from your Android development. Windows Subsystem for Android is available for public preview on Windows 11. I’ll be joined by special surprise guest Scott Hanselman.  Come back to this blog post for slides, links, and the replay.

If you carry out native development on windows for a living, clean coding can add fun and enjoyment to your job. Let us explore some fun facts about clean code windows program development. 1. Why is change inevitable in any software system? A discarded software does not need any change. However, any successful software will require many changes for compatibility, addition, correction, legal reasons, etc. This software change is only possible and cost-effective if it follows clean code principles. 2. Is clean code related to your development on windows tool? Sure, clean coding is more about you than your tools. But Abraham Maslow said: “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Thus, development on windows with Delphi helps you create outstanding solutions while adhering to clean code techniques. 3. What is the primary task of a software developer? Programming computers is inherently complex. Therefore, the primary task of a software developer is to reduce complexity. By adhering to clean coding principles, we can reduce complexity as much as possible from our coding solutions. 4. What is the meaning of “Soft” in software? The software starts with “soft,” meaning “easy to mold, cut, compress, or fold”. Unlike hardware, which has a fixed functionality for life, the software is easily changeable by design, which is the cause of all pros and cons of the software. 5. Should we love the source code or the software? Source code and software distinctions are evident to programmers only. Thus, when software is “ready” for the customer, the source code might not be. Justifying this extra work to the customer is difficult, but we should fight for code quality to serve their needs for better software. 6. Why is Pascal a clean coding language by design? Clean coding is all about explaining code well. Interestingly enough, Niklaus Wirth designed Pascal to explain structured programming. While modern object pascal is feature-rich, it still retains its spirit of readability and clarity, making it the number one choice for writing clean code. 7. Why is coding faster not the answer? Although many developers mix up productivity and typing speed, the ratio of time spent reading code versus writing is well over ten to one, making coding faster unimportant. Instead, READing code more quickly and producing READABLE code is essential, which is best possible with clean coding. 8. Can it be dangerous to write spaghetti code? “Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live” ― John Woods (My Addition: and he knows when you are alone ;)) 9. Can clean coding bring more work to you? Clean coding enhances the lifespan of your code by improving its quality. Your code’s long-lasting smooth working in the industry will boost your image and connections. As businesses are always searching for quality programmers, this will drastically bring more work to you. 10. What does your code tell you about yourself? If your code is easier to read and change, it tells that you care about your profession and about the person who will maintain your code. On the other hand, messy code means that you only care about doing as minimum work as possible without considering others. 11. Does code have nine lives? James […]

This blog post compares the Delphi and Electron frameworks based on the Application Store Deployment, namely whether the framework’s IDE makes it easy to deploy directly to native platform application stores by reducing the complexities surrounding deployment and reducing time-to-market. This post is part of a benchmarking whitepaper comparing the two frameworks. The “Discovering The Best Cross-Platform Framework Through Benchmarking” whitepaper evaluates two frameworks supporting multi-platform desktop application development: Delphi and Electron. Delphi Delphi, encapsulated in the Rapid Application Development (RAD) Studio IDE, is Embarcadero Technologies’ flagship product. A proprietary version of the Object Pascal language, Delphi features graphical application development with “drag and drop” components, a WYSIWYG viewer for most mobile platforms, and robust style options including platform-standard and unique palettes that provide a fully customized look and feel. Among other features, included libraries provide GUI controls, database access managers, and direct access target platform hardware and platform operating systems. The Delphi FireMonkey (FMX) framework will compile projects to native code for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux, allowing users to develop and maintain one codebase reaching most of the market. Delphi has been available for over 25 years. Electron Electron is an open-source (MIT License), Chromium-based framework that utilizes web technologies to build desktop applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux. It is developed and maintained by GitHub, a subsidiary of Microsoft. Electron combines the Chromium-based rendering engine with a Node.js server environment. As such, the user interface for an Electron application is available via HTML5 and CSS. Generally, Electron works with most Javascript frameworks such as Angular, Vue.js, and React. The HTML5, CSS, and Javascript-based technologies found in Chromium provide a rich ecosystem of user customization familiar to any web developer. Despite its relatively young age of five years, its community boasts open source packages for database access, operating system interactions, and other common tasks. 26 Benchmarking Metrics This is the sixth in a 26-part series of blog posts looking more closely at each of the individual metrics used in the study, and how Delphi and Electron each fared on these metrics. The first can be found here. Download the complete whitepaper here Benchmark Category: Developer Productivity Developer productivity is the measure of effort and code required for developers to complete typical development tasks. Productivity directly impacts product time-to-market and long-term labor costs so tools that increase developer productivity have substantial impacts on business timelines and bottom lines. Productivity can be realized in two distinct ways – reduced coding requirements due to native libraries, and IDE tools like code-completion and visual design.IDEs with greater library breadth generally result in fewer lines of code per application and produce a clean, lean codebase that minimizes opportunities for bugs or maintenance problems later in the product life cycle. Framework productivity was evaluated according to six metrics that sought to capture howframeworks and IDEs improve product time-to-market. Benchmark Metric 6/26: Application Store Deployment Application Store Deployment: Does the framework’s IDE facilitate direct deployment to native platform application stores (i.e. iOS App Store, Android’s Google Play, Microsoft Store)? Frameworks with built-in deployment features reduce product deployment complexity, limiting errors that could occur or compound, and time-to-market for initial products and updates/bug-fixes. Benchmarking Results Delphi Score: 5 (out of 5) Delphi’s FMX framework can deploy applications for the Microsoft Store, Apple […]