Dimensional Data

Alvin Toffler once wrote: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” Ironically, we are in the 21st century, and Windows software development is not an exception. This perpetual process of learning and unlearning can be tedious without proper resources. Fortunately, tons of free and premium resources are available to make our journey pleasurable. Let us review the eight most essential resources for software development on Windows. 1. Do you know about Embarcadero Academy? Embarcadero Academy is a unique resource for Delphi certifications and professional courses. While the main focus is on Delphi and C++ Builder, many other languages and modern software development topics are available. In addition, while there are premium courses, many resources are entirely free. Four main areas of this site are as follows: Delphi Courses are available from Beginners to Advances and comprise of latest changes and updates. Topics included are Popular Frameworks like VCL(Windows Development), FireMonkey(Cross-Platform Development or FMX), Delphi Generics, Interfaces, Data Aware Apps, XML, REST, Android Clients, and up to Object Pascal. Delphi Certifications are available to certify knowledgeable programmers. Certificates require passing Exams that thoroughly test the programming knowledge of a Delphi Developer. Passing marks are 80%, and the certificate is valid for two years. Packages include a downloadable study guide, practice Exams, Official exams, and Exam Retakes. Upon passing, you will receive a certificate of achievement and a certified developer logo to distinguish yourself. Other languages: Besides Delphi, it has video courses on other popular languages like Java, JavaScript, C, C#, and C++. Courses range from introductory “Learn to program” to “Advanced Programming” and master-level programming. Online Sessions like Delphi Bootcamps, CodeRage sessions, Conferences, Webinars, Replays are available. Hundreds of hours of video courses are available. You can sign up for free to join Embarcadero Academy now. 2. How to get off to a flying start and quickly learn C++? C++ is a complex language if you don‘t access excellent learning resources. Fortunately, Learn C Plus Plus is a great free resource available for you to learn and apply C++ skills. The site currently contains: Content about C++ Syntax, Code snippets, language features, and articles related to C++11. Hundreds of hours of videos related to hot topics related to C++. A lot of content is about how to solve or do a particular task. This approach is advantageous in practical programming. The site also has a page offering free licenses of superb C++ development tools. Visit Learn C++ now. 3. Do you know what Delphi social networks are available? Joining a social network to get help from fellow programmers and experts is an excellent shortcut to problem-solving. The golden tip for getting help from a community is first to do your homework and then explain your problem in detail so that others can easily understand and help. There are many active Delphi communities and forums available. You can get help and showcase your development for free tips and improvement ideas. Some of these social networks are: Delphi Praxis and Delphi topics at Stack Overflow are vital Delphi resources. Delphi developer and C++Builder Developer might be interesting if you are an avid Facebook user. Delphi Reddit and many LinkedIn places available like Delphi Professionals Delphi And Pascal […]

What, precisely, do we mean by native app development? What is a native user experience or native developer experience? What are the pros of native app development? Why has Native Windows development come storming back on center stage and become such a hot topic? We want to briefly talk about native app development and explain why you should get in with the In Crowd. What is a native app? Native applications are not only defined by the look and feel or fonts. Yes, if you follow these UI guidelines, it looks great and smooth. But if your app is running on Windows, it should behave like other native Windows applications, and if it is another platform, for example Android, it should behave like Android apps. The app needs to look visually cultivated it also needs to keep up with the users’ expectations of how it should behave and contain certain core functionality. It is a problem if it does not behave like the other apps, doesn’t comply with widely established system behaviors, or does not give the performance they need. Native apps are not just about look and feel, they need to be an all-round, first-class good citizen of the operating system environment.  Native user interface controls achieve compliance and help meet the users’ expectations because they follow the system and behave as it should be, largely by allowing the operating system to enable their functionality with minimal additional code on top. For instance, in our case, standard Win32 UI controls, like how they react to clicks and animations and how the shadows and fonts behave when there is a window resizing. We need this because users have subconscious anticipations – “muscle memory” – from the application. If it resizes and animates differently, you risk losing a star in an online review or, perhaps worse, having your application uninstalled and your reputation permanently dented which in turns creates a barrier to the adoption and success of any future applications you might develop. What other benefits are there to using native components in our applications? Now let’s see another side of native applications. Except for these UI/UX, native applications also utilize system functions and hardware technologies present on the target system or device. Native applications can access this hardware directly, which gives much higher performance than apps which use layers of abstraction and support code to achieve similar but inferior functionality. To really create native applications for Windows, your selected development tool should allow you to utilize the system-defined UI controls and libraries. For instance, Delphi with the Visual Component Library (VCL) is the easiest and most stable platform with maximum native power for Windows desktop app development. What is native app development? Now you know the meaning and benefits of native applications. The development process of native applications starts with selecting the proper framework or library. More than two decades ago, there was not much abstraction, variety, or choice of code libraries because the standard operating system APIs were basic and easy to work with them directly. This is no longer the case. Currently, we have Visual Component Library, FireMonkey, Universal Windows Platform, Window Forms, and others. These frameworks and libraries are handy because they have implemented layers of abstraction but making the right choice means picking ones which have a light touch without […]

Today is an exciting and dynamic time to be a developer. Technology advances seem to have accelerated and, with this, our software projects seem to paradoxically expand and shrink simultaneously. They expand because more devices and environments are becoming available to them. They shrink because we tend to use the same tools for developing all variants of our work. Past developers could have a single-minded focus on a particular environment or toolset. In contrast, today’s developers have to consider so many things before starting their Windows 10 App Development journey. So, let us discuss some of the crucial points along that voyage of development. What is the history of your IDE/Framework? Knowing about history is important because historical mistakes, missteps, and abject failures might repeat themselves. As a developer, we invest a lot of resources, both physical and emotional, in a project. If fundamental tools like programming language, IDE, or frameworks drastically change overnight, we must rebuild, almost from scratch, wasting almost all our investment. This repeated rebuilding can – and mostly likely will – increase costs for our clients too, and they won’t be happy either. Delphi has a great history in this regard. Upgrading older projects to newer ones is so straightforward that we can do it in no time. In less than a week, in my work, we recently upgraded a 2003 Windows (VCL) version project to 2022 multiplatform (FMX) project. Our customer was happy and surprised too. Unfortunately, most other tools do not follow the same policy, resulting a tragic graveyard of abandoned projects. If this is growth, then what is a disaster? It is wise to search for the backward compatibility history of a tool before devoting yourself to it. What sort of longevity does the tool provide? What stability does it give when moving from one version of the tool to another in terms of compatibility? It’s important to ask these questions, because if a company abandoned backward compatibility in the past, it would also happen with you in the future, and then it will be too late. Also, if your IDE has no history, ask yourself, is it wise to invest in it heavily? Nobody wants to be the pathfinder, the early adopter who is sacrificed to ensure those who come along later benefit from their trials and tribulations. Why does compilation speed matter? A finished software project is a compilation of hundreds or thousands of iterations of build, test, debug cycles. Pascal, in general, and Delphi, in particular, are famous for high-speed compilation. The specific structure of a Pascal program and multilevel optimizations applied by Delphi gives RAD studio an extreme edge in compilation speed and executable production process. For example, in one typical test, Delphi compiled one million lines of code in under 5 seconds. This super-fast compilation speed can be your friend in hard times of late-night iterative debugging and the seemingly common deadline congestions of a product release date. How to distinguish between Low-Code hype and the real thing? Like all new jargon, many companies misuse NoCode/LowCode words in the software industry. Fortunately, it is easy to distinguish between real and over-hyped tools. Every tool geared toward novice users and non-programmers is a lousy option. Ultimately, you have to write code to push things to their limits or customize […]

Email seems so old now when considering all the messaging options available. It is old, 50+ years old! It’s been the lifeblood of many business processes and is still as important today as it ever was. AWS has a plethora of great services, but they can be a little challenging for Windows app development. With that in mind, the next release of Appercept AWS SDK for Delphi 11.0 includes support for Amazon Simple Email Service (SES). Amazon SES is a reliable, scalable, and cost-effective email service and can be used for marketing campaigns, notifying users, or transactional emails. Let’s see how we can send a simple email… program SendEmail; {$APPTYPE CONSOLE} implementation uses AWS.SESV2; var Client: ISESV2Client; Destination: ISESV2Destination; EmailMessage: ISESV2Message; Request: ISESV2SendEmailRequest; Response: ISESV2SendEmailResponse; begin Destination := TSESV2Destination.Create; Destination.AddToAddress(‘world@example.com’); EmailMessage := TSESV2Message.Create(‘Announcing…’); EmailMessage.Body.Text := ‘Hello, World!’; Request := TSESV2SendEmailRequest.Create; Request.FromEmailAddress := ‘sender@example.com’; Request.Destination := Destination; Request.Content.Simple := EmailMessage; Client := TSESV2Client.Create; Client.SendEmail(Request); end. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 program SendEmail;   {$APPTYPE CONSOLE}   implementation   uses   AWS.SESV2;   var   Client: ISESV2Client;   Destination: ISESV2Destination;   EmailMessage: ISESV2Message;   Request: ISESV2SendEmailRequest;   Response: ISESV2SendEmailResponse;   begin   Destination := TSESV2Destination.Create;     EmailMessage := TSESV2Message.Create(‘Announcing…’);   EmailMessage.Body.Text := ‘Hello, World!’;     Request := TSESV2SendEmailRequest.Create;   Request.Destination := Destination;   Request.Content.Simple := EmailMessage;     Client := TSESV2Client.Create;   Client.SendEmail(Request); end. This is just the start. Why not start your next email marketing campaign with Amazon SES with tools written in Delphi? Or, seamlessly integrate email into your existing business applications built in Delphi? Appercept AWS SDK for Delphi is available exclusively with active Enterprise or Architect subscriptions for Embarcadero Delphi or RAD Studio. You can install the SDK through the GetIt Package Manager within Delphi or RAD Studio if you have an active subscription.

Using InterBase and Delphi, Bulgarian software company Bonev Soft (BSoft) has made financial management and tax payments painless for the country’s industry leaders for over 20 years. BSoft’s flagship software, AJUR®, is an integrated management system for Windows very popular with government and non-government organizations in Bulgaria and around the world, across a number of vertical industries – from manufacturing and financial services through to power generation. More than 5,000 BSoft customers use AJUR to provide financial reports to tax authorities and various other stakeholders, and closely manage their supply chains. Among them are many of Bulgaria’s industry leaders. The View From The Tap Case Study explores how BSoft solved its scaling and efficiency challenges using a highly effective combination of Delphi and InterBase. Read The Case Study