Saturday, July 17th, 17:30
I've just arrived in Philadelphia, and picked up a special Inprise & Borland Conference Daily Blast paper newsletter is - again - being provided (to about 3,500 conference attendees). Edited by Bob Arnson (who else?), sponsored by Compuware NuMega, with an overview of the keynotes, the latest news as well as conference schedule updates.
From the Weekend Edition we shamelessly quote from "Blake Stone's Cheesesteak Corner" the following: ... the really big news for JBuilder fans is that we'll be delivering a 100% Java JBuilder for Solaris later this year. We'll follow the Java 2 platform onto other operating systems following that release, including Linux.
The Code Name for the new 100% pure java version of JBuilder for Solaris (and later Linux) is PrimeTime, by the way. "Nothing but Java", as Blake and the others would say.

Sunday, July 18th, 22:30
Well, the keynote is over. It started with DavidI on guitar, announcing CEO Dale Fuller, who didn't appear on stage at first. While waiting for Dale, DavidI decided to open up the floor for questions. And a certain guy from the audience stood up and wondered about the community, and commitment to the community. A number of people may not have known who the new CEO Dale Fuller was, or how he looked like, but he certainly made a great entrance and impressive introduction. Dale Fuller is a relative young CEO, who (still) has a feeling for developers; especially the Borland developer community (he used that word a lot). Dale outlined three important rules:

1. Developers Rule!
2. Speed Rules!
3. Responsibility Rules!

• Intro to What's New in Delphi 5
• Using ADO with Delphi 5 (ADO? Wow!)
• Under the Hood of What's New in Delphi 5
• InternetExpress in Delphi 5 (InternetExpress? Wow!)
• OpenTools API, including keybindings (keybindings? Wow!)
• Developing Web Applications with XML, Delphi and C++Builder (XML? Wow!)

Finally, some awards were given away, including a life-time achievement award to David I, who was also named Vice-President of the new "Borland.com and Beyond" online community (and not the Borland.com division, as I reported yesterday). Wow, congratulations David! You deserve it!! (hope this doesn't mean your programming days are over, or you have to shave now ;-)

Monday, July 19th, 7:30
Well, it seems a number of people heard it wrong (including myself), and DavidI wasn't named vice-president of the Borland.com division (which is called Borland again, by the way, so that should have been an indication), but of the Borland.com and Beyond community. This on-line community is something I've been hearing a lot about recently, although few people have actually seen it.

The Delphi Product Address started with the Official Launch of Delphi 5, which can be seen at the re-designed website of Borland and Inprise (which currently look pretty much the same actually).

Also, we've seen a lot of information regarding PrimeTime (nothing but Java), the 100% pure Java version of JBuilder for Solaris (and after that for Linux). It was pretty impressive to see JBuilder running on a Solaris box, really.

At the Delphi Meet The Team session, the Spirit of Delphi Award was given to Marco Cantù and Bob Swart. Last year, we were "runners up", and we're both very pleased that our work and efforts are so much appreciated by everyone. On behalf of Marco and myself, I want to thank the entire Delphi community (there's that word again)...

Later that night, I had a chance to have a (short) word with Dale Fuller, and I must say, he certainly is different from the other CEOs I've met at Borland. Let's hope that it's not just words, but actions as well. But as Dale said himself, he would probably would have problems believing all this, but wait and see. It's the community; we all - Borland and developers together - who can make this work.

Tuesday, July 20th, 0:30
The Delphi Party has just ended. All people received a free 60-day trial edition of Delphi 5. Actually, that's FT4 of Delphi 5, so we should expect it to be "somewhat less than perfect" at this time. Yet, it's certainly a great thing to have, and I promise you a lot of detailed coverage on my Delphi 5 Clinic as soon as I'm back. In-depth articles about WebMidas, InternetExpress, the new Data Module Explorer, XML and far more will be only a few of the new features in Delphi 5 that I'd like to cover here.

Tuesday, July 20th, 8:30
I didn't get much sleep last night; too much time playing with the pre-release version of Delphi 5. And I gotta say: there are some great improvements. I just love the new data module designer. Words cannot express how great it is to write code and draw your (relational database) design at the same time. And be able to print it (even to metafile, for inclusion in your Word documentation). And the data module designer also works with "derived" data modules, of course, such as Remote DataModules, Web Modules, etc. It's just great!! (sorry about that, I just really like this, and I've been playing with it a lot last night)...

Wednesday, July 21st
Today was the last day of the conference. The Technology Keynote was all focussed on Linux, and Inprise tools for Linux. The first one to show was InterBase, which is already shipping for Linux.
Then, Michael Swindell shared the results of the Linux Survey (so far). Most people want to see a Delphi for Linux or a C++(Builder) for Linux. And about 70% want a true 4GL IDE, instead of a command-line compiler. We also heard that Borland has just finished ported its back-end Delphi/C++ compiler to Linux. This back-end compiler is shared by Delphi and C++Builder, so it opens up the possibilities for a Borland C++(Builder) or Delphi for Linux. A demonstration was given of the Borland C++ command-line compiler for Linux, compiling a computer game (faster than the regular Linux C++ compiler).
At the end of this keynote, another demo of the 100% "nothing but Java" version of JBuilder, code-named PrimeTime, was shown on Windows, Solaris and Linux.

Product Announcements
Apart from Delphi 5, there are a number of other products that have been announced at the Exhibition Hall.

TurboPower's engineering director, Julian Bucknall, has been demonstrating their newest product, Sleuth QA, an advanced Memory Checker (CodeWatch) and Profiler (StopWatch) announced at the show. In fact, I'll be using this Delphi Profiler StopWatch in my Delphi Efficiency session on Wednesday.



Also, BlinkInc has announced DeltaPatch. Why send out entire new versions of your programs and data files when you can just send the changes? DeltaPatch gives you the capability to create a single patch file containing just the differences between the new version and the old version.
And the best thing: DeltaPatch also work with Shrink-ed programs; you don't get a lot of overhead just because you're trying to patch a compressed program (which usually would be the case with a binary diff/patch).


DeVries Data Systems, Inc. announced the availability of OfficePartner, the first suite of software components designed to integrate the Microsoft Office suite with Borland Delphi and C++Builder. OfficePartner enables developers using Delphi or C++Builder tools to exploit the power of Microsoft Office, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint in their own applications.

Finally, at the booth of Vista Software, I saw the new Apollo 5.0 and Apollo Client/Server 5.0 products -- Hot off the compiler! Apollo Client/Server 5.0 will be useful for web server applications as well, and you can be sure I will cover this tool/technique in these pages someday soon.