For #delphiweek : What is your Delphi story? How did it lead you to where you are now? What are you memories of Delphi over the past twenty years it's been around?
For #delphiweek : What is your Delphi story? How did it lead you to where you are now? What are you memories of Delphi over the past twenty years it's been around?
Here are some stories of mine that might interest you, or prompt memories of your own (and post them below!):
* The installer for Delphi 1 looked like a car steering wheel and dashboard. It's my main memory of Delphi on Windows 3.1, but was a great upgrade from the DOS programs I'd been writing in TP7.
* Using Calmira, an alternative Windows 3.1 shell written in Delphi 1. (It's still around and has a Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calmira)
* Later, when I was thirteen or so, I used Delphi 2 and it wouldn't fit onto my computer's hard disk (I don't remember how big the D2 install was, but let's say I had only a 40MB disk or so.) I installed it over a network drive to my father's computer, which used a different file system (he might have been running OS/2 Warp? NT3.1 or 3.5?) which caused no end of compatibility issues. I think that was over a token ring network, too.
* I got most of the Delphi versions from D2-D6 on PC Plus magazine cover CDs, an English magazine also published in Australia. I wouldn't be here now if I hadn't had access to those free copies of Delphi when I was a kid.
* By the time I was in Uni, we used Delphi 7 to write the UI layer for network filtering / traffic blocking software I wrote with three other students as our final year's project - it communicated with a kernel driver I wrote in C. But having a great UI is really important for presentations. I remember I wrote a simple graph component to chart network traffic in realtime, which used Bézier curves - probably using code from efg - to interpolate between the points. It looked very smooth. Of course the kernel driver was the technically hardest part but it's awfully hard to /show/ that when demonstrating something to an audience. Delphi was a great tool for the UI layer. I was working with several others on the project at the same time, and taught them all Delphi specially to use on the project, since they had to write a UI and my role was the driver - the computer science course had been mostly Java before then. I remember it showed a big flaw in the comp-sci curriculum - they had no idea of memory management, and that was the hard leap for them moving from Java to Delphi.
* After Uni I was looking for a job, and saw an advertisement for a marine science company doing very interesting stuff with sonar and underwater acoustics. They used C++, but specifically advertised for someone with experience with the VCL. I'd only done one semester of C++ and had focused mostly on C in my spare time, so read the entire Stroustrup book in a weekend and applied. The main app was a mix of the VCL in an OWL-based framework, and one of the first things I did there was rewrite it to VCL-only. That job led to travel, conferences, presence at at least one natural disaster (not something to be pleased about, but very interesting), seasickness, and lots of stories.
All due to Delphi.
These days I run my own Delphi-based consulting business (www.parnassus.co), which has led to lots of interesting work I'm mostly contractually obliged not to talk about. I'm spending half my time developing plugins for the Delphi IDE too.
So that's my Delphi story! If my father hadn't introduced young me to Turbo Pascal as a step up from BASIC on a BBC microcomputer, and then Delphi 1, after which I ran with Delphi eagerly myself, my adult life would have been completely different. Delphi has directly and indirectly had a huge influence on my life's direction. Kindof odd to think about (I'd normally say that about people or events, not software) but it's true, and definitely something to post for its birthday celebration :)
--
I'm missing most of the podcasts and general Delphi-week participation due to timezones and traveling, so this will have to do for participation in the week, unfortunately. So post lots and make me feel I've done something for the celebration ;) What is your Delphi story? How did it lead you to where you are now? What moments do you remember?
Here are some stories of mine that might interest you, or prompt memories of your own (and post them below!):
* The installer for Delphi 1 looked like a car steering wheel and dashboard. It's my main memory of Delphi on Windows 3.1, but was a great upgrade from the DOS programs I'd been writing in TP7.
* Using Calmira, an alternative Windows 3.1 shell written in Delphi 1. (It's still around and has a Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calmira)
* Later, when I was thirteen or so, I used Delphi 2 and it wouldn't fit onto my computer's hard disk (I don't remember how big the D2 install was, but let's say I had only a 40MB disk or so.) I installed it over a network drive to my father's computer, which used a different file system (he might have been running OS/2 Warp? NT3.1 or 3.5?) which caused no end of compatibility issues. I think that was over a token ring network, too.
* I got most of the Delphi versions from D2-D6 on PC Plus magazine cover CDs, an English magazine also published in Australia. I wouldn't be here now if I hadn't had access to those free copies of Delphi when I was a kid.
* By the time I was in Uni, we used Delphi 7 to write the UI layer for network filtering / traffic blocking software I wrote with three other students as our final year's project - it communicated with a kernel driver I wrote in C. But having a great UI is really important for presentations. I remember I wrote a simple graph component to chart network traffic in realtime, which used Bézier curves - probably using code from efg - to interpolate between the points. It looked very smooth. Of course the kernel driver was the technically hardest part but it's awfully hard to /show/ that when demonstrating something to an audience. Delphi was a great tool for the UI layer. I was working with several others on the project at the same time, and taught them all Delphi specially to use on the project, since they had to write a UI and my role was the driver - the computer science course had been mostly Java before then. I remember it showed a big flaw in the comp-sci curriculum - they had no idea of memory management, and that was the hard leap for them moving from Java to Delphi.
* After Uni I was looking for a job, and saw an advertisement for a marine science company doing very interesting stuff with sonar and underwater acoustics. They used C++, but specifically advertised for someone with experience with the VCL. I'd only done one semester of C++ and had focused mostly on C in my spare time, so read the entire Stroustrup book in a weekend and applied. The main app was a mix of the VCL in an OWL-based framework, and one of the first things I did there was rewrite it to VCL-only. That job led to travel, conferences, presence at at least one natural disaster (not something to be pleased about, but very interesting), seasickness, and lots of stories.
All due to Delphi.
These days I run my own Delphi-based consulting business (www.parnassus.co), which has led to lots of interesting work I'm mostly contractually obliged not to talk about. I'm spending half my time developing plugins for the Delphi IDE too.
So that's my Delphi story! If my father hadn't introduced young me to Turbo Pascal as a step up from BASIC on a BBC microcomputer, and then Delphi 1, after which I ran with Delphi eagerly myself, my adult life would have been completely different. Delphi has directly and indirectly had a huge influence on my life's direction. Kindof odd to think about (I'd normally say that about people or events, not software) but it's true, and definitely something to post for its birthday celebration :)
--
I'm missing most of the podcasts and general Delphi-week participation due to timezones and traveling, so this will have to do for participation in the week, unfortunately. So post lots and make me feel I've done something for the celebration ;) What is your Delphi story? How did it lead you to where you are now? What moments do you remember?
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