TURBU Tech

What’s wrong with this code?

[code lang="Delphi"]
procedure TMyCustomChecklistPopupControl.ClosePopup;
var
  i: integer;
begin
  inherited ClosePopup;
  FInternalItemStringList.Clear;
  for i := 0 to Self.CheckedCount - 1 do
    FInternalItemStringList.Add(Self.CheckedItems[i].Name);
end;
[/code]

Continue reading ‘TStringList updating pitfalls’ »

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the release of The Way of Kings, the first installment of Brandon Sanderson’s new epic, The Stormlight Archive.  I’ve had a bunch of other stuff distracting me since then, but this week I’ve finally put some time aside to read through it.  And it did take all week.  This is an enormous novel, 1000 pages in hardcover.  Howard Tayler called it “the best argument you’ll have all year to get an e-reader, because you HAVE to have this book, but you might not be muscular enough to carry it around.” I’m going to disagree with that conclusion.  Get the real novel.  A digital display just won’t be able to do the beautiful, detailed illustrations in between some of the chapters justice.  But he’s right that you have to have this book; it’s the Must Read Novel Of The Year if you’re into fantasy literature at all. Continue reading ‘Review: The Way of Kings’ »

My friend and coworker François Gaillard recently set up a tech blog over at fgaillard.com.  I just ran across an interesting post about using inherited; in Delphi, and since he’s not listed on DelphiFeeds yet, I figured I’d link to it here.  He’s a pretty talented engineer with a good mind, so you can expect to see some good observations over there if he keeps at it.  (He also gave a very interesting session at Delphi Live this year about speech technology, and anyone who can get an English version of Windows to understand his thick Inspector Clousseau accent obviously knows a thing or two about bending a computer to his will!) 😉

Also, just in case anyone hasn’t seen it yet, (this isn’t quite as recent,) Nick Hodges has a blog again, over at nickhodges.com, and it’s not on DelphiFeeds yet either.  I figured I’d post a link here, since one good shout-out deserves another.

The last few versions of MS SQL Server have included a feature where you can create new functions in .NET assemblies and register them with the database server. This can be a good way to deal with concepts that are difficult to express in T/SQL, and it can provide some big performance boosts. The process is not without its warts, though. Continue reading ‘When is a null not a null?’ »

For those who haven’t seen it yet, due to popular demand, the StackOverflow people created a new site called programmers.stackexchange.com, a site for the more subjective questions that StackOverflow isn’t really designed for.  Someone recently set up a poll: What’s your favorite programming language. You can probably guess what my answer was. Continue reading ‘Little things Delphi gets right’ »