RAD Studio 2007 launch in Oslo, Friday Sept 14th

The largest Delphi meetup.com group in the world (121 members and counting!), Oslo Delphi Club,  is arranging a launch event for the new Delphi and C++Builder version called RAD Studio 2007. This is the version that, amongst other things,  introduces full support for .NET 2.0 and Generics in Delphi for .NET (as shown here).

If you're in or close to Oslo, Norway make sure you're not missing this event! If you are (or want to become) a ODC member, RSVP here. You should also sign up for the event itself here.

Thanks to the new Oslo Delphi Club organizer, Kjetil Korsveien of Alfacode (the CodeGear product distributor in Norway) for organizing and hosting this event!

See you there!

Don't miss the Oslo Delphi Day, Dec 15th 2006!

In a joined operation between Alfacode AS (and Thomas Fjeld), CodeGear Stockholm (represented by Fredrik Haglund) and the Oslo Delphi Club, we are arranging the Oslo Delphi Day on Friday December 15th.

The key attraction is three presentations held by tech Speaker Extraordinaire, Chad Z. Hower (aka Kudzu) of Indy and IntraWeb fame. In addition there will be few sessions by Fredrik and myself. Thomas has just made the agenda available here.

If you are reading this and are within travelling distance of Oslo, make sure to sign up for the event here!

See you there!

Borland and CodeGear

As most of you will already know, Borland has now moved its developer tools group into a separate company called CodeGear. CodeGear, which will still be wholly owned by Borland, will continue to develop, sell and support developer tools like Delphi, C++Builder, JBuilder and Interbase. There are also indications that they are moving into the webspace with support for languages such as PHP, Pyhon, Ruby and Ajax technology.

While some people have been waiting anxiously for a complete separation from Borland in a operation to sell the IDE group to a separate entity, I think that the current situation is better for the stability and long-term viability of CodeGear in general and the future of Delphi in particular.

The CodeGear management will be in a position to grow the IDE business and pour the revenue stream back into the development of new versions and products. I think this is good news, but as always we should keep our heads calm and keep our options open ;).

Good thing we called our user group Oslo Delphi Club and not NoBUG (Norwegian Borland User Group) or something similar ;)).

ODC#2: 1st Oslo Delphi Club event was great!

Unbelievable, but true - only two weeks after the Oslo Delphi Club was created we have 48 members and counting! And on Wednesday September 20th we gathered not less than 21 members to the first ever meeting at the local Peppe's Pizza joint to share good food, beverages, background stories and enthusiasm of Delphi, DevCo and the Oslo Delphi Club.

The room I had booked was packed to the last seat. After getting our first cold glass in hand, we took turns telling about ourselves, our Delphi/ Turbo/Borland Pascal background, our employers/companies, our projects and our ideas, hopes and possible contribution to the future our new-founded club.

Members varied greatly in age, experience and project types, but in common we all had the love in a product and phenomena as splendid as Delphi. We raved about the ingeniousness of a development tool that has followers who will select a product based on the language (read: Delphi) in which it is programmed.

I think that this enthusiasm caters well for the future of Delphi in general and the Oslo Delphi Club in general. If you haven't already, and you're close to Oslo, Norway - be sure to sign up as a member here.

ODC#1: First ever Oslo Delphi Club meeting!

The Oslo Delphi Meetup group has now been created and the first meeting is scheduled to be Wednesday September 20th, at a local pizza place. If you are a Delphi programmer situated in or close to Oslo, make sure you join the group and signup for the meeting.

 

PS. IMO, the Oslo Delphi group hasn't finalized its name yet. The archetypical English name that meetup.com uses is The Oslo Delphi Meetup Group. The current Norwegian name is the awkward "Brukergruppen for Delphi i Oslo" (literally "The user group for Delphi in Oslo) and I'm not satisfied with it. Perhaps "Oslo Delphi Club" could be a swifter, more natural name - it works in both Norwegian and English. We'll probably discuss it at the first meeting - be there if you can!

Oslo Delphi Meetup Group started!

We have now started the Oslo Delphi Meetup Group (or "Brukergruppen for Delphi i Oslo" as it is called in Norwegian). If you have a chance to participate in upcoming meetings in Oslo and is interested in Delphi (I assume you are - why else would you be here;)) please sign up as a member here.

Membership is free, but using the meetup.com site isn't (there is a monthly fee). For the time being DevCo's Fredrik Haglund is the Organizer (and thus the guy paying the bills) while I'm a Assistant Organizer (so I can manage parts of the site).

When we have reached a minimal membership count, we'll try to organize the first actual meeting somewhere in Oslo. Until then, sign up, answer the first Poll and feel free to start threads in the message board with comments, ideas or questions.

Nordic Delphi meetup groups

Last week I had a very nice meeting and dinner with DevCo’s Nordic representatives Fredrik Haglund (Developer Relations and Evangelist) and Dan Nygren (Account Manager). We had some interesting discussions about everything from nuclear power plants to Delphi and DevCo. These guys are very dedicated and on a mission to make DevCo and Delphi succeed even better than under the Borland umbrella.

One of their goals is to encourage the formation of more technical (and less marketing-speak driven) meetings with and between local Delphi developers in cities throughout the Nordic area. Fredrik has already started a Delphi meetup.com group for Stockholm – they have their next meeting September 14th. In Gothenburg, Magnus Flysjö is running another Delphi group that will have their next meeting September 1st.

As far as I know there are no active Delphi meeting groups in Oslo (or Norway?) for the time being. There has been the (give or take) annual official Delphi launch meetings, but no user-driven events. Once upon a long time ago, there was a smartly named group – NoBUG (for Norwegian Borland User Group) – with their own Usenet group (no.org.nobug.diverse). It was pioneered by our own CTO, Morten Lindeman. To quote from the bottom of this page:

“NoBUG
The Norwegian Borland User Group recently announced their formation on several newsgroups. Their aim is to promote and support the Norwegian community of Borland product users. In addition to Borland C++, the group covers Pascal, Delphi, OWL etc. For more information, send an email request to: nobug__at__falcon.no”

Alas, it ceased to exist several years ago. If there is enough interest, I’ll be glad to contribute to a new Delphi meetup group in Oslo. You can state your interest in a comment here, or even better by indicating your interest at meetup.com. Now with the upcoming free and inexpensive Turbo Delphi Explorer and Pro versions, it should be easier to get hobbyists and students interested, too.

A quick search reveals that there is some activity to try and start a group in Bergen (by Tom Reiertsen). He has registered the domain ndug.no (Norwegian Delphi User Group). Great initiative, Tom!

The Delphi 2005 launch in Oslo was a blast!

More than 140 people showed up for a breath-taking demonstration of some of the great new features of Delphi 2005 (yes, that is the official product name). Jason Vokes covered the IDE, Unit tests integration, Error Insight, Help Insight, SyncEdit, Refactoring, ASP.NET, Borland Data Providers, and much more. Henrik Jondell demonstrated ECO II, Database reversing, Model driven development and more.

Yours truly got 15 minutes to show some slides on me, Infront AS, how we use Delphi, the most productivity enhancing new Delphi features and what's new in the Delphi language for D8, D2005 Win32, D2005 .NET and in the future.

You can download my slides and some of the demo code I didn't have time to show here: http://cc.borland.com/ccWeb.exe/listing?id=22630.

John Kaster has uploaded his BorCon Delphi 2005 slides here: http://cc.borland.com/ccWeb.exe/listing?id=22324

They contain much more detail and cover much more ground (this is were I got some of the future language stuff) - recommended!

Don’t miss the Delphi launch in Oslo!

Borland Nordic have started sending out invitations to the launch event of the next Delphi version. Based on the sneak-peak URL, the final name for Diamondback might be Delphi 2005. The event in Oslo will be Tuesday October 12th at Fabrikken (The Factory), address Nedre gate 7.

I'll be there - will you?

Register here.