I missed my Casual Friday post last week due to an, unfortunately, expected 40th birthday. I say "unfortunately" because the birthday was mine.

Cross-Platform Delphi

The Wings of Wind blog has an interesting new post about the possible outcomes of the cross-platform Delphi that has been rumored for some time now:

Delphi 2011 and beyond: The Libraries Ahead

I can't personally talk about what I may or may not know about future Delphi versions. However, one thing that has always struck me as odd is the inability to target multiple platforms using a native Object Pascal, VCL-like component library. Lazarus/Free Pascal seem to be able to do this within the confines of native Object Pascal code.

Please don't get me wrong here. I understand that what I'm talking about is quite an undertaking that would require quite a few man hours to accomplish. However, what Borland effectively did with CLX is write a whole new VCL layer, simply targeting the QT libraries instead. With the proper abstraction, I just don't see why the same thing cannot be done for the whole component library. Plus, it would be a great chance to reinvent the data-aware bindings in Delphi so that they are more flexible and allow one to bind any control with any data source, be it a TEdit or a TGrid. As we found out with DBISAM and ElevateDB, at some point it is just better to take what is good from the existing code and start over with a new architecture that can be used for the next decade.

Links

Via BoingBoing, and in the true spirit of Casual Friday, here's a link to a game that may bring back a few memories:

Digital - A Love Story

I haven't played it yet, but it looks interesting.

And, finally, more cool links to check out:

The Daily WTF
A funny site that deals with all sorts of programming flubs and mistakes, many of which we've all seen at one time or another.

Instructables
A very neat site that has millions of instructions on how to build some interesting stuff around the house.

Satellite News
If you like old movies, and specifically two robots and a guy making fun of old movies, then check this site out.

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