Google+ Delphi Developers Community: 2400 members and wishlist for 2014!

In January, the Google+ Delphi Developers Community will have it's one year anniversary. With 2400 members, as well as 300+ members in the Delphi iOS & Android Community and the Delphi Component Directory, I really appreciate and enjoy the posts and discussions about my favorite tool!  

As you know, in the Yule time it is not unusual to send off a wish list to Santa, so here are my wishes for Santa (+David Intersimone) and the Code Elfs at Embarcadero for 2014. 

Make 2014 a year for improving what exists!

It has been said before, but I cannot help but repeat my burning desire for having the list of "old sins" significantly shortened, instead of even more new features. Many posts during 2013 has been about performance issues or missing implementations, and to mention some: Generics weirdness, threading related issues, efficiency of generated code, lack of newer Windows APIs, lack of ready made wrappers for Android Java APIs,  IDE memory management and debugger/emulator stability, IDE features such as code insight and error insight which behave erratically, ...I'll stop myself here ;) 

Make 2014 a year for  engaging the communities!

We have a lot of awesome people making awesome fixes, improvements and workarounds for known Delphi issues.  I would love to see these people be given some love from EMBT and their excellent work adopted and integrated into Delphi.  We also have the open source efforts for creating regression tests for the Delphi libs, and it would be awesome if this effort would be adopted and supported by EMBT.  

To sum it up: 
2014: No new platforms and lots of fixes!

That was my wish list. 
What would be your Xmas wishlist for Embarcadero?

Welcome to the Delphi iOS & Android Developers Community on Google+!

The Google+ Delphi Developers Community sprung another sibling!
Feel free to join up with the Delphi iOS & Android Developers Community.

The Delphi Developers Community is a relatively whine free place to discuss our programming challenges, and has just passed 2200 members, and our new iOS and Android offspring focuses on the finer details of getting the most out of the FireMonkey mobile platform - already have 125 people participating.

Then there is the growing Delphi Component Directory, where a steady flow of posts are highlighting the good stuff we may need to solve our challenges.

There even is a place to vent your anger with Delphi and Embarcadero without detracting focus from solving programming issues. If you need to rant and rage - people are all ears in Unit Number 5.

RAD Studio XE5 Easter Egg

I am the curious kind, so armed with experience from earlier versions and the will to do a little experimentation, I brought up this photo:

• Within RAD Studio XE5, do Help|About
• Hold down the Alt-key and type TEAM
• Double-click in the scrolling list of names

Click to enlarge - I can see Marco Cantù :)

Also posted to the Google+ Delphi Developers Community

Android Application Events

There are a few differences between a Windows App and an Android App that puzzled me initially. Why doesn't my application get FocusChanged Activate/Deactivate or Close when switching between or terminating apps on Android?

In this post I also test out Google+'s new support for embedding G+ posts in blogs and web pages.

A Delphi Component Directory on Google+

Now that Delphi Developers Community is inching towards 2000 members, the component update posts are perhaps not taking over, but there certainly is a bit more activity.

So - I decided to make another crowd sourced community for sharing components and resources. I hope my fellow Delphi developers will add posts about their components as well as web sites, blogs or communities, so that we can grow this into a useful and up-to-date Delphi Component Directory.

A great way to kickstart it, is that you post a link to your favorite component or component vendor, after you have checked that it hasn't already been posted. Select the right component group, or suggest a new group, and add tags for platform (#vcl, #firemonkey, #ios, #android) or other features.

Delphi Developers on G+ has passed 1500 members

With Blogger's ability to +mention people, and now also sharing the blog comments on Google+, I'd say that you would have a hard time finding something that can beat it the Google+/Blogger combo for impact. Perhaps this can reignite the Delphi blogosphere, as it has never been so easy to create content and reach a targeted audience.

So, why don't you put on your writer's hat, write about your Delphi experience, and share it with us at the Delphi Developers Community?