The virtual CodeRage II conference by CodeGear started a few hours ago, with a keynote by David I (he hosted CEO Jim Douglas and product manager ) . Later I heard Nick Hodges talking about the status of Delphi, nice talks but not much news. Right now I'm hearing Cary Jensen talking about configuration in ADO.NET (very nice talk, by the way).
I'll give three talks tomorrow, and on one Wednesday. Here is a short list, with both local conference time (PST) and Central European Time (that is, my time).
Delphi Dynamic Architectures with Packages (Tue, 7:15am PST - 16:15 CET)
Delphi allows you to deploy dynamic architectures based on runtime packages and their dynamic loading, which have nothing to envy to dynamic assemblies management in .NET. This presentation covers the foundations, the alternative approaches to refer to external symbols (RTTI, interfaces ...), and shows some practical examples, including how to manage the clean-up of package-based objects.
This is a talk I gave a few times that helps unveiling little know areas of Delphi, including runtime packages and interfaces. More or less a classic.
Delphi 2007 and Vista (Tue, 8:30am PST - 17:30 CET)
Windows Vista has many new features and relevant changes. This presentation focuses on the key issues for Delphi developers, including how to use the file system properly and how to handle user interface problems. We'll also see how Delphi 2007 supports Vista and what you can do with older versions of the IDE.
This is another talk I gave a few times, based on a chapter of my Delphi 2007 Handbook.
Towards a Delphi REST Framework (with an AJAX front end) (Tue, 9:45am PST - 18:45 CET)
Delphi can be a great tool for creating efficient data-driven REST servers. This presentation introduces the core ideas upon which a Delphi REST framework could be built.
This is a brand new experimental talk. I'm interested in kicking off an open source project based around and extending this web development approach (which is somewhat similar to what I'm using for this blog). Maybe I'll pull it on SourceForge (or some other opne source projects site, I'm not sure) tomorrow... I have a name for it, but I'm still not 100% sure about it.
Writing a DSL in Delphi Session Change (Wed, 7:15am PST - 16:15 CET)
This session discusses building Domain Specific Languages and DSL-style code in Delphi. The use of DSL is becoming a very popular technique in Java, C#, and even more in Ruby. The presentation introduces the role of DSL and shows different approaches you can use to implement them in Delphi.
This is another brand new talk, exploring a totally unknown area of Delphi, using custom variants to allow dynamic scripts to be compiled within Delphi code. Even if writing a Domain Specific Language is not your goal, the techniques described can be worth exploring.
Vendors Booth and More
I've got also a vendor booth at CodeRage II and will be at the vendor event ("Exhibitor Reception") on Thursday evening (3pm PST, midnight on my time). There I'm promoting two offers (browse the link from the exhibit hall for more some info). One will be a special offer for my Handbook that will start tomorrow (before my first talk) and last only until Friday. The second is a private newsgroup-based support services I'm kicking off during this week.
I'll blog more about both offers over the next few days. And also report about CodeRage II. Stay tuned.
BTW, to be able to promote my services at the conference I had to come out with a minimal web site in English for my company, at www.wintech-italia.com. The site is still minimal, but it is slowly coming together.