This week (and the next) I'm doing Delphi training to a group of developers in Kuwait City. I'm covering a large number of topics, from migration to Delphi 2010 and Unicode (which is quite relevant for the Arabic alphabet), to web development and web services, to client/server development, to modeling, to Delphi Prism, and more. I've giving the class to a group of developers who work for the local government, who all recently upgraded to RAD Studio 2010.

As this is my first trip to the area I've ever done, there are still many things I don't fully understand of course. That's why I'm avoiding comments on the actual lifestyle (traditions and attitude towards life, large presence of immigrants, food and daily times, and other facts that are quite easy to see but very difficult to understand  from the outside).

It is certainly nice to see how much passion for Delphi you can find here. I met the person who introduced Delphi to this IT team of the government many years ago, and he's still passionate about it (and happy to see me there) even if he's now an "upper manager". Also several developers come from Egypt, and they told me about the Delphi community and companies using it in their country or origin. This is obvious, as Delphi is used all over the world, but there is nothing like first hand experience to confirm that idea.

I saw some of the applications they built in Delphi. One that's been in used for some time tracks the presence of the government employees, used as they get to work and as they leave. There is a totem with a video and a numeric keyboard: they type in their number and give confirmation with their fingerprint (which makes it hard to pretend someone else got to work). By talking with other people, I heard a complain that this application is a problem as it is causing traffic jams. In fact, all employees now need to get to work at 8, more or less all at the same time, and this is creating problems with the traffic. In the past, people would get to office between 8 and 10... so no traffic. I guess they might as well get some more work done, but that's not a given (this out of my Italian experience!).

The local developers have the same doubts about Delphi's future, the ability to handle web development and in the future supporting phones and devices or any other Delphi developer. This doesn't change. However, they have fewer opportunities to meet with other Delphi developers, so they feel more "alone" they the average. In Europe it is easier to attend events, conferences, product launches and all that. But they take advantage of the many online offers Embarcadero has in terms of presentations, training, videos, while papers, and just about everything else (while not shining, Internet speed is good -- and by the way, I noticed the offices filter out Facebook, while I can get to it from the hotel).

BTW, if there is any other local developers (or not-so-local-but-willing-to-travel, beside those I'm giving the class to, I'll be more than happy to set up an informal meeting for a chat. Anytime until mid next week.

The most relevant part of the experience is to handle the heat. There is no humidity, which is good, but average temperature is over 40 C (more than 100 F), and that's the average of the entire day. Peaks around 45 at day, goes down to 38 or so at night. Hot all day. I've learned a few signs that tell you the heat is very high:

  • you open the cold water, and it is too hot for washing
  • the (imprecise) car thermometer goes out of scale (they apparently don't show anything above 50, only a not so reassuring "HI" -- for "high temperature", not for "hello") -- they did get really over 50 last week!
  • a country sitting on some of the largest oil reserves of the world is out of power and had black-outs due to excessive (but somehow required) use of air conditioners or A/C
  • they tell you the only think that might fall from sky is dust and sand, not water
  • to save power (and also for the heat) they shut down shops but also offices and public offices soon after noon. Well, they don't shut down, they stop the A/C: at that point most people leave. I also saw turning off lights (in an office), in case someone was missing the point
  • you feel there is a nice breeze at night, check the temperature, and its 38 C. Yes, nice compared to 42!
  • most construction workers (include road workers) work only at night

American chains are everywhere. Starbucks and McDonald's are countless. There is a Starbucks even at the ministry. I have to say I'm appreciating their "frozen cappuccino". Most people I talked to (and I was happy to hear that) consider McDonald's food in a negative way... but they gave me high praises of KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken, for those of you who don't know). I'm not sure which one I'll pick! I'll post a few pictures in the coming days, and possibly write more.

Building rage from extremely modern (including an incredibly tall telecommunication tower) to incredibly old and on the verge of collapsing (as above here), all in the same block. Construction sites are countless (see first image above), but they told me most of the new ones remain empty due to the economic and real-estate crisis. I'm pretty sure that if things get back (since they still have plenty of oil) the city might change a lot in the coming years.