I just realized I haven't blogged about the sessions I'm going to give at the DDD 2011 events in the US and Europe in the coming months and for which I'm currently preparing the material. Considering I generally blog about the sessions I give at the conferences I attend, I think it is silly if I don't cover in the same way an event I'm helping organize, along with Cary Jensen (who's also speaking) and Loy Anderson.

In case you missed this, Delphi Developer Days 2011 is a two-day training event with two main speakers (me and Cary) covering various areas of Delphi development, some specific to Delphi XE and recent versions, while others focus more on foundations of the  language and its libraries. We'll be giving this seminar in Washington DC/Baltimore, Houston, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam.

My Sessions

At DDD, some of the sessions are in parallel, so you can choose me or Cary, depending on the topics we cover. In any case, you'll have a written paper covering the session you'll miss (well, all of the sessions are in the manual, of course). This is the list of sessions I'm giving in parallel to Cary's sessions:

  • Source Control with Subversion and Delphi, which is mostly focused on Delphi Xe but provides aslo an introduction to Subversion.
  • Delphi Design Patterns and Data Access Patterns, this is a new session in patterns covering both some classic GoF patterns and come of the data access patterns of the "Fowler catalog". A topic seldom covered in Delphi, but quite relevant, IMHO. 
  • New Threading Support in the RTL covers recent RTLadditions to threading, from the use of anonymous methods for synchronization, to the support for anonymous threads, to the use of monitors to the new Spin classes.
  • Developing VCL Components is a classic session, always worth a second thought. How advanced it will be, will likley depend on the actual audience.
  • DataSnap REST Servers with jQuery will be loosely based on the materail of my recent Embarcadero white paper, with some insight from the Delphi Relax project.

Cary's Sessions

I've asked Cary to offer a description of his individual sessions, and here is what he says:

  • Getting Current with Delphi: Language Features. brings you up-to-date by covering most of the major language features that have been introduced to Delphi since Delphi 7. This, and the other Getting Current sessions, are designed to help you get the most out Delphi, prepare you for future versions, and evaluate the benefits of upgrading.
  • Getting Current with Delphi: VCL and RTL Enhancements, introduces you to most of the major enhancements to the VCL (visual component library) and RTL (runtime library) since Delphi 7.
  • Getting Current with Delphi: IDE and the Debugger, takes a look at of most of the IDE and debugger enhancements introduced since Delphi 7.
  • Essential Debugging, provides you with a foundation in configuring and using Delphi's debugger. Some of the debuggers more advanced features are also shown.
  • Building DataSnap Servers and Clients, shows you how to build multi-tier applications using Application servers and thin clients with DataSnap (Marco's DataSnap talk covers the REST side of things). How the new IP-based DataSnap compares to the classic COM version is also discussed.

Joint Sessions

One of the peculiarities of this seminar is that I often join Cary in sessions in which we offer two different points of views on a single subject or in which each of us contrubites his specific expertise. This year the joint sessions focus on:

  • Delphi COM Development, and Why It's Still Important, well given Microsoft has brought back COM to the spotlight with the Silverlight integration, we felt that this classic Delphi topic deserves another look. The benefits of COM are discussed, and the creation of COM servers and clients is demonstrated.
  • Delphi: Today and Tomorrow discusses the current state of Delphi and the Delphi community, as well as what we expect going forward (We think its looking very good). We are joined in this session by a different guest speaker in every city.
  • 64-Bit Delphi Preview is a session for "getting ready" for 64 bit Delphi. We'll talk about the benefits of 64-bit compilation, what happens to pointers and integers, concerns about API calls, and the like. Maybe we'll be allowed to show a demo or two... or maybe not.
  • Delphi Tips, Tricks and Techniques, one of the most popular sessions from last year, but with a completely new set of tips. This is a fun and fast paced overview of classic and new tips designed to help you be more productive with Delphi. 

More Information

More information, the temporary schedule with the time of each session and the parallel tracks are on http://www.delphideveloperdays.com/descriptions.html. There is still room to sign up in most cities, although the European event might as well get sold out. That's about it... but I will also blog about our guest speakers soon.