A day in the life of...

http://blogs.remobjects.com/blogs/ck/2009/02/06/p251 Read the comments I posted to see why I like it!

My employer's support contract has finally come to an end which means I have to look for another job, haven't had to do that in a while! Drop me an email if you have any positions vacant, in the meantime it's time to do a little "networking".

The outcome of this fairly long exchange on codeplex has made me very happy!

It seems they are unable to spell the word "money", because every time they send me their drivel of a newsletter they always want money. Usually it is for their "Van of truth" (which amuses me immensely) but this time it is to help them to become "the most technically advanced political party in the UK". So, what are they going to do to earn this esteemed title? Set up our own BNP call centre Set up the party campaign central office Purchase 18 computers/screens/software Activate our brand new central database platform Recruit more staff to cope Train all staff in new systems Set up central mailing and telephone points for party Open our new logistical distribution warehouse Riiight. Call centre – Surely other parties have these? Central office – I am pretty sure other parties have these! 18 computers / screens / software – Screens? Are they going to watch TV on them? MONITORS! At least we are talking I.T. now though. Central database...

I'm trying to view this page in Firefox. When it loads the browser tells me I need Silverlight, so I download and install it and then restart my browser only to be told I need to install Silverlight. That's not impressive at all!

My app has a wizard approach, the current control appears within a panel with Align set to fill the hosting panel. My first wizard step control merely had an image on it which resizes with its parent control. When I resize the form the host panel resizes, which resizes the wizard control, which resizes the image; and boy does it flicker! I just had to spend some time upgrading my old Delphi DIB controls to D2009 just to get an image that doesn't flicker, crazy! By the way, I tried the same thing in VS2008 and there was no flicker at all, and I thought Delphi was supposed to be the tool that produced fast UI apps.

There was a potential deadlock in the last piece of code. When you obtain any kind of lock you will mostly use a try..finally block to ensure the lock is released when you have finished with it. The using() command expands to a try..finally block so the original code might look okay, however if you mentally expand the code you will see the problem. using (FileLockingService.FileReadLock(product1.ID)) {     //Some code here } This becomes var disposable = FileLockingService.FileReadLock(product1.ID); try {     //Some code here } finally {     disposable.Dispose(); } So why is this a problem? In a single threaded application it isn't, but this is a website so there are multiple threads running at the same time. Now take into account the fact that a web request has a timeout, what if the thread is aborted after the lock is obtained? Ordinarily this isn't a problem because the acquisition is followed immediately by a "try", but if we expand this code further it is ev...

Apparently my boss used to be annoyed with something on his old website. When he wanted to upload an updated binary he often couldn't because his product was so popular that someone was always downloading it at the same time. He'd have to continuously hit Delete in his FTP client until eventually he'd slip in and manage to delete it before updating the new version. This obviously isn't an ideal solution because: He constantly had to sit there for around an hour trying to delete it. Once deleted from the disk any user attempting to download would get a 404 – Not Found error. During upload any user attempting to download would get an Access Denied error of some kind. For this website I have decided first of all to only update the files via a HTTP form post. So firstly any long running upload will not deny access to the currently available file, this eliminates problem 3. Additionally, using a form post means I can overwrite the existing file, so this eliminates problem 2....

If I had to write a large business app which accessed a DB, or a website, I would use .NET without hesitation. When it comes to small apps (less than 10MB) that will be downloaded by home users what should I use? I have such a project coming up soon, my boss has bought D2009 and wants me to use that because he is paranoid about people reverse engineering the binaries. I'm a little hesitant but I must admit that I think in this case Delphi 2009 probably is the best tool for the job, and I like to use the best tool for the job rather than the tool I like to use best for my job. Hopefully things will go smoothly, it will be nice writing apps in two different languages.

An odd title for a coding blog I know, but I love martial arts too, especially competitive ones. I'm just putting together a CD for my car. The tunes on the CD music really make my adrenaline pump, so I am putting together a compilation of tunes which make me want to win a fight...with style! Nirvana – Smells like teen spirit. Fat boy slim – Right here right now. William Orbit – Adagio for strings (Ferry Corsten Remix with first 2 mins cut off). The Prodigy – Breathe. The Prodidy – Firestarter. Chemical Brothers – Block rockin' beat. Chemical Brothers – Setting Sun.