Ping 2012!

Yes,  I am still here.

2011 was a very challenging year for me: in January 2011 I have been offered a very tempting position a company and I have accepted it. It’s a very small “services” company but with large expansions plans. The whole 2011 I was busy building a new system, maintaining some old ones (and gradually deprecating those in favor of the new one). It was really challenging and most of all time consuming. I had barely any free time for myself and when I had any I spent it as personal relaxation time.

The sad part about 2011 is that I did not get any chance to work on my open source projects (except the small updates to TZDB package). This year, hopefully, things are going to settle down work-wise and I will start getting more free time to work on my projects again!

I would like to give a small update about each project and what to expect from them in the future:

  • DeHL — A collection of code built around the concept of “type objects”. Unfortunately, DeHL only stirred some architectural interest in the Delphi community. It did not actually attract  many active users or contributors. If your code is not used in real life applications then it’s kind of useless. The good part is that it’s open source (BSD) and anybody doing a Google search can wind up there and download any piece of code for his/her use. Also, DeHL was a very good compiler “test case” in Delphi 2009/2010/XE time frame. I used it while working for Embarcadero a lot and it always revealed bugs and problems that got fixed internally. And finally, DeHL offered me the chance to learn some design principles I had never used before which ultimately made me a better programmer.But, unless someone steps up and takes over, DeHL is effectively dead.
  • TZDB — This project is alive. It’s a small project wise a very clear scope that was realized 2 years ago. I am only running a tool to generate new time zone definitions from time to time. Other than that TZDB is alive and kicking.
  • Collections — A collection of generic containers. What can be more exiting? (for me at least).  Well, I have on my machine a half-finished version 2.0. I have never completed it because it basically rips open some of the initial designs. Initially I inspired from .NET and Delphi collections classes to make a hybrid. Then I worked in Java and noticed that “Java’s way” is also a good way to go. So 2.0 tries to combine concepts of all three major players. This project is temporarily on hold until I find my direction.

The good thing about 2011 is that I had the chance to use all new shiny .NET technologies I haven’t touched before (I was a .NET 2.0 user before). This means, actual LINQ (collections and SQL) coding, WCF, WPF and all that stuff. This gave me a broader perspective on things. This also means that my most wanted Delphi feature for 2012 is anonymous types and lambdas. Hopefully we will see these features and we can build some very interesting and time-saving solutions around them.

2012

I never make new year’s resolutions because I know I would not keep them. This being said, I hope I can get my act together and finally finish Collections 2.0.

 

Happy and a Fruitful New Year!