I start my programmer's journal

I have been programming on and off for several decades now. Some of the techniques stick with me of course but as languages develop and progress, one must learn particular ways to do things and these particulars tend to be quickly forgotten for a programmer like me who doesn't dedicate all of his time to it (my main job is comic book retailing).


Thus the purpose of this blog. I plan to record here those little tricks that must be learned sometimes the hard way and that are easily forgotten, and maybe on the way help some other googlers finding these exact same solutions. I had considered implementing my own blog software but I am firm believer of avoiding reinventing the wheel. And this is just so much more easier and simpler, it allows me to concentrate on what I really need to be doing instead of wasting so much time implementing a whole new set of web software.


My language of choice is Delphi because I have always loved Pascal, even though I don't agree as to how Borland implements some of its object oriented programming to Pascal I guess I can bear it. The way it has tried to force variants is particularly ackward and here is were a less strict language like PHP shines. The problem with PHP of course is that it is geared towards scripting but if PHP had a good IDE and compiler like Delphi maybe I would switch entirely (maybe it already does, and I haven't had the time to explore it).


My main programming work deals with databases and here I use MS SQL Server 2000, although my final goal is to migrate to MySQL all of my databases (and hopefully also to Linux via Kylix!). That is why all my Delphi database development is done using DBExpress. The dbexpress drivers I am using are from Core Labs, which I found after a bit of experimenting to be the most stable. Also I use Infopower 4000 components, and for my Delphi internet tricks I use Indy 10.