Learning New Things - C++ for Absolute Beginners

I have a bit of a preoccupation with new Delphi programming books and have blogged about them a bunch of times. The keen-eyed among you will notice that this is not a Delphi book, but you might recognise the author's name, Slobodan Dmitrović, from the Delphi community.

Improve the Delphi Documentation

I know it's sometimes popular to reflexively say that Delphi's help sucks. And it's not like Borland and Embarcadero haven't given us some cause, but the documentation really has gotten much better over the years. Of course, there are still issues; New features that aren't well documented (placeholder pages), help topics that are automatically migrated to a new version, but links aren't updated or are broken, etc.

If you've noticed a mistake or have a pet peeve with the help and you're so inclined, there's something you can do about it.

FireMonkey 3D Enterprise Application

You might remember me writing that the FireMonkey framework isn't a full-blown gaming engine and that it's better suited to enterprise applications. (rimshot)

Revenge of the Fifth

You didn't think I'd go through the trouble of making a Star Wars Day post and miss out on the obvious follow-up pun, did you?

The demo project (available here) is pretty much the same as the previous one except that it uses a different 3D model from  Star Wars: Thrawn's Revenge II: Ascendancy. Thanks again to CoreyLoses.

May the Fourth (be with you) - and some FireMonkey feature requests

Happy Star Wars Day!

What? Delphi programming types are allowed to be silly sometimes. :)

Climate Spiral Visualisation

Happy Earth Day!

April 22nd, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Initially started in the United States in response to things like the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, it has grown to include annual events coordinated in over 193 countries and continues to promote environmental and climate literacy today.

An effective way to communicate complex topics and the staggering amount of published data is to find a clear, approachable way to visualise it. Easier said than done, but a really interesting challenge for all of the data nerds and software developers out there.

Data is cool.

In 2016, British climate scientist Ed Hawkins created a simple, but clear, animated radar chart showing the progression of global warming over time. This is called a climate spiral and it's gotten a lot of public attention. It was featured in the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics and similar charts have been created for atmospheric CO2, Arctic sea ice volume and extent and to show predicted temperature changes out to 2100 based on different scenarios.

If you like his climate spirals, check out his work on warming stripes.

Fortunately, the concept is simple enough that a layperson, like myself, could replicate it. So I thought it might make for an interesting Delphi programming exercise.

I Heart Delphi

On February 14th, 2020, Delphi celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Wow.