|
Support DFF
If you benefit from the website, in terms of
knowledge, entertainment value, or something otherwise useful,
consider making a donation via PayPal to help defray the
costs. (No PayPal account necessary to donate via credit
card.) Transaction is secure.
If you shop at Amazon anyway,
consider using this link.
We receive a few cents from each
purchase. Thanks
The index page for all
Programs on the site?
The DFF Play CD?
Zipped file
DFF Play
CD.zip contains executable version of about 75 of
the 200+ programs from the site, mostly those I particularly liked
or thought would be of widest interest for non-programmers.
The file is rather large, about 20mb..
Anything else?
Not a programmer (yet)?
That's OK - the executable
version for any puzzle or game you find here is available for
download. Just scroll down to the bottom of most any
description page and you'll find a "Download executable"
link. Downloaded programs are in "zipped" format to reduce size and
may require an "unzipper" program unless you are running Win XP or
later.
Here's a
link to a free one.
Check out the
Most Popular Downloads from
DFF (updated weekly)
First time visitor?
Take a look at the
Introduction
page to see what this site is about
Notes for Teachers
|
| |
November 4, 2013
Delphi For
Fun Newsletter #70
This a special
edition of our newsletter to pass along information about a planned upgrade to
the Delphi version used here at DFF.
Delphi 7 has been the version used here for the last 12 years.
The planned upgrade to the current
Delphi version, XE5. I received 3 emails in October which led to the
decision:
-
One viewer lamented about
lack of a free Delphi version and asked if I had considered using Lazarus,
the free Open Source compiler which attempts, with some success, to
emulate Delphi. I have, and I pointed him to my
Lazarus Revisited page. Lazarus will compile many of the
several hundred programs on DFF with only minor changes and those guys have
done a great job. However I do not intend to make it my primary
compiler nor would I want to test and maintain two versions from now on.
I did point out that XE5 Starter edition is available for $150 for users of
any other "IDE" program, which I believe would include almost every
programmer. Also offered to help any Lazarus user who runs into
problems compiling my programs.
-
A second email asked my
opinion about the future of Delphi and whether it can survive in today's
environment. I replied that it has survived several owners over the years;
has a great staff of devoted developers, many commercial applications, and
an unknown number of equally devoted users. Embarcadero, the current
owner, is a private company so as far as I know, statistics about the number of
customers, applications, and developers are not public knowledge but I'm
convinced that the numbers are large enough to make a permanent "niche".
If current Embarcadero management decided not to continue support for the
language, someone would pick it up and carry on. , I have a
son-in-law who makes a very nice living from Fortran doing mathematical
analysis of submarine designs! Niches are usually not bad places to be!
-
The third email contained an
updated version of my
Big Integers
unit which replaces many of the awkward arithmetic function calls with "operator
overloads". It looks like this would make performing arithmetic with unlimited sized
integers much more like using normal integers. Unfortunately, Delphi 7 does
not support operator overloading so I haven't been able to test it.
However, Delphi versions from about 2005 and later do. I'd like to
investigate it further - I have XE Starter which should support it, but Starter
editions of Delphi do not include source code for the components and I
have found these to be very educational over the years.
Embarcadero (at least here in the
USA) has a number of "special discounts" available until January 31, 2014
including upgrades to XE5 Professional for $549 for any user with a currently
registered earlier Delphi version (me). Here's the link to
their Delphi sales page:
https://store.embarcadero.com/542/purl-dbanner . Deer season is open now but later this month when I have more free time
to play, I plan to
upgrade XE5 Professional even if I haven't harvested $549 worth of venison
J. All
existing DFF program will should compile with D7 or XE versions without
significant changes.
Default wide (2 byte) characters in strings in Lazarus and post-D7 programs are
the biggest problem I know of and is easily fixed. New programs which take advantage of XE features will be identified as such.
However I expect those to be in the minority.
I have arranged
a private discount of 10% for new or upgrade purchases (5% for Starter versions)
from Embarcadero during November for subscribers to this newsletter.
This is available for North American subscribers with these conditions:
-
For NOVEMBER ONLY – ending Nov 30th.
-
Discount is 5% off the Starter Edition, and 10% off any
other edition
-
Discount can be applied to new or upgrade purchases
but not to support or maintenance
purchases.
-
On request, produce newsletter addressed to the individual to receive discount.
-
To purchase, contact Business Development Rep Josh Byus at
Whether you upgrade
or not, please take this
one question survey about your
Delphi usage to help me firm up future support plans.
|
