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19 November 2003
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BorCon 2003: Threading Session Follow Up
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In my threading session at BorCon, a member of the audience asked how you could prevent the CLR from suspending threads durring garbage collection in .NET. Well, I finally had the time to do some research on this subject so here is the answer to this question.
The short answer is: you cannot prevent the CLR from suspending managed threads in .NET. However, if your managed thread is running in unmanaged mode, the CLR will allow the thread to continue, since any object references are pinned (locked down). When the thread returns to managed code, the CLR will suspend the thread. Detailed information on this algorithm is available from Jeffrey Richter's Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming.
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10:54 PM -
Rick Ross -
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BorCon 2003: Papers Posted
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I have posted two of the four papers that I wrote for BorCon 2003.
The Linux for Windows Developers (Source Code) paper has updated content from last years BorCon which demonstrates the steps involved in porting a VCL application to Linux. The SlideShow application loops through all JPEGs in a given directory, maximizing the size and allowing for pausing between pictures
Writing Distributed .NET Applications (Source Code) demonstrates how to write Distributed Delphi 8 applications. In addition to introducing .NET Remoting, I've written a distributed prime number application that hands off work to one or more clients.
Enjoy!
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10:44 PM -
Rick Ross -
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07 November 2003
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BorCon2003: Wednesday Recap
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I headed over to the conference center to grab some breakfast. I quickly ate a bagel and some fruit. I headed back to the hotel to prepare one last time.
I arrived at the room about 15 minutes before Carey Jensen was finished with his session on In-memory Datasets in .NET. From the brief look that I had, datasets seem really cool. One thing that I remember is that you have the option of looking at the changes in different ways. You can look at just the changed (edited) items, items that have been added and items that have been deleted. Pretty neat.
Carey finished on time and I went to set my laptop up. Unfortunately, my laptop and the projector did not like each other. After trying a couple of things, I asked somebody in the front row to tell the room monitor to get someone from the Audio/Video department here. In the meantime, I whipped out my new 256MB thumb drive, transferred my presentation and code to the computer that was in the room. I just purchased the thumb drive, just in case something like this happened.
The audio/video guy showed up and he tried a few things to see if he could get it to work. No luck. Bummer. So it was Plan B — use the existing computer.
I started the repeated Reflection session at 11:00AM, to about 50 people. Things were going along fine until I got to my security section. Realizing that I had set up a special directory on my laptop in order to demonstrate reduced privilege and how they affect reflecting on a class, I then tried to set up the same environment on the computer. Unfortunately, I didn't have administrative rights to set up the sandbox. Panic struck for a split second, then I jokingly offered for the audience to gather around my laptop.
I decided that I would attempt to explain the various settings and move from there. At this point I still had at least 15 minutes to go, so I brought up my example that demonstrates how to use Reflection to create an assembly on the fly. I filled the rest of the talk with going over the code and answering questions. Overall, I though my first Reflection talk went slightly better, probably due to the technical problems with my laptop and the projection equipment. Looking at some of the speaker evaluation forms showed that I did pretty good too.
Towards the end of this session, my stomach was growling with hunger pains. Evidently, I didn't eat enough for breakfast. Note to self: eat a bigger breakfast before presenting just before lunch. I ended the session promptly, since I didn't want to be the one preventing anyone from getting their lunch.
The audio/video person showed up again, and we talked about him bringing the computer guys with him so we could figure this out after lunch, since I was going to be in the same room for my Threading session. I told him I would be there early.
After a box lunch, I returned to the room and set up for my next session and wait for the audio/video people to show. About 10 minutes before the session was going to start, he shows up and they attempt to figure out what the deal is. Again no luck.
I had been talking with the people in the audience, asking them what kind of sessions they would like to see next year. I jokingly commented, that I stumped the hardware guys and then said that that sounds like a good session for next year.
I started the Threading session at 1:30PM to about 150 people. Lots of questions were asked, which is always a good thing. The session went pretty good — there is a lot of information to attempt to cover in a 75 minute session. Speaker evaluations looked good too.
Nothing feels better when you are finally finished with all of the presentations!
I decided to check out Lino's .NET Remoting session, even though I had written a paper for the CD on this topic. Lino is a very funny guy and he opened up the session asking if anyone had used COM. He had a great line. “COM is like smoking. If you've never done it don't start and if you do smoke you need to quit”. Lino only had two PowerPoint slides, then he jumped right into the code. I didn't stay to the end, since I wanted to make sure that I was able to upload my updated code, and slides.
The closing session is always a blast and Dale really likes his “Soft wear delivery mechanism” (T-Shirt Cannon). Dale must have shot over 50 T-Shirts alone, Blake Stone threw many T-Shirts and several Borland Jackets. I managed to catch a T-Shirt thrown by Blake! Unfortunately, I didn't win any other prizes. I may have a shot at a jacket, if I am one of the top 10 speakers. Blake mentioned this towards the end, that the top 10 non-Borland speakers will each receive a Borland jacket. We'll see if I can make it into the top 10, since the competition is pretty tough...
Dale joked about some possible locations for the next BorCon, including Fairbanks Alaska, somewhere in Montanna and Las Vegas Nevada. Nothing official was mentioned, though. I don't think they have nailed it down. Rumor has it that it will be in September 2004. Until next year...
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05:56 PM -
Rick Ross -
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BorCon2003: Tuesday Recap
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I was woken from a deep sleep at 5:00 AM, from a certain somebody on Eastern Standard Time. My new glasses are finally in. The abrupt awakening made me feel like I was in a fog for most of the day. I tried to get a little more sleep before the alarm went off, but that was wishful thinking.
I hoped into the shower and got ready for the day. After dressing, I headed over to the conference center to grab my breakfast. Not staying long, I headed back to the hotel to prepare for the days session as well as tomorrows sessions. Feeling confident, but still in a daze, I headed back to the conference center, hauling my backpack.
I didn't want to eat too much for lunch, since my Reflection talk was immediately following. I took the opportunity to arrive one hour before my talk, giving me plenty of time to set up my laptop, adjust the font sizes and take some pictures of the room. I will have more information on where to find some of the pictures I took while at BorCon.
Several people arrived early, and we talked a bit. It was nice to get to know the audience beforehand, it certainly helped to keep the typical nervousness that sets in just before giving a talk.
Show time! I began the presentation promptly at 2:00 PM to a room full of about 350 to 400 people. A lot of great questions were asked, which really helps to keep the audience from sleeping, especially right after lunch!  The presentation went extremely well. In fact, after it was over, I was energized - the fog had been lifted. Giving presentations can be addicting, as they give me an adrenaline rush! The room monitors allowed me to look at the feedback and overall it looks like people really enjoyed the talk. I'll get the official results in a month or two for all of my sessions.
Later in the day, Carey Jenson and Nick Hodges came up to me and gave me thumbs up on my presentation as well.
I went back to the hotel to drop off my laptop, then back to the conference center for the special event. This year, the special event was a visit to the The Tech Museum of Innovation . Located around the Museum, where various stations of different kinds of food. Italian sausage, bratwurst, Chinese Chicken Salad, Fish & Chicken tacos, Philadelphia Steak Sandwiches, some kind of noodles and probably other foods that I missed. Then the deserts were brought out. Sugar rush! King Dongs, Twinkies, caramel Apples, Rice Krispy Treats, bubble gum, taffy, lollipops, candy, and more. Yummy!
The museum, while very cool, seemed to be geared more for younger kids then us geeks, but they had a few things that kept us interested. There was a huge line to try the Segway. I decided not to wait in the line, since I wanted to get back to the hotel so I could prepare more for Wednesday's sessions. On the way out of the door, we were given a nice T-Shirt on which Microsoft (the sponsor of the special event) thanked Borland for supporting Microsoft's' operating systems. Located on the back of the T-Shirt was a chronological listing of every product Borland has shipped in its twenty years. Nice touch!
In the hotel, I wrote a few more examples for my threading talk and turned in early. Only one more day left of BorCon!
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04:43 PM -
Rick Ross -
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06 November 2003
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BorCon2003: Monday Recap
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I headed over to the conference center at 6:45 since the continental breakfast started at 7:00 AM.
The General Session was next. Borland officially launched Delphi 8 for the Microsoft .NET Framework and JBuilder Studio 7. Many demos where shown. Most impressive, the FishFacts demo from Delphi 1 was brought up into Delphi 8 and compiled and ran without any errors. The integration between CaliberRm / Together and JBuilder X was really impressive as well.
I attended Brad Merrill's session on Writing Faster CLR Code and picked up a few pointers for writing faster CLR code. Found out that method inlining is disabled if
* virtual methods are used
* method is too big (approx > 32 bytes of IL code)
* complex control flow
* try/catch and try/finally is used
* local variables
* using structures (records) as arguments
Since the Fairmont Hotel was about 3 blocks away from the conference center, I decided to stay until I ate my lunch. After lunch, I headed back to my hotel room to put the finishing touches on my Reflection session.
My wife and I then went to Spiedo Ristorante, an Itailian Restaurant for dinner. Unfortunately, it took about 45 minutes to one hour to get our dinner. The food was very good though.
After dinner, I went back to the conference center to attend the Meet the .NET Team and learned that Kylix will not be updated in 2004. Sad news indeed. Other interesting tidbits is that dbGo/ADOExpress and WebSnap will not be in the first release of Delphi 8 for the Microsoft .NET Framework. The BDE will be ported, except for SQLLinks. About 40 .NET team members were present.
Following the Meet the .NET Team session, Borland held a Delphi 8 Launch Party. All sorts of deserts were available. Ice cream with lots of toppings, specially made cookies with icing that read: “Delphi 8 for .NET”. In addition, a big sheet cake was there. I talked with Lino for a while, then went back to the hotel to get some sleep.
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10:14 PM -
Rick Ross -
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BorCon2003: Sunday Recap
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I went to Ray Konopka's pre-conference tutorial on Creating Custom Components for the Microsoft .NET Framework. About 20 minutes into the session, a booming voice over the conference center p.a. system says “A fire has been reported in the conference center. Please evacuate the building using the nearest exit”. The fire alarm then sounds and everyone begins to leave the building.
In case you haven't heard, Ray Konopka is now the President of ComponentScience, Lino Tadros' .NET component company. Ray is going to continue to improve and support his Raize products (press release). Lino's company has the Who's Who of Delphi developers which currently include Charlie Calvert and Steve Teixeria.
Two minutes later, we are told that we could come back in the building. In the meantime, Ray is trying to figure out where he left off. Gathering his thoughts, he starts again. A couple of sentences later, Ray said “Well, I guess nothing else can go wrong”. Just after this comes out of his mouth, the fire alarm goes off again. Another voice comes back on and lets us know that we don't need to leave again.
Ray kept his humor through this interruption and is a very good speaker.
After lunch, I attended the speaker meeting which kept me informed on my responsibilities and the logistics of the conference.
I snuck into Scott Ambler's pre-conference tutorial (Agile Database Techniques) for a short time and he was very animated. Very good speaker. Highly recommended.
I stopped by the PILLAR booth in the Exhibit Hall and said hi to the guys. A little later, I walked through the rest of the Exhibit Hall. I talked with Lino Tadros, Ray Konopka, Jeroen Pluimers, Chad Howser and probably other people that I am forgetting.
Lino demonstrated a really cool product for ASP.NET. Basically, it was a web based calendaring system that is really impressive. More information can be found here.
After dropping my laptop off at the hotel, my wife and I went to the Opening Keynote. A couple of videos where shown that were slightly modified from the Matrix Reloaded. They pasted David I's face over Neo's face. Pretty funny stuff.
The Welcome reception was very good. In addition to all sorts of great food, they had a huge hall full of all sorts of games. Any casino game that you could think of, video games, X-Box games, pool tables, dart boards, slot machines and many others. It was a really big arcade game.
They had a live band and a dance area. However, not many people used the dance floor, since there wasn't enough alcohol flowing. The party included two drinks per person.
Turning in your ticket for the Welcome Reception resulted in chips to use to play table games or coins for playing the slot machines. I tried my hand at BlackJack and did okay. Later on, I turned in my chips for some raffle tickets.
At the end of the evening, they pulled tickets for prizes. I was fortunate enough to win a $50 Circuit City gift certificate and a $50 SuperValue gift certificate! Woo hoo!
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep.
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09:49 PM -
Rick Ross -
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02 November 2003
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Goodies
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This morning when I woke up at 3:30 PST, I realized that I should have forced myself to stay up later than I did. After lying in bed, trying too hard to sleep, I decided to take a shower and get ready for the day.
I arrived at the registration desk at 7:00 am and checked in. I was given a nice backpack full of goodies. The backpack contained the following:
* Conference Program Guide
* A PDC WinFX Developer Preview poster
* A copy of the November 2003 Issue of Delphi Informant
* A BEA development and resource kit
* A evaluation copy of Windows 2003 Server
* Microsoft Tablet PC SDK V1.5 CD-ROM
* An invitation to the Delphi Launch Party (following the Meet the .NET Team session)
* 2003 Borland Conference Evaluation kit containing the following:
* CaliberRM
* Together Edition for C++BuilderX
* C++BuilderX Architect
* C#Builder Architect
* JBuilder Enterprise
* JBuilder Mobile Edition
* Optimizeit Enterprise Suite
* Optimizeit ServerTrace, DataCenter
* Janeva
* InterBase
* StarTeam
Update: I almost forgot about the nice black T-Shirt too. The logo is a circle with the six phases of software development: Manage / Define / Design / Develop / Test / Deploy.
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12:46 AM -
Rick Ross -
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01 November 2003
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BorCon 2003: I'm in San Jose!
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My wife and I made it to San Jose today about 5:55 pm PST. Believe it or not, but it was warmer in Michigan than California! What is up with that?
I knew I would be on the same plane as Ken Faw. We were pleasantly surprised when we ran into Eric Whipple too!
The plane ride was smooth, although way too long. Evidently we were flying into 110 MPH winds! Hopefully on the way home will get a real nice tail wind and make up some time!
We are staying at the Fairmont Hotel. One word. Wow! It's a real classy place. Tomorrow I hope to take some pictures and make those available.
We met back up with Ken and decided to go to dinner at Blake's Steakhouse . While waiting for Ken to meet up with my wife and I, we ran into Patrick McMichael. We managed to twist his arm and he joined us for dinner.
The food was very good. Highly recommended. If you're in San Jose and like Prime Rib, this is the place.
I will make every effort to update my blog at least once a day during BorCon 2003!
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01:27 AM -
Rick Ross -
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15 October 2003
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BorCon 2003: My sessions and papers
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BorCon 2003 is almost here! This year I have two presentations and I have also written two additional papers for the conference CD.
My sessions are3126: Reflection in Delphi for the Microsoft .NET Framework
Type: Regular Session. Level: Intermediate.
RTTI has a new cousin in the .NET world: Reflection. In this session, learn how to explore and use assemblies, types, attributes, and more dynamically at runtime.
Prerequisites: Basic familiarity with Delphi, C++Builder, or Kylix.
3162a Tuesday, November 4, 2003 — 2:00pm - 3:15pm
Room: A3/A6
3162b Wednesday, November 5, 2003 — 11:00am - 12:15pm
Room: J3
3176 Threading in Delphi and Microsoft .NET Framework
Type: Regular Session. Level: Intermediate.
In this session, discover additional threading options available in the Microsoft.NET Framework and Delphi. Topics covered include thread-pooling, how TThread maps to .NET threads, and synchronizing techniques using .NET IPCs.
Prerequisites: Basic familiarity with Delphi, C++Builder, or Kylix.
3176 Wednesday, November 5, 2003 — 1:30pm - 2:45pm
Room: J3
On the conference CD, my papers are:Linux for Windows Developers
This paper introduces the Linux operating system and its architecture to Windows developers. Several key concepts and various tips and tricks for porting existing applications to the Linux operating system will be covered.
Writing Distributed .NET Applications
Before .NET, writing distributed applications was very difficult and required many different steps. While Delphi certainly provided useful tools for helping with these aspects of distributed applications, they still were cumbersome to install, configure, write and debug. Using Delphi for .NET and the Remoting namespace, this paper will demonstrate the power and ease of writing distributed applications — the .NET way.
If you are going to BorCon check out one of my sessions, or hunt me down and say hello. If you're having trouble finding me, stop by the PILLAR booth in the exhibit hall and see if I'm there. Even if I'm not in the booth, someone there might know where to find me.
After the conference I will publish a couple of my papers. Look for the links on my Publications page. Leave a comment if you want to vote on what papers you to want see.
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10:37 PM -
Rick Ross -
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