Tea Leaves for Delphi 64, Part 3

Commodore 64: Wizardry Sountrack
When will Delphi 64-bits be out?

Delphi Love

Your reviewer was getting some "Delphi Love" from certain developers who wrote how lovely it was to annoy them when doing their dark deeds. Someone even wrote "love-messages" to your reviewer on certain installers. Maybe it would be better to advise the Almdev developer to move on, drop Delphi?

(Maybe ALMDEV = Ailing, Lamenting & Moaning Developer?)

Apple Mac Store application, 10,000 downloads x US$9.90 = US$99,000.00

(deduct further 30% and US$30 bank charge) = Approx US$69,270 wire-transfer from Apple.

AlmDev Dynamic Skin Form 10,000 downloads x US$0.00 = US$0.00

Maybe 1 or 2 purchases = US$99 x 2 = US$198.00

Deduct 15% for ShareIT, bank-fees, etc = US$168.3

Delphi 64-bitsYour reviewer is noticing the insane discounting that happened the 2 months before Delphi XE came out. That can be good or bad. (Good = you get a discount, if you forget SA, then it's bad).

From previous publicly notified beta tests, for example, the DBExpress Beta Test took 6 months and then a service patch was released (see QC article).

Then, there is a curious message posted on the Embarcadero forums, of someone asking when the beta test is out.

Your reviewer, from educated guessing:

a) Maybe that guy missed the boat and they have a full-house on beta-testing... (Probably). It seems they didn't send out any invites yet. (Source). It seems they have not sent any invites yet. They seem to gear-up for a first-half release of a preview. (Probably something this month?) called Pulsar.

- Essentially they promised First-Half. If that slips... the Delphi Product Manager will have to update the Roadmap again... (unlikely scenario)

- They probably could promise at least something next month, then promise a couple more updates few months later (most likely scenario).

b) From the way how things are going -

Delphi 2010 was released on August 2009.

Delphi XE was released on August 2010. (Almost 365 days apart)

Does it make sense that +6 months later - Wheel Barrow probably Delphi-XE2 would be released?

5 months from April = August Time-frame.

Guessing:

- New version of Delphi would be released -- to satisfy people on SA that at least they get a major upgrade during their time. (most likely)

- No new version? -- people would get annoyed. (probably 50% chance) and get them to renew in excitement.

- Maybe more updates to retro-fit bds.exe (and probably with updated primary-key) to allow the preview compiler to work (most likely scenario).

Key Generator?

Least I forget. Someone went and made a key-generator for Delphi/XE. Here are some tips to help avoid this situation:

a) Use a bigger RSA key size, like 2048-bit size key. That will make private-key factoring very, very hard. Remember to use a random seed for the key, least you get another situation similar to the Sony PS/3 hack.

b) Tie the email address to the key. For example, the person must be on-line in order to activate the key. (but wait -- is that not the purpose of on-line activation?), in order to activate the key, the email address must be also present as well.

It's obviously simple. If someone exposes their key, they cannot use it without a valid email address. That will deter anonymous serial numbers.

c) There's some encrypted sanctuary code in BDS.EXE. They need to add this code to the LicenseManger.exe and other programs which check serial number so chances of getting hacked is much lesser.

d) Can they remove sanctuary_lm_lib_manager.pas debug information? :)

e) Can they post a HTTPS encoded message with Machine Name, IP Address, Windows User Name, Organization and other necessary information to identify the user when "Product or License Validation Error" occurs? Right now, it goes to the buy-now product page. That would be wonderful.

In mean-time, your reviewer is getting some Delphi-Love from annoyed Delphi-users. Your reviewer hopes this annoys them even more. :)

kylix_rd wrote: Now #Valve needs to get busy on HL2: Ep3... It's beginning to get a "Duke Nukem" rep. Maybe they're rebooting the series?

Maybe Embarcadero needs to get busy with D/64 before it's beginning to get a "Duke Nukem" rep? No offence, if the chief scientist of Embarcadero comments someone else's software is starting to feel like Duke Nukem, they need to look at their own software before commenting about others...

Update 1:

Post updated with new information about Delphi/64 bit information.