Saturday, March 31, 2012
Ungrateful End-Users
Have you ever encountered this as a Developer:
Customer Request
I need a report but I want to only input a date range and then it should give me the report with a button click.
Developer Response
OK, ... he is then spending about 2 days to collect the necessary info to get the job done and spends another two days to create the report.
On Delivery:
Customer
Enters the date range and get his report - he is happy and says, job well done, I need another report, but it is urgent, I need it by tomorrow.
Developer
Sorry, it not possible by tomorrow, I need at least 4 days, your project is complex and I need to analyse data again to create the correct results.
Customer then says: Why is it difficult, it is just a date range and a button click!
---
Every developer now or then had a similar conversation at least once. End-Users are ungrateful of what they see because they don't know what complex code, formulas, and thinking lays behind the one button click. For them it is just the button click.
This is what I call the "Simple is Bad Syndrome". Just read on and you will get what I mean.
Same with DBA Tools, Database Engines, and Developer Tools; the simpler the tool is the less it is appreciated by the end-user. For example, Firebird is a exceptional good designed SQL engine that outperforms many commercial databases and is very capable of Enterprise Class missions. Compared to Oracle it has only a 40MB footprint where as the smallest Oracle Express is about 1.5GB. Why is that? Both are SQL Engines, both get the job done with almost no performance differences, and firebird has even a few more features to offer.
It is very simple, Larry Ellison understands the "Simple is Bad Syndrome" and that's way a certain bloated engine is designed to overcome that syndrome. (Oracle is complex and difficult to maintain, so it has to be good) An Oracle DBA is one of the highest paid positions and the reason for that is: Oracle is complex and difficult to learn. Firebird on the other side is a Zero-Administration engine, which means a Firebird DBA has less things to do.
People tend to not to appreciate simple working stuff, so if Firebird is simple to use, then it must be no good.
Very wrong, engineers all over the world try to innovate to make life's easier, so simple does not mean not good.
We have created a new SQL Engine called masSQLer, which is in fact the clone of Firebird but with Grid++ integration and with clustering support, and we benchmark it with Oracle. There is almost no difference (both engines have pro's and contra's) except masSQLer is way easier to use and maintain.
The good news is, more and more developers start to understand the "Simple is Bad Syndrome" and realize that life can be easy and appreciate simple and easy to use tools.
For example, we have customers converting to XPower++ from Delphi and Visual Studio, and the most selected reasons in our surveys was, "One-Click compile feature", "It's simple to use", and "It's fast, I get more done". We hope to achieve the same with our masSQLer product.
So if you are a developer my advice to you is: Always try to explain the complexity of the tasks your need to perform (jabber your clients ears full for at least 20 min. with very technical terminology, or until he/she has a please stop expression on his/her face) and have a look at XPower++, will ya, it might save you some time :)
Take good care, its flu season...
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Man o man, what a start into the new year.
First of all, thx to all supporters and fans. We really do appreciate it very much. And since now we are at the dawn of April I want to share some insight info about what we were up to the last 3 months.
I checked today our quarterly reports and was very pleased that the sales of XPower++ have picked up by 180%, and the amazing part of it is that we are not actively marketing this product yet. Pure web drop ins and mouth to mouth sales.
Our Grid++ system roll outs have 4 folded and it amazes me that businesses just now start to understand the value of a Grid Computing system. The world is clearly moving to distributed systems with App-Store functionality or better, SaaS and PaaS are now IN, everything else is OUT, at least it seems that way.
Well, actually with Cloud and Grid even the devices start to change, some may say Apple started this, some say Linux had it already for years, I say it does not matter, it is an evolution that was foreseen by many.
So, we are still working hard to get X-Mobile out, it looks good, I myself have delayed everything else to work on it, but a few items are still on the table, but good things don't happen overnight right ;)
So we are rolling pretty good and with active marketing kicking in in April, we expect a pretty good year I say.
I will try to share more insight, tips, and tricks in the future, because I want this blog to become a good source of information. So please bear with us, we have a couple of last urgent items to clear and then hopefully everything will be more smooth.
Take care all.
First of all, thx to all supporters and fans. We really do appreciate it very much. And since now we are at the dawn of April I want to share some insight info about what we were up to the last 3 months.
I checked today our quarterly reports and was very pleased that the sales of XPower++ have picked up by 180%, and the amazing part of it is that we are not actively marketing this product yet. Pure web drop ins and mouth to mouth sales.
Our Grid++ system roll outs have 4 folded and it amazes me that businesses just now start to understand the value of a Grid Computing system. The world is clearly moving to distributed systems with App-Store functionality or better, SaaS and PaaS are now IN, everything else is OUT, at least it seems that way.
Well, actually with Cloud and Grid even the devices start to change, some may say Apple started this, some say Linux had it already for years, I say it does not matter, it is an evolution that was foreseen by many.
So, we are still working hard to get X-Mobile out, it looks good, I myself have delayed everything else to work on it, but a few items are still on the table, but good things don't happen overnight right ;)
So we are rolling pretty good and with active marketing kicking in in April, we expect a pretty good year I say.
I will try to share more insight, tips, and tricks in the future, because I want this blog to become a good source of information. So please bear with us, we have a couple of last urgent items to clear and then hopefully everything will be more smooth.
Take care all.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
New Year, New Opportunities
This is my last post for this year and I want to start of with gratitude.
I am grateful to all our customers for trusting us and investing in us by buying a product or service.
I am grateful to all people who are spreading kind words about us.
I am grateful to all our Angels who believe in us and invest in us.
I am grateful to all our employees, consultants, and partners who are all working at 100% to make us tick.
I am grateful to all the developers who have the pioneering spirit to try and use a new technology.
I could probably go on, I have a long list of gratitude, and I really am grateful, I am even grateful to Philips for their Coffee Maker, it kept me awake many nights :)
For some 2012 is the year of destruction! Well I am no Nostradamus but I think its going to be a lot of fun and success. Here are my predictions:
1. We will penetrate aggressively the market and leave a mark with our XPower++ Enterprise Edition
2. We will expand to Australia and China
3. We will finally see our Smyro devices in stores - Smyro-Phone, Smyro-Book, and Smyro-Net
4. We will launch our Smyro-Box device (Live apps/games on TV)
5. We will move Head-quarters to Phoenix/AZ
6. We will support even more operating systems and technologies
Of course these are only predictions ;) but we will aim for that.
So we keep us busy trying to innovate, create, and continue the evolution of our technologies. We may have to overcome obstacles but isn't that just the way life is.
I wish you all a very healthy and successful 2012. I am sure I'll see you around :)
I am grateful to all our customers for trusting us and investing in us by buying a product or service.
I am grateful to all people who are spreading kind words about us.
I am grateful to all our Angels who believe in us and invest in us.
I am grateful to all our employees, consultants, and partners who are all working at 100% to make us tick.
I am grateful to all the developers who have the pioneering spirit to try and use a new technology.
I could probably go on, I have a long list of gratitude, and I really am grateful, I am even grateful to Philips for their Coffee Maker, it kept me awake many nights :)
For some 2012 is the year of destruction! Well I am no Nostradamus but I think its going to be a lot of fun and success. Here are my predictions:
1. We will penetrate aggressively the market and leave a mark with our XPower++ Enterprise Edition
2. We will expand to Australia and China
3. We will finally see our Smyro devices in stores - Smyro-Phone, Smyro-Book, and Smyro-Net
4. We will launch our Smyro-Box device (Live apps/games on TV)
5. We will move Head-quarters to Phoenix/AZ
6. We will support even more operating systems and technologies
Of course these are only predictions ;) but we will aim for that.
So we keep us busy trying to innovate, create, and continue the evolution of our technologies. We may have to overcome obstacles but isn't that just the way life is.
I wish you all a very healthy and successful 2012. I am sure I'll see you around :)
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
XPower++ VCL-Plugins
Did you know that you can create VCL-Plugins and use them in XPower++, actually you can create plugins in any language that supports window handles and int64 (Large Integer).
Here you can find a sample project No 045 -> http://xhelp.gridplusplus.com/samples.html that demonstrates how to create a VCL-Plugin and how you can load and use it in XPower++.
I myself have a Delphi background, I used it since Delphi 2 and I really enjoyed working with it for years, I also love the Pascal language, it is simple and very clear to read, but I never gave up on C++ which is really my favorite language.
So just for fun I wanted to see if I would be able to use QtWebkit with XPower++ and was very amazed when I was able to use with minimum effort. Have a look at the construct of the VCL sample, the important part is that you create the component with the ParentWindow Handle as the XPower++ Form Handle which you need to pass to the DLL, and the rest is up to your needs, like setbounds to adjust the size, or any functionality that you need to trigger and get a result of.
Upside: You can reuse old code (forms and parts of your apps) and/or extend XPower++ Library
Downside: You have to deploy DLL's
So if you go ICKY and make a vampire cross with your fingers with DLL's, this is not for you :)
more info about XPower++ is here -> http://xpowerplusplus.com
Here you can find a sample project No 045 -> http://xhelp.gridplusplus.com/samples.html that demonstrates how to create a VCL-Plugin and how you can load and use it in XPower++.
I myself have a Delphi background, I used it since Delphi 2 and I really enjoyed working with it for years, I also love the Pascal language, it is simple and very clear to read, but I never gave up on C++ which is really my favorite language.
So just for fun I wanted to see if I would be able to use QtWebkit with XPower++ and was very amazed when I was able to use with minimum effort. Have a look at the construct of the VCL sample, the important part is that you create the component with the ParentWindow Handle as the XPower++ Form Handle which you need to pass to the DLL, and the rest is up to your needs, like setbounds to adjust the size, or any functionality that you need to trigger and get a result of.
Upside: You can reuse old code (forms and parts of your apps) and/or extend XPower++ Library
Downside: You have to deploy DLL's
So if you go ICKY and make a vampire cross with your fingers with DLL's, this is not for you :)
more info about XPower++ is here -> http://xpowerplusplus.com
XPower++ Compiler
Hi, today I want to write something about our compiler technology, but before I start I would like to share a small history about XPower++.
Maybe you know it already, but for those who don't, XPower++ is the successor of Power++. Power++ was entirely written with Delphi 2010 and it was the first Grid Computing IDE that used a similar structure like .NET where you needed to deploy a runtime framework to run Live/Native applications. Unfortunately this design resulted in performance problems specially when you had many resources compiled into the app, but given that this was our first version of a complete new approach of running distributed apps, the platform was successful and many businesses are still using it today.
With our XPower++ we basically re-wrote the entire platform, and this time we used Lazarus/FPC to create our libraries. Many people may not recognize it but Lazarus/FPC has matured and has become a real professional solution.
With XPower++ compiler we introduced a new approach where we separated the Grid++ Layer and the Native Execution layer, which means you can write Live apps/games but you would need a runtime (PowerConnect++ Client) to be able to execute, or you can choose to compile your apps/games into a native executable binary for Windows, Linux, MacOSX, iOS, Android,... and more.
Now the real gig behind all this is our unique library that is included into the generated exe, so no more dlls or whatsoever to deploy, in fact developers don't even hassle with search path, include units... etc the compiler figures it out all automatically, which is a real boost in development time.
For those who are trying to trash talk XPower++ and arguing that it generates a to big exe, let's compare:
java app with 1 button: to run it you need min. 36 MB Java Runtime
.NET app with 1 button: to run it you need min 24 MB Framework
Mono app with 1 button: to run it you need min 24 - 45 MB Framework
Qt app with 1 button: generated exe is 2 MB but you need 20 MB runtime
Delphi app with 1 button: generated exe is 2.2 MB
Lazarus-LCL app with 1 button: generated exe is 2.2 MB
Real Studio app with 1 button: generated exe is 4.6 MB
(I am very suspecting now that Delphi also uses FPC)
There are many, some of them create PURE API apps (300KB), but there you have to manage your resources your self and you end up deploying many files, plus you have not that many components available.
XPower++ Enterprise Edition generates 10 MB (2.7MB compressed) in size (150 KB - 1.2 MB for Mobile) but all resources, dependencies, connection handlers, SQL engines, custom components etc... are build right into the exe natively, and what is the best of all is, during development you don't need to include files, fix your search path, create resource files so you can compile and bind them, etc... just write and with the "One Click" cross compiler you generate native apps for many operating systems, alone this feature already saves you up to 75% development and testing time. And all you need to deploy is your exe -> nothing else.
XPower++ has maybe not the fastest compiler and obviously it cannot generate the smallest exe but it is certainly the most practical and most comfortable development IDE out there. With multiple language dialects and easy to use library structure, XPower++ really stands out as a good alternative for many developers. You need to be now a days practical and create solutions fast, because if you spend to much time developing, trying to figure out how to cross compile, searching forums for answers, then my friend you won't keep up with the fast peacing competition.
Lets get real Ladies and Gentlemen, XPower++ is helping many developers to build apps/games faster. Of course there is some Learning Curve but it is really not that hard. For experienced developers it is about 2-4 hours and for novice developers maybe up to 12 hours.
Conclusion: XPower++ is very practical and comfortable to use, and the exe size is totally acceptable compared to others and the capabilities it offers.
Here is my statement: XPower++ Rocks! :) and we aim to run everywhere just like Java but NATIVE!
more info about XPower++ is here -> http://xpowerplusplus.com
Maybe you know it already, but for those who don't, XPower++ is the successor of Power++. Power++ was entirely written with Delphi 2010 and it was the first Grid Computing IDE that used a similar structure like .NET where you needed to deploy a runtime framework to run Live/Native applications. Unfortunately this design resulted in performance problems specially when you had many resources compiled into the app, but given that this was our first version of a complete new approach of running distributed apps, the platform was successful and many businesses are still using it today.
With our XPower++ we basically re-wrote the entire platform, and this time we used Lazarus/FPC to create our libraries. Many people may not recognize it but Lazarus/FPC has matured and has become a real professional solution.
With XPower++ compiler we introduced a new approach where we separated the Grid++ Layer and the Native Execution layer, which means you can write Live apps/games but you would need a runtime (PowerConnect++ Client) to be able to execute, or you can choose to compile your apps/games into a native executable binary for Windows, Linux, MacOSX, iOS, Android,... and more.
Now the real gig behind all this is our unique library that is included into the generated exe, so no more dlls or whatsoever to deploy, in fact developers don't even hassle with search path, include units... etc the compiler figures it out all automatically, which is a real boost in development time.
For those who are trying to trash talk XPower++ and arguing that it generates a to big exe, let's compare:
java app with 1 button: to run it you need min. 36 MB Java Runtime
.NET app with 1 button: to run it you need min 24 MB Framework
Mono app with 1 button: to run it you need min 24 - 45 MB Framework
Qt app with 1 button: generated exe is 2 MB but you need 20 MB runtime
Delphi app with 1 button: generated exe is 2.2 MB
Lazarus-LCL app with 1 button: generated exe is 2.2 MB
Real Studio app with 1 button: generated exe is 4.6 MB
(I am very suspecting now that Delphi also uses FPC)
There are many, some of them create PURE API apps (300KB), but there you have to manage your resources your self and you end up deploying many files, plus you have not that many components available.
XPower++ Enterprise Edition generates 10 MB (2.7MB compressed) in size (150 KB - 1.2 MB for Mobile) but all resources, dependencies, connection handlers, SQL engines, custom components etc... are build right into the exe natively, and what is the best of all is, during development you don't need to include files, fix your search path, create resource files so you can compile and bind them, etc... just write and with the "One Click" cross compiler you generate native apps for many operating systems, alone this feature already saves you up to 75% development and testing time. And all you need to deploy is your exe -> nothing else.
XPower++ has maybe not the fastest compiler and obviously it cannot generate the smallest exe but it is certainly the most practical and most comfortable development IDE out there. With multiple language dialects and easy to use library structure, XPower++ really stands out as a good alternative for many developers. You need to be now a days practical and create solutions fast, because if you spend to much time developing, trying to figure out how to cross compile, searching forums for answers, then my friend you won't keep up with the fast peacing competition.
Lets get real Ladies and Gentlemen, XPower++ is helping many developers to build apps/games faster. Of course there is some Learning Curve but it is really not that hard. For experienced developers it is about 2-4 hours and for novice developers maybe up to 12 hours.
Conclusion: XPower++ is very practical and comfortable to use, and the exe size is totally acceptable compared to others and the capabilities it offers.
Here is my statement: XPower++ Rocks! :) and we aim to run everywhere just like Java but NATIVE!
more info about XPower++ is here -> http://xpowerplusplus.com
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
You got to love Python and PySide
Did you know that Python is architectural a perfect platform for Grid Computing? Well, no surprise because Python was designed as a script language, I am sure that the creator had no intentions to actually use it for High Performance Grid Computing.
The fact is, it has a very dynamic core that can be adjusted at any time, upwards or downwards. No matter what the requirement is, it can be done singular or parallel. Of course it will maybe never be as fast as our Native Grid Library but it is out there and no one seem to grasp the beauty of it.
I did some serious R&D for the last decade on Grid Computing and Python is perfect for it. So obviously we want to harness this poetic Grid Computing power and therefore we added also a Qute++ cluster on our Grid++ System.
Although, Python by itself has already many modules that are cross-platform, I alway was also fond of the Qt Framework, even 15 years back I already used it a couple of times in Linux environments and since then I used it many times. PySide could not have been a better match for our Grid++ System.
PySide is the Python binding for the Qt Framework, so put now 1 and 1 together and we have a perfect cross-platform Grid Computing Library.
Many developers however dislike the Python language, I myself sometimes catch me saying "What a terrible expression" when I write Python code.
Fortunately our compiler uses a dynamic language lexer which basically allows us to add any language/dialect but we did not want to add the Python language, it was important to us that we stick with Basic++, C++, Java++, and Pascal++ language dialects, and writing a language interpreter in Python was not economical.
So we came up with a reverse compiler technology, you see our compiler generates interpreted languages files for each code unit that we call (il) files. These files are actually XML files that hold the information about the code that was written. Once the code is compiled we recreate Python code from these il-files, kind of reverse compiling, and the good thing about this is we can now do that for any language like JavaScript, C#...
So now we have the poetic Python power with the world-wide used Qt Framework and we can distribute it over the Grid++ System, it is just perfect.
XPower++ Enterprise ships with our new compiler, so don't forget to try and create Qute++ apps and games.
Happy Coding ;)
More info about XPower++ at http://gridplusplus.com
The fact is, it has a very dynamic core that can be adjusted at any time, upwards or downwards. No matter what the requirement is, it can be done singular or parallel. Of course it will maybe never be as fast as our Native Grid Library but it is out there and no one seem to grasp the beauty of it.
I did some serious R&D for the last decade on Grid Computing and Python is perfect for it. So obviously we want to harness this poetic Grid Computing power and therefore we added also a Qute++ cluster on our Grid++ System.
Although, Python by itself has already many modules that are cross-platform, I alway was also fond of the Qt Framework, even 15 years back I already used it a couple of times in Linux environments and since then I used it many times. PySide could not have been a better match for our Grid++ System.
PySide is the Python binding for the Qt Framework, so put now 1 and 1 together and we have a perfect cross-platform Grid Computing Library.
Many developers however dislike the Python language, I myself sometimes catch me saying "What a terrible expression" when I write Python code.
Fortunately our compiler uses a dynamic language lexer which basically allows us to add any language/dialect but we did not want to add the Python language, it was important to us that we stick with Basic++, C++, Java++, and Pascal++ language dialects, and writing a language interpreter in Python was not economical.
So we came up with a reverse compiler technology, you see our compiler generates interpreted languages files for each code unit that we call (il) files. These files are actually XML files that hold the information about the code that was written. Once the code is compiled we recreate Python code from these il-files, kind of reverse compiling, and the good thing about this is we can now do that for any language like JavaScript, C#...
So now we have the poetic Python power with the world-wide used Qt Framework and we can distribute it over the Grid++ System, it is just perfect.
XPower++ Enterprise ships with our new compiler, so don't forget to try and create Qute++ apps and games.
Happy Coding ;)
More info about XPower++ at http://gridplusplus.com
What to expect in XPower++ Enterprise Edition
Hi everybody, if you know Grid++ then you know already that we are working around the clock to bring out our most advanced, diverse, and productive IDE so far. The release of XPower++ Professional drew already a lot of attention which we are very grateful for that. We promise that we will continue to innovate and create better tools. Currently the hot item is the XPower++ Enterprise Edition, our emails are filled with beta requests and early access requests, and we too, are very exited about the Enterprise version.
We are almost done with the closed beta cycle, btw thx to all our beta members for keeping it really closed, and soon we will release final public beta cycle. However, with this post today I want to give everybody a small glimpse of what to expect from XPower++ Enterprise release.
Before I go through the list below I would like to point out that our Frameworks are true cross and support x86/x64 Windows, Linux, Mac OSX development, furthermore 32 bit ARM processor support for Windows and Linux has been added.
Our unique X-Mobile framework supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, Symbian, Blackberry, and more. We have integrated also a graded support for older devices. The X-Mobile framework uses a Hybrid technique which is half native and half Live.
My personal favorite is our Qute++ Framework build on top of Qt-PySide, which contains also X-Mobile Framework for devices that support Qt.
Our JAX Framework is a very productive environment for business solutions. JAX++ is our cross browser framework.
Finally we thought also about the fun part, we added a cross platform game library for Native/Live/Instant games, you can create 2D/3D games. We did not forget about the web people and created also a game library with WebGL.
So we have almost covered every branch of development, but we are not done yet, I myself specially motivate our R&D people to add even more diversity to our platform. Like Haiku, Solaris, and FreeBSD support, and more components, overall interconnectivity to other platforms.
2012 is a great year for us, and many developers all over the world appreciate our efforts and support us, I want to thank all of them, without your great interest, feedback and support we would have not come this far. Thank you!
Take care.
More info about XPower++ at http://gridplusplus.com
(PS: The screen shots are taken from a XPower++ BETA 5 and might change slightly)
We are almost done with the closed beta cycle, btw thx to all our beta members for keeping it really closed, and soon we will release final public beta cycle. However, with this post today I want to give everybody a small glimpse of what to expect from XPower++ Enterprise release.
Before I go through the list below I would like to point out that our Frameworks are true cross and support x86/x64 Windows, Linux, Mac OSX development, furthermore 32 bit ARM processor support for Windows and Linux has been added.
Our unique X-Mobile framework supports iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, Symbian, Blackberry, and more. We have integrated also a graded support for older devices. The X-Mobile framework uses a Hybrid technique which is half native and half Live.
My personal favorite is our Qute++ Framework build on top of Qt-PySide, which contains also X-Mobile Framework for devices that support Qt.
Our JAX Framework is a very productive environment for business solutions. JAX++ is our cross browser framework.
Finally we thought also about the fun part, we added a cross platform game library for Native/Live/Instant games, you can create 2D/3D games. We did not forget about the web people and created also a game library with WebGL.
So we have almost covered every branch of development, but we are not done yet, I myself specially motivate our R&D people to add even more diversity to our platform. Like Haiku, Solaris, and FreeBSD support, and more components, overall interconnectivity to other platforms.
2012 is a great year for us, and many developers all over the world appreciate our efforts and support us, I want to thank all of them, without your great interest, feedback and support we would have not come this far. Thank you!
Take care.
More info about XPower++ at http://gridplusplus.com
(PS: The screen shots are taken from a XPower++ BETA 5 and might change slightly)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)