New job, new office, new adventures

It’s been roughly 4 weeks since I posted a status report on Amibian.js. I normally keep people up-to-date on facebook (the “Amiga Disrupt” and also “Delphi Developer” groups). It’s been a very hectic month so I fully understand that people are asking. So let’s look at where the project is at and where we are on the time-line.

For those that might not know, I decided to leave Embarcadero a couple of months ago. I will be working out may before I move on. I wanted to write about that myself in a clean fashion, but sadly the news broke on Facebook prematurely.

Long story short, I have been very fortunate to work at Embarcadero. I am not leaving because there is anything wrong or something like that. I was hired as SC for the EMEA regions, which basically made me the support and presenter for most of europe, parts of asia and the middle east. It’s been a great adventure, but ultimately I had to admit that my passion is coding and community work. Sales is a very important part of any company, but it’s not really my cup of tea; my passion has always been research and development.

So, come first of June and I start in a new position at RemObjects. A company that has deep roots with Delphi and C++ builder users – and a company that continues to produce a wealth of high-quality, high-performance frameworks for Delphi and C++ builder. RemObjects also has a strong focus on modern languages, and have a strong portfolio of new and exciting compilers and languages to offer. The Oxygene compiler should be no stranger to Delphi developers, a powerful object-pascal dialect that can target a variety of platforms and chipsets.

Since compiler technology and run-time systems has been my main focus for well over a decade now, I feel RemObjects is a better match.

Quartex Components

Quartex Components has been an officially registered Norwegian company for a while now, so perhaps not news. What is news is that it’s now directly connected with the development of the Quartex Media Desktop (codename “Amibian.js”). While Amibian.js is an open source endeavour, there will be both free and commercial products running on top of that platform. I have written at length about Cloud Forge in the past, so I wont re-hash that again. But 2020 will see a paradigm shift in how teams and companies approach software development.

Company logo professionally milled and on its way to my new office

I will also, once there is more time, continue to sell and support software license components.

Quartex Media Desktop

The “Amibian.js” project is moving along nicely. The deadline is Q4 2019, but im hoping to wrap up the core functionality before that. So we are on track and kicking ass 🙂

More and more elaborate functionality is being implemented for the desktop

Here is an overview of work done this month:

• TSystemService application type has been created (node.js)
  • TApplication now holds IPC functions (inter process communication)
  • Running child processes + sending messages is now simplicity itself
  • Database drivers are 90% done. Delete() and DeleteTable() functionality needs to be implemented in a uniform way
• Authentication is now a separate service
  • Service database layer is finished (using SQLite3 driver by default)
  • Authentication protocol has been designed
  • Server protocol and JSON message envelopes are done
  • Presently working on the client interface
• LDEF bytecode assembler has been improved
  • Faster symbolic lookup
  • Smarter register recognition
  • Early support for stack-frames
  • Fixed bug in parser (comma-list parse)
• QTX framework has seen a lot of work
  • Large parts of the RTL sub-strata has been implemented
  • UTF16 codec implemented
  • QTX versions of common controls:
    • TQTXButton
    • TQTXLabel
    • TQTXToolbar
      • TQTXToolButton
      • TQTXToolSeparator
      • TQTXToolElement
    • TQTXPanel
    • TQTXCheckBox
    • .. and much, much more
• Desktop changes
  • Link Maker functionality has been added
  • Handshake process between desktop and child app now runs on a separate timer, ensuring better conformity and a more robust initialization
  • The Quartex Editor control has been optimized
    • All redraw calls are now synchronized
    • Canvas is created on demand, avoids flicker during initial redraw
    • Support for DEL key + behavior
    • Gutter is now rendered to an offscreen bitmap and blitted into the control’s canvas. The gutter is only fully rendered when cursor forces the view to change

I will continue to keep everyone up to date about the project. As you can understand, its a bit hectic right now so please be patient – it is turning into an EPIC environment!

Leaving Patreon: Developers be warned

As a person I’m quite optimistic. I like to think the glass is half-full rather than half-empty. I have spent over a decade building up a thriving Delphi and C++ builder community on social media, I have built up a rich creative community for node and JavaScript on the side — not to mention retro computing, embedded tech and IOT. For better or for worse I think most developers in the Embarcadero camp have heard my name or engage in one of the 12 groups I manage around the world on a daily basis. It’s been hard work but man, it’s been worth every minute. We have so much fun and I get to meet awesome coders on a daily basis. It’s become an intrinsic part of my life.

I have worked very hard for my MVP title

I have been extremely fortunate in that despite my disadvantage, a spine injury in 2012 – not to mention being situated in Norway rather than the united states; despite these obstacles to overcome I work for a great American company, and I get to socialize and have friends all over the planet.

The global village is the concept, or philosophy, that technology makes it possible no-matter where you live, to connect and be a part of something bigger. You don’t have to be a startup in the san-francisco area to work with the latest tech. Sure a commute from Burlingame to Redwood beats a 14 hour flight from Norway any day of the week — but that’s the whole idea: we have Skype now, and Slack and Github; you don’t have to physically be on location to be a part of a great company. The only requirement is that you make yourself relevant to your field of expertise.

Patreon, a digital talent agency

Patreon is a service that grew straight out of the global village. If the world is just one place, one great big family of human beings with great ideas, then where is the digital stage that helps nurturing these individuals? I mean, you can have a genius kid living in poverty in Timbuktu that could crack a mathematical problem on the other side of the globe. The next musical prodigy could be living in a loft in Germany, but his or her voice will never be heard unless it’s recognized and given positive feedback.

“The irony is that Patreon doesn’t even pass their own safety tests. That should make you think twice about their operation”

My examples are extremes I agree, most people on Patreon are like me, creative but absolutely not cracking math problems for Nasa; nor am I singing a duet with Bono any time soon. But that’s the fun thing about the world – namely that all things have value when put in the correct context. Life is about combinations, and you just have to find one that works for you.

The global village, the idea of unity through diversity

The global village is this wonderful idea that we can use technology to transcend the limitations the world oppose on us, be they nationality, color, gender or location. Good solutions know no bounds and manifests wherever a mind welcomes it. Perhaps a somewhat romantic idea, if not naive, but it seems the only reasonable solution given the rapid changes we face as a species.

In my case, I love to make software components in my spare time. My day job is packed and I couldn’t squeeze in more work during the weekdays if I wanted to, so I only have a couple of hours after-work and the weekends to “do my thing”. So being a total geek I relax by making components. Some play chess, the guitar or whatever — I relax by coding something useful.

Obviously “code components” are completely useless to anyone who is not a software developer. The relevance is further clipped by the programming-language they are written for, and ultimately the functionality they provide. Patreon for me was a way to finance the evolution of these components. A way of self motivating myself to keep them up to date and available.

I also put a larger project on Patreon, namely the cloud desktop system people know as “Amibian.js” or “Quartex Web OS”. Amibian being the nickname, or codename.

Patreon seemed like the perfect match. I could take these seemingly unrelated topics, Delphi and C++ builder specific components and a cloud architecture, and assign each component and project to separate “tiers” that the audience could pick from. This was great! People could now subscribe to the tier’s they wanted, and would be notified whenever there was an update or new features. And I could respond to service messages in one place.

The Tier System

The thing about software is that it’s not maintained on infinite repeat. You don’t fix a component that is working. And you don’t issue updates unless you have fixed bugs or added new functionality. A software subscription secures a customer access to all and any updates, with a guarantee of X number of updates a year. And equally important, that they can get help if they are stuck.

“when you are shut down without so much as an explanation, with nothing but positive feedback, zero refunds and over 1682 people actively following the progress — that is utterly unacceptable behavior”

I set a relatively low number of guaranteed updates per year for the components (4). The things that would see the most updates were the Rage Libraries (PixelRage and ByteRage) and Amibian.js, but not until Q3 when all the modules would come together as a greater whole — something my backers are aware of and have never had a problem with.

Amibian.js running on ODroid XU4, a $45 single board computer

The tiers I ended up with was:

• $5 – “high-five”, im not a coder but I support the cause
• $10 – Tweening animation library
• $25 – License management and serial minting components
• $35 – Rage libraries: 2 libraries for fast graphics and memory management
• $45 – LDef assembler, virtual machine and debugger
• $50 – Amibian.js (pre compiled) and Ragnarok client / server library
• $100 – Amibian.js binaries, source and setup
• $100+ All the above and pre-made disk images for ODroid XU4 and x86 on completion of the Amibian.js project (12 month timeline).

Note: Each tier covers everything before them. So if you pick the $35 tier, that also includes access to the license management system and the animation library.

As you can see, the tier-system that is intrinsic to Patreon, solves the software subscription model elegantly. After all, it would be unreasonable to demand $100 a month for a small component like the Tweening library. A programmer that just needs that library and nothing else shouldnt have to pay for anything else.

Here is a visual representation, showing graphically why my tiers are organized as they are, and how they all fit into a greater whole:

The server-side aspect of the architecture would take days to document, but a general overview of the micro-service architecture is fairly easy to understand:

Each of the tiers were picked because they represent key aspects of what we need to create a visually pleasing, fast and reliable, distributed (each part running on separate machines or boards) cloud eco-system. Supporters can just get the parts they need, or support the bigger project. Everyone get’s what they want – all is well.

The thing some people don’t grasp, is that you are not getting something to just put on Amazon or Azure, you are getting your own Amazon or Azure – with source code! You are not getting services, you are getting the actual code that allows YOU to set up your own services. Anyone with a server can become a service provider and offer both hosting and software access. And they can expand on this without having to ask permission or pay through the nose.

So it’s a little bit bigger than first meets the eye.

I Move In Mysterious Ways ..

Roughly 3 weeks ago I was busy preparing the monthly updates.

Since each tier is separate but also covers everything before it (like explained above) I have to prepare a set of inclusive updates. The good news is that I only have to do this once and then add it as an attachment to my posts. Once added I can check of all the backers in that tier. I don’t have to manually email each backer, physically copy my songs or creations onto CD and send it – we live in the digital age as members of the global village. Or so i thought.

The LDEF assembler was made available on the 8th of february

So I published two of the minor cases first: the full HTML5 assembly program, that can be run both inside Amibian.js as a hosted application — or as a solo program directly in the browser. So here people can write machine-code in the browser, assemble it to bytecodes, run the code, inspect registers, disassemble the bytecodes and all the normal stuff you expect from an assembler.

This update was special because the program contained the IPC (inter process communication) layer that developers use to make their programs talk to the desktop. So for developers looking to make their own web programs access the filesystem, open dialogs (normal system features), that code was quite important to get!

Although published, none of my backers could see them due to the suspended status

The second post was a free addition, the QTX library which is an open-source RTL (run time library) compatible with the Smart Pascal Compiler. While not critical at this juncture, several of my backers use Smart Mobile Studio, and for them to get access to a whole new RTL that can be used for open-source, is very valuable indeed.

I was just about to compress the Amibian.js source-code and binaries when I got a message on Facebook by a backer:

“Dude, your Patreon is shut down, what is happening?”

What? hang on let me check i replied, and rushed into Patreon where the following header greeted me:

What the hell Patreon? I figured there must be some misunderstanding and that perhaps I missed an email or something that needed attention. I get close to 50 emails a day (literally) so it does happen that I miss one. I also check my spam folder regularly in case my google filters have been careless and flagged a serious email as spam. But there was nothing. Not a word.

Ok, so let’s check the page feedback, has there been any complaints? Perhaps a backer has misunderstood something and I need to clear that up? But nope. I had nothing but positive feedback and not even a single refund request.  In fact the Amibian.js group on Facebook has grown to 1,662 members. Which shows that the project itself holds considerable interest outside software development circles.

Well, let’s get on this quickly I thought, so I rushed off an email asking why Patreon would do such a thing? My entire Patreon page was visibly marked with the above banner, so my backers never even saw the updates I had issued.

Instead, the impression people would get, was that I was involved in something so devious that it demanded my account to be suspended. Talk about shooting first and asking later. I have never in my life seen such behavior from a company anywhere, especially not in the united states; Americans don’t take kindly to companies behaving like bullies.

Just Contact Support, If You Can Find Them

To make a long story short it took over a week before Patreon replied to my emails. I sent a total of 3 emails asking what on earth would have prompted them to shut down a successful campaign. And how they found it necessary to slander the project without even informing me of the problem. Surely a phone call could have sorted this up in minutes? Where I come from you pick up the phone or get in contact with people before you flag them in public.

Sounds great, sadly it’s pure fiction

The response I got was that “some mysterious activity had been reported on my page”, and that they wanted my name, address, phone number and credit card (4 last digits). Which I found funny because with the exception of credit-card details, I always put my name, address, phone numbers and email etc. at the head of my letters.

I’m not a 16-year-old kid working out of a garage, im a 46-year-old established software developer that have worked as a professional for close to 3 decades. Unlike the present generation I moved into my first apartment when I was 16, and was working as an author for various tech magazines by the time I was 17. I also finished college at the same time and went on to higher-education (2 years electrical engineering, 3 years arts and media, six years at the university in oslo, followed by 4 years of computer science and then certifications). The focus being, that Patreon is used to dealing with young creators that will go along with things that grown men would not accept.

But what really piss me off, was that they never even bothered to explain what this “mysterious behavior” actually was? I write about code, clustering, Delphi, JavaScript and bytecodes for christ sake. I might have published updates and code wearing a hoodie at one point, in a darken room, listening to Enigma.. but honestly: there is not enough mystery in my life to cover an episode of Scooby-Doo.

Either way, I provided the information they wanted and expected the problem to be resolved asap. Two days at themost. Maybe three, but that was pushing it.

It’s now close to 3 weeks since this ridiculous temporary suspension occurred, and neither have I been given any explanation to what I have done, nor have they removed the ban on the content. I must have read their guidelines 100 times by now, but given the nature of their ruling (which are more than reasonable), I can’t see that I have violated a single one:

• No pornography and adult content
• No hate speech against minorities or forms of religious extremism
• No piracy or spreading copyrighted material
• No stealing from backers

Let’s go over them one by one shall we?

Pornography and adult content

Seriously? I don’t have time to loaf around glaring at naked women (i’m a geek, I look weird enough as it is), and after 46 years on this planet I know what a woman looks like nude from every possible angle; I don’t need to run around like a retard posting pictures of body parts. And if you are talking about me — good lord is there a marked for hobbits? Surely the world has enough on it’s plate. Sorry, never been huge on porn.

And for the record, porn is for teenagers and singles. The moment you love someone deeply, the moment you have children together — it changes you profoundly. You get a bond to your wife or girlfriend that makes you not want to be with others. Not all men are into smut, some of us are invested more deeply in a relationship.

Hate speech and religious extremism

Hm, that’s a tough one (sigh). Did you know that one of my best friends is so gay – that he began to speculated that he actually was a liquid? He makes me laugh so bad and he’s probably the best human being I have ever met. I actually went with him on Pride last year, not because i’m gay but because he needed someone to hold the other side of the banner. That’s what friends do. Besides, I looked awesome, what can I say.

As for religion I am a registered Tibetan Buddhist. I believe in fluffy pillows, comfy robes, mother nature and quite frankly I find the world inside us far more interesting than the mess outside. You cant be extreme in Buddhism: “Be kind now, or ill hug you until you weep the tears of compassion!”. Buddhism sucks as an extreme doctrine.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and say nuuuu to both.

Piracy and copyrighted material

Eh, I’m kinda writing the software from scratch before your eyes (including the run-time-library for the compiler), so as far as worthy challenges go, piracy would be the opposite. I am a huge fan of classical operating-systems though, like the Amiga; But unlike most people I actually took the time to ask permission to use a OS4 inspired CSS theme-file.

The Amibian.js project is well organized and I have worked systematically through a well planned architecture. This is not some slap-dash project made for a quick buck

Most people just create a theme-file and don’t bother to ask. I did, and Trevor Dickinson was totally cool about it. And not a single byte has been taken or stolen from anyone. The default theme file is inspired by Amiga OS 4.1, but the thing is: the icons are all freeware. Mason, the guy that did the OS icons, have released large sets of icons into GPL. There is also a website called OS4Depot where people publish icons and backdrops that are free for all.

So if this “mysterious activity” is me posting a picture of a picture (not a typo) of an obscure yet loved operating-system, rest assured that it’s not violating anyone.

Stealing from backers

That they even include this as a point is just monumental. Patreon is a service established to make that impossible (sigh); meaning that the time-frame where you deliver updates or whatever – and the time when the payout is delivered, that is the window where backers can file a complaint or demand a refund.

And yes, complaints on fraud would indeed (and should!) flag the account as potentially dubious — but again, I have not a single complaint. Not even a refund request, which I believe is pretty uncommon.

And even if this was the case, shutting down an account without so much as a dialog in 2019? Who the hell becomes a thief for 600 dollars? Im not some kid in a garage, I make twice that a day as a consultant in Oslo, why the heck would I setup a public account in the US, only to run off with 600 bucks! I have standing offers for projects continuously, I havent applied for a job since the 90s – so if I needed some extra money I would have taken a side project.

I even posted to let my backers know I had a cold last month just to make sure everyone knew in case I was unavailable for a couple of days. Truly the tell-tell sign of a criminal mastermind if I ever saw one ..

Sorry Patreon, but your behavior is unacceptable

Hopefully your experience with Patreon has not been like mine. They spent somewhere in the range of 5 weeks just to register me, while friends of mine in the US was up and running in less than 2 days.

We are now 3 weeks into a temporary suspension, which means that most of my backers will run out of patience and just leave. It sends a signal of being whimsical about other people’s trust, and that people take a risk if they back my project.

At this point it doesn’t matter that none of these thoughts are true, because they are thoughts that anyone would think when a project remains flagged for so long.

What should scare you as a creator with Patreon though, is that they can do this to anyone. There is nothing you can do, neither to prove your innocence or sort out a misunderstanding — because you are not even told what you allegedly have done wrong. I also find it alarming that Patreon actually doesn’t have a phone-number listed, nor do they have offices you can call or reach out to.

The irony is that Patreon doesn’t even pass their own safety tests. That should make you think twice about their operation. I had heard the rumors about them, but I honestly did not believe a company could operate like this in our day and age. Especially not in the united states. It undermines the whole spirit of US as a technological hub. No wonder people are setting up shop in China instead, if this is how they are treated in the valley.

After this long, and the damage they have caused, I have no option than to inform my backers to terminate their pledges. I will have to relocate my project to a host that has more experience with software development, and who treats human beings with common decency and respect.

If I by accident had violated any of their guidelines, although I cannot see how I could have, I have no problem taking responsibility. But when you are shut down without so much as an explanation, with nothing but positive feedback, zero refunds and over 1682 people actively following the progress — that is utterly unacceptable.

It is a great shame. Patreon symbolized, for a short time, that the global village had matured into more than an idea. But I categorically refuse to be treated like this and find their modus-operandi insulting.

Stay Well Clear

If you as a developer have a chance to set up shop elsewhere, then I urge you to do so. And make sure your host have common infrastructure such as a phone number. Patreon have taken the art of avoiding direct contact to a whole new level. It is absolutely mind-boggling.

I honestly don’t think Patreon understands software development at all. Many have voiced more sinister motives for my shutdown, since the project obviously is a threat to various companies. But I don’t believe in conspiracies. Although, if Patreon does this to enough creators on interval, the interest rates from holding the assets would be substantial.

It could be that the popularity of the project grew so fast that it was picked up as a statistical anomaly, but surely that should be a good thing? Not to mention a potential case study Patreon could have used as a success story? I mean, Amibian.js didn’t get up and running until october, so stopping a project 5 months into a 12 month timeline makes absolutely no sense. Unless someone did this on purpose.

Either way, this has been a terrible experience and I truly hope Patreon get’s their act together. They could have resolved this with a phone-call, yet chose to let it fester for almost a month.

Their loss.

HexLicense, Patreon and all that

Apparently using modern service like Patreon to maintain components has become a point of annoyance and confusion. I realize that I formulated the initial HexLicense post somewhat vague and confusing, in retrospect I will admit that and also take critique for not spending a little more time on preparations.

Having said that, I also corrected the mistake quickly and clarified the situation. I feel some of the comments have been excessively critical for something that, ultimately, is a service to the community. But I’ll roll with the punches and let’s just put this issue to bed.

From the top please

I have several products and frameworks that naturally takes time to maintain and evolve. And having to maintain websites, pay for tax and invoicing services, pay for hosting (and so on), well it consumes a lot of hours. Hours that I can no longer afford to spend (my work at Embarcadero must come first, I have a family to support). So Patreon is a great way to optimize a very busy schedule.

Today developers solve a lot of the business strain by using Patreon. They make their products open source, but give those that support and help fund the development special perks, such as early access, special builds and a more direct line of control over where the different projects and sub-projects are heading.

The public repository that everyone has access to is maintained by pushing the code on interval, meaning that the public “free stuff” (LGPL v3 license) will be some months behind the early-access that patrons enjoy. This is common and the same approach both large and small teams go about things in 2018. Quite radical compared to what we “old-timers” are used to, but that’s how things work now. I just go with flow and try to do the most amount of good on the journey.

Benefits of Patreon

The benefits are many, but first and foremost it has to do with time. Developer don’t have to maintain 3-4 websites, pay for invoicing services on said products, pay hosting fees and rent support forums — instead focus is on getting things done. So instead of an hour here and there, you can (based on the level of support) allocate X hours within a week or weekend that are continuous.

Patreon solves two things: time and cost

Everyone wins. Those that support and help fund the projects enjoy early access and special builds. The community at large wins because the public repository is likewise maintained, albeit somewhat behind the cutting edge code patrons enjoy. And the developers wins because he or she doesn’t have to run around like a mad chicken maintaining X number of websites -wasting more time doing maintenance than building cool new features.

 

And above all, pricing goes down. By spreading the cost over a larger base of interest, people get access to code that used to cost $200 for $35. The more people that helps out, the more the cost can be reduced per tier.

To make it crystal clear what the status of my frameworks and component packages are, here is a carbon copy from HexLicense.com

For immediate release

Effective immediately HexLicense is open-source, released under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3. You can read the details of that license by clicking here.

Patreon model

In order to consolidate the various projects I maintain, I have established a Patreon account. This means that people can help fund further development on HexLicense, LDEF, Amibian and various Delphi libraries as a whole. This greatly simplifies things for everyone.

I will be able to allocate time based on a broader picture, I also don’t need to pay for invoicing services, web hosting and more. This allows me to continue to evolve the components and code, but without so many separate product identities to maintain.

Patreon supporters will receive updates before anyone else and have direct access to the latest code at all times. The public bitbucket repository will be updated on interval, but will by consequence be behind the Patreon updates.

Further security

One of the core goals on Patreon is the evolution of a bytecode compiler. This should be of special interest to HexLicense users. Being able to compile modules that hackers will be unable to debug gives you a huge advantage. The engine is designed so that the instruction-set can be randomized for a particular build. Making it unique for your application.

The LDEF assembler prototype running under Smart Mobile Studio

Well, I want to thank everyone involved. It has been a great journey to produce so many components, libraries and solutions over the years – but now it’s time for me to cut down on the number of projects and focus on core technology.

HexLicense with the update license files will be uploaded to BitBucket shortly.

Sincerly

Jon Lennart Aasenden

 

 

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Delphi bytecode compiler

This is a pet project I have been playing with on/off for a couple of years now. Since I’m very busy with Smart Mobile Studio these days I havent really had time to write much about this in a while. Well, today I needed a break for JavaScript – and what is more fun than relaxing with a cup of coco and bytecodes?

The LDEF bytecode standard

Do you remember Quartex Pascal? It was an alternative pascal compiler I wrote a couple of years back. The plan was initially to get Smart Mobile Studio into that codebase, and essentially kill 3 birds with one stone. I already have parsers for various languages that I have written: Visual Basic .NET, Typescript, C# and C++. Adding support for Smart Pascal to that library of parsers would naturally give us a huge advantage.

In essence you would just pick what language you wanted to write your Smart apps in, then use the same classes and RTL across the board. You could also mix and match, perhaps write some in typescript (which is handy when you face a class that is difficult to “pascalify” via the import tool).

LDEF test environment

But parsing code and building an AST (abstract symbol tree, this is a hierarchy of objects the parser builds from your source-code. Basically your program in object form) is only half the job. People often start coding languages and script engines without really thinking it through (I have done that myself a few times. It’s a great way to learn the ropes, but you waste a lot of time), after a while they give up because it dawns on them that the hard part is still ahead: namely to generate executable code or at least run the code straight off the AST. There is a reason components like dwScript have taken years to polish and perfect (same can be said of PAX script which is probably one of the most powerful engines available to Delphi developers).

The idea behind Quartex Pascal was naturally that you could have more than one language, but they would all build the same AST and all of them emit the same bytecode. Not exactly a novel idea, this is how most scripting engines work – and also what Java and .Net have been doing since day one.

But the hard part was still waiting for me, namely to generate bytecode. This may sound easy but it’s not just a matter of dumping out a longword with the index of a method. You really need to think it through because if you make it to high-level, it will cripple your language. If you make it to low-level – the code will execute slow and the amount of bytecodes generated can become huge compared to normal assembly-code.

And no, I’m not making it compatible with CIL or Java, this is a pure object pascal solution for object pascal developers (and C++ builder naturally).

LDEF source language

I decided to do something a bit novel. Rather than just creating some classes to help you generate bytecode, I decided to create a language around the assembly language. Since C++ is easy to parse and looks that way because of its close connection to assembler, I decided to use C++ as the basic dialect.

So instead of you emitting bytecodes, your program only needs to emit LDEF source-code. Then you can just call the assembler program (command line) and it will parse, compile and turn it into assemblies for you.

Here is an example snippet that compiles without problem:

struct CustomType
{
  uint32 ctMagic;
  uint32 ctSize;
  uint8  ctData[4096];
}

class TBaseObject: object
{
  /* class-fields */
  alloc {
    uint8 temp;
    uint32 counter;
  }

  /* Parser now handles register mapping */
  public void main(r0 as count, r1 as text) {
    alloc {
      /* method variables */
      uint32 _longs;
      uint32 _singles;
    }
    move r1, count;
    jsr @_cleanup;
    push [text];
  }

  /* test multi push to stack */
  private void _cleanup() {
     push [r0, r1, r2];
  }
}

The LDEF virtual machine takes care of things like instance management, VMT (virtual method table), inheritance and everything else. All you have to do is to generate the LDEF assembly code that goes into the methods – and voila, the assembler will parse, compile and emit the whole shabam as assemblies (the -L option in the command-line assembler controls how you want to link the assemblies, so you can emit a single file).

The runtime engine is written in vanilla object pascal. It uses generics and lookup tables to achieve pretty good performance, and there is ample room for a JIT engine in the future. What was important for me was that i had a solution that was portable, require little maintenance, with an instruction set that could easily be converted to actual machine-code, LLVM or another high level language (like C++ that can piggyback on GCC regardless of platform).

LDEF instructions

The instruction set is a good mean of the most common instructions that real processors have. Conceptually the VM is inspired by the Motorola 68020 chip, in combination with the good old Acord Risc cpu. Some of the features are:

• 32bit (4 byte) opcode size
• 32 registers
• 1024 byte cache (can be adjusted)
• Stack
• Built in variable management
• Built in const and resource management
• Move data seamlessly between registers and variables
• Support for records (struct) and class-types
• Support for source-maps (both from assembler to high-level and reverse)
• Component based, languages and emitters can be changed

There are also a few neat language features that I have been missing from Delphi, like code criteria. Basically it allows you to define code that should be executed before the body of a procedure, and directly after. This allows you to check that parameter values are within range or valid before the procedure is allowed to execute.

Here is the pascal version:

function TMyClass.CalcValues(a,b,c: integer): integer;
begin
  before
    if (a<1) or (b<1) or (c<1) then
      Fail('Invalid values, %classname.%methodname never executed');
  end;

  result := a + b div c;

  after
    if result <23 then
      Fail('%classname.%methodname failed, input below lowest threshold error');
  end;
end;

I decided to add support for this in LDEF itself, including the C++ style intermediate language. Here it looks like this:

  /* Enter + Exit is directly supported */
  public void main(r0 as count, r1 as text) {
    enter {
    }

    leave {
    }

    alloc {
      /* method variables */
      uint32 _longs;
      uint32 _singles;
    }
    move r1, count;
    jsr @_cleanup;
    push [text];
  }

Why Borland/Embarcadero didn’t add this when they gave the compiler a full overhaul and support for generics – is beyond me. C++ have had this for many, many years now. C# have supported it since version 4, and Java I am usure about – but its been there for many years, thats for sure.

Attributes and RTTI

Attributes will be added but support for user-defined attributes will only appear later. Right now the only attributes I have plans for controls how memory is allocated for variables, if registers should be pushed to the stack on entry automatically, if the VMT should be flattened and the inheritance-chain reduced to a single table. More attributes will no doubt appear as I move forward, but right now I’ll stick to the basics.

RTTI is fairly good and presently linked into every assembly. You cant really omit that much from a bytecode system. To reduce the use of pure variables I introduced register mapping to make it easier for people to use the registers for as much as possible (much faster than variables):

  public void main(r0 as count, r1 as text) {
  }

You may have noticed the strange parameters on this method? Thats because it’s not parameters, but definitions that link registers to names (register mapping). That way you can write code that uses the original names of variables or parameters, and avoid allocating variables for everything. It has no effect except making it easier to write code.

LDEF, why should I care?

You should care because, with a bit of work we should be able to compile fairly modern Delphi source-code to portable bytecodes. The runtime or engine that executes these bytecodes can be compiled using freepascal, which means you can execute the program anywhere FPC is supported. So more or less every operative system on the planet.

You should care because you can now write programs for Ultibo, the pascal operative system for Raspberry PI. It can only execute 1 real program (your embedded program), but since you can now run bytecodes, you will be able to run as many programs as you like. Just run each bytecode program in a thread or play it safe and call next() on interval from a TTimer.

You should care because once LDEF is finished, being able to transcode from object pascal to virtually any language will be a lot easier. JavaScript? C++? Python? Take your pick. The point here is standards and a library that is written to last decades rather than years. So my code is very clean and no silly pointer tricks just to get a few extra cycles. Stability, portability and maintainance are the values here.

You should care because in the future, components like HexLicense will implement its security code in LDEF using a randomized instruction-set, making it very, very hard for hackers to break your product.

Hexlog, building a better logging system

Its been quite a busy couple of weeks for me. HexLicense has finally gotten a well deserved update and (drumroll) we have ported the codebase over to Firemonkey. I have deliberately waited a while with the Firemonkey edition, because compilers usually need a couple of releases before they become stable. And the same can be said about runtime libraries (I should know, I have created a few). I wanted to use FMX earlier but, it kinda died on me so many times that I gave up. Thankfully this is no longer the case and Delphi XE Seattle is a joy to work with.

Ironwood prototype

Also, one of the coolest things these past weeks was returning to Smart Mobile Studio as a user. It’s really quite an odd experience because you get so locked into “author” mode when you have worked on a product for so many years. So when you sit down to actually use your own program as a means to an end, it’s a very different experience from looking at it purely architecturally.

I really love what we managed to do with Smart Mobile Studio. That might sound disingenuous since it originated with me, but somehow we captured something; some sense of creative freedom that I cannot find in giant productions like Visual Studio or QT C++. Naturally I’m biased, but I’m no stranger to self-critique either. But the speed at which I knock out a HTML5 or mobile application with Smart Pascal is just way beyond anything I can do in any other devkit. The only other development platform that have the same feel to it is Mono C#, which I love because it doesn’t contain all the .. bloat, I guess is a word, that large production environments insist on giving you. I mean, fire up visual studio and you have so many options – half of them that you will never use unless you specialize within a particular dicipline – that they just get in the way.

Anyways, Hexlicense “Ironwood” was written first and foremost in Smart Mobile Studio. We have started to port the code over to Delphi to make the Xmas deadline, but honestly: I’m so glad I could use Smart to prototype this product, because it would have taken me twice as long in Freepascal or Delphi. I’m not even sure I would have bothered if Visual Studio was my only option. Seriously.

So you may be wondering: why on earth would you implement a licensing system in JavaScript? Well that’s the cool part! Right now most licensing systems are native only. Which means that if you want to really get control over your software you have to fork out for a virtual host, if not a physical server box. The price difference between a node.js hosting solution and a native hosting solution is substantial. So implementing a version of our HexLicense server in Smart Pascal + node.js will save my customers the expense. It also means they can host the server on whatever operative system they see fit. And once again, the price difference between a Linux host (Ubuntu is wonderful to work with) and Microsoft Windows is still a factor.

Coding it in Smart Pascal also opens up the door for license based access to HTML5 based applications, be they compiled to native via Phonegap or Adobe build services or just running in a browser. So once again our JavaScript virtual machine formula get’s it right. And it’s magnificent to play with. Not a day goes by that I don’t learn something new and exciting about JavaScript from object pascal, which is paradoxical. I know.

Back in the saddle

For the past few years my life has revolved around Smart Mobile Studio and the companies I have worked for (a.k.a “the day job”). It must be at least 4-5 years since I actually sat down and built products, delivered components and offered up my services as a Delphi software architect. There havent even been any time for consulting or system design. With a full day job, two kids and a product you live and breathe for there is a limit to how much you manage. Add to that my back injury 4 years ago which rendered me unable to even walk and you get the picture; Thankfully my back is getting better. I do two rounds of boxing every week (or try to) and that has done more for my back than all the doctors and their witch-craft medicine combined.

It feels so good to create new products again. Products that are doable within a reasonable time-frame and that solve real-life practical problems (as opposed to having to solve potential scenarios that havent even occurred yet: the burden of the RTL architect). So while HexLicense for VCL and FMX is in the store, Ironwood is being ported to Delphi – I have decided to wake up another component-set that I initially created for myself. One that deals with a very practical and hands-on challenge, namely: HexLog.

HexLog

Many years ago I was working for Hydro, which is the biggest oil company in Norway. Without getting to detailed (or breaking my NDA) logging was one of the problems we faced. With more than 50 Windows services communicating (read: 50 potential sources of bugs), the company’s lack of proper logging – logging in a format that made sense to people other than us developers (like system administrators, super-users and even insurance companies interested in locating where something broke down) made it almost impossible to work with the codebase.

So one day I had enough and sat down in my spare time to write a modular, thread safe, component based logging system that didn’t just “log some info”, but it did so by proxy. Meaning, that the writing mechanism(s) were isolated in separate components, abstracted from storage – which was isolated in other components. So when we needed XML logging we just hooked up the XML writer; when we needed RTF logging we hooked that up (and so on, for numerous formats).

You would think that Delphi developers in general had logging under wraps right? That is sadly not the case. Some people are very good at logging and have made it into a habit. But more often than not when I’m hired by a client – what do you think I find? Yup, plain old vanilla text-file logging. Which is fine as long as the coders have spent some time making sure the basics are in order. Sadly that is so rare it almost frightens me. Especially when I’ve upgraded software used by pharmacutical companies, doctors and organizations that really (really!) should do full journaling regardless of bugs or errors. In fact Norwegian law demands it in some cases; especially when medicine and prescription drugs are involved. If a doctor or nurse prescribes the wrong medication and a patient dies, the insurance companies will have a field day if there is no logging according to standards. And should it turn out to be the software’s fault.. well, let’s just say there is a reason only large companies operate with “within the hour response time” in their service agreements.

So what are the criteria people tend to forget?

• File locking issues. It will happen the moment more than one process or thread targets a file
• Making sure the information that is logged is organized by sections, visually distinct in the file
• Making sure time and dates use UTC or ISO formatting
• Logging the actual user, not just the program identity
• Using mutexes and read-write synchronization when multi-threading is involved
• Avoiding interface communication from threads without proper understanding of calling conventions and compartment schemes
• Using memory mapped files rather than torturing the filesystem with an onslaught of IO calls
• Use tab indentation to make the logs easier to navigate for the human eye
• The list goes on ..

The most important oversight is not on the list, it’s actually something as simple as logging information that human beings can read, as opposed to adapting the information to what the computer wants to work with. A dentist wont know what to do with a stack-trace or “an error occurred executing MySQLQuery1.Execute”. But he or she will understand a log that states – in plain text – “could not store prescription for patient John Doe, the database reports the disk as full. An email has been sent to the administrator“.

You don’t have to be a programmer to replace a disk or move the database to a better location. But the log must make sense. It should just be there, not getting in the way yet easily accessible.

Journaling and big-data

When you are logging every action an oil-pump (and its regulators) do for 24 hours, logfiles can grow into the gigabyte range. Can you imagine one gigabyte of messy, purely technical jargon to wade through when a critical system is down? Well I can, because that’s exactly one of the things I faced 12 years ago when I was hired to “fix” a couple of bugs. A couple of bugs turned into 2 years of re-writing the entire system from scratch. Notepad crashed when it tried to load the original log-files.

The system was all written in Delphi 4, breaking every rule known to object pascal developers even back then. Like services opening forms and forms using DDE to communicate. It was a miracle that it had worked to begin with.

This is where I decided to write a journaling system that would present me, the programmer, with a unified API for writing, reading and even updating log-items stored in multiple files. So you can set a limit to how many log-items one file can contain, and when the log reaches that limit – it create a new file automatically for you. It takes care of everything in the background, keeping track of the files and their content through an index files. This solution helped solve the problem of monster log files. And you know what? That was the core bug in the system. They had used TStringList to load in the text file, append one item, then saved it back out again. Loading almost a gigabyte of raw text while trying to keep up with GPIO signals firing like mad. So yeah, logging does matter!

HexLog naturally implements this, now even faster than before due to Delphi’s dictionary classes and clever use of balanced trees. The best is that the writer mechanism applies to this type of journaling as well. So if you prefer XML thats not a problem, nor JSON, nor RTF for that matter. I’m even throwing in a PDF writer in update 1.

And did I mention both local logging and network logging? And that you can read the logs via a fancy HTML5 dashboard in any browser, both locally and remotely?

Reading more about HexLog

If you find the topic interesting and worthwhile, head over to my company website and read the release statement here: www.quartexcomponents.com. We dont take orders just yet, but it should ship out in the beginning/middle of next month.

And yes, there will be a server edition both for native Delphi and node.js, so there is a lot of value for money in this package.

 

Try out HexLicense in your browser

If you head over to HexLicense.com you will find both the roadmap for 2016 and beyond – but also that you can now testdrive HexLicense in your browser (!) That is pretty cool if I say so myself.

In the browser?

HexLicense “Ironwood” engine under HTML5

Hexlicense consists of two parts: the first is the generation process where you mint license numbers. These numbers have some nifty criteria attached to them, like being able to verify that they have indeed been minted using a root-key,  that they evolve and mutate in a non-linear fashion and naturally: they should obfuscate as much as possible.

The second part is the validation process. This is where the customer inputs the serial number he received when he bought your software. Under Delphi you validate such keys inside your Delphi program via the THexLicense component. In the future you will be able to do this via the HexLicense server system as well, which makes is going to make your life as a developer a lot easier.

HexLicense for Smart Mobile Studio covers both aspects, so you can perform the minting and validation. The code is so universal that it will run on your node.js server, in your visual applications – most of the code is actually shared between Delphi and Smart Mobile Studio.

Note: The demo of HexLicense running in your browser is just for educational purposes. It demonstrates that Smart Mobile Studio is capable of some very nifty things. And it also demonstrates the speed and flexibility of HexLicense.