Mantis 0.19.0 (stable) Released

This is a stable release that followed a couple of alpha releases + a release candidate. Compared to 0.18.3 this release has over 250 enhancements and fixes. These include some major additions to Mantis including issue relationships, sponsorships, advanced filters, changelog, workflow control, my-view, using ADODB as a database abstraction layer (only MySQL supported at the moment), "forgot password" support, more secure signup with captcha image, security fixes, and various other fixes and enhancements. All users of previous releases are encouraged to upgrade to this release.

- #0003896: [security] Change default value of $g_view_summary_threshold to MANAGER (vboctor)
- #0004478: [upgrade] database upgrade from 0.18.3 problem: upgrade-ID "filters-db1" does not work on mySQL4.1.3b-beta (jlatour)
- #0004435: [other] Auto-preview of attached images is broken (vboctor)
- #0004470: [other] Strange changes of "Resolution" value (thraxisp)
- #0004523: [filters] SYSTEM NOTICE: Undefined variable: t_target_field in view_filters_page.php (vboctor)
- #0004431: [relationships] Relationship removal is always "duplicate of" in history (masc)
- #0004426: [email] Email notifications to users with language set to "auto" causes errors (thraxisp)
- #0004448: [email] Custom severity and status shown in mail as code (thraxisp)
- #0004321: [localization] New german lang strings (bpfennig)
- #0004423: [localization] Parse error in strings_hungarian.txt line 974 (vboctor)
- #0004429: [localization] Slovene national characters not displayed correctly (jlatour)
- #0004445: [localization] New Spanish strings file (Wanderer)
- #0004458: [localization] Small fixes to the French file (Wanderer)
- #0004459: [localization] Typos in German and English strings (Wanderer)
- #0004498: [localization] Swedish translation updated for 0.19.0rc1 (Wanderer)
- #0004509: [localization] Request rather than "Provide Feedback to Issue" (thraxisp)
- #0004519: [localization] Updated the Italian language strings file to 0.19.0rc1 (Wanderer)
- #0004463: [graphs] pie chart of summary graph per category wrong when viewing allprojects) (thraxisp)
- #0004464: [graphs] Pie graphs display as error if no issue exist for a specific project (thraxisp)
- #0004481: [graphs] Query counts are incorrect in graphs (thraxisp)
- #0004507: [graphs] No time-line in the summary for cumulative by days (thraxisp)
- #0004511: [graphs] Summary Graph "Cumulative by Date" is blank (process expires) (thraxisp)
- #0004425: [bugtracker] Action group page exceeds max execution time (vboctor)
- #0004437: [bugtracker] Filenames of uploaded attached files are damaged (thraxisp)
- #0004479: [bugtracker] Reporters can't close or reopen issues they reported (thraxisp)
- #0004495: [bugtracker] Warning in bug_actiongroup_page.php when risolving (thraxisp)
- #0004480: [administration] admin/check.php - Check email failing. (thraxisp)
- Updated Italian, French, Portuguese Brazil, Lithuanian, Korean, Czech, Swedish, Spanish, German and Dutch translations

Regards,
Mantis Team

kbmMW C# client

New whitepaper 'kbmMW C# client' released

Advanced Data Generator

Upscene announce a new version of their database developer tool: "Advanced Data Generator" V1.2.0.

The Firebird ODBC V1.3 Beta Driver

The Firebird ODBC V1.3 Beta Driver is available for download.

Borland's Managed Database Engine

Borland database whizes Steve Shaughnessy and Jens Ole Lauridsen will be giving two talks at BorCon on their managed code database, a pure .NET incarnation of JDataStore. It is an extremely fast database for applications written in managed code languages that let you write database triggers, stored procedures and UDFs using Delphi, C#, or VB.NET. It delivers sophisticated features like automatic crash recovery, fault-tolerant mirroring, row level locking, stored procedures and UDFs and it does it in a footprint of less than 1MB. It runs in process so it delivers terrific performance and reliability and it deploys in a single DLL. It supports the SQL-92 standard for query expressions.

Check out session 1182 Managed Code Database Advantage for the Microsoft .NET Framework Platform on Monday at 2:00 p.m in room J4 And once you've seen that, you'll want to attend session 3236 Writing Applications with a Managed Code Database for .NET on Monday at 5:00 also in room J4.

These two sessions are conveniently on either side of my 3148a session "What's New in the Delphi Compiler" from 3:30 to 4:45 in Exhibit Hall 1. I'm hoping to slip into one or both of them to hear more about the new .NET incarnation of this great database engine that the Java guys have been raving about for years.

Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.6.2 released

The Firebird ADO.NET Data Provider 1.6.2 is available for download.

Release notes can be found here:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?action=view_item&topic=1094833402

Download information can be found here:

http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=files&id=netprovider

What's the framework of your choice, VCL.NET of FCL?

From Zarko Gajic:

"Starting a new Windows application? Using Delphi for .NET? What framework to
choose, should it be VCL.NET of FCL (or maybe both)? Many Delphi developers
are in dilemma these days, what path is the right one?
Join the poll:
http://www.delphi.about.com/library/weekly/aa082404a.htm"

Maths to bring e-commerce to its knees

As we speak, there is speculation amongst the maths community about one of its most cryptic questions. Why are prime numbers prime numbers? What defines there seemingly random pattern? The question is called the Riemann hypothesis, and a mathematician in France might have found the answer.The Riemann hypothesis explains why a prime is a prime. For non mathematicians, a prime is a number divisible by only itself and one (list of the first 1000 primes). Although primes are interesting mathematical material, they are also key to internet cryptography. They ensure that data is safe when transmitted over the web to online stores like Amazon. Louis de Branges, a French-born mathematician currently working in the US, claims to have proved the hypothesis. However, his colleagues are sceptical. The kicker is that whoever solves the problem wins a prize of a million dollars. Prof du Sautoy told UK paper The Guardian that "The proof he has announced is rather incomprehensible. Now mathematicians are less sure that the million has been won". Be sure that when mathematicians find it tough, the concept is pretty intense stuff.Dr Delvin, when asked whether it had been proved, replied "We don't know. We have good reason to assume it has been and within the next 12 months, in the inner core of experts in differential geometry, which is the field we are speaking about, people will start to say, yes, OK, this looks right. But there is not going to be a golden moment."Stay tuned; the effects could be massive. View: Discussion Guardian Article View: PDF Apology from Louis de Branges

"Very First OpenSource Conference in Japan"

Firebird is also mentioned in this report on the "Very First OpenSource Conference in Japan" by Hirano Kazunari on O'Reilly Developer Weblogs

"IBM seeks to ease database burden"

Firebird is mentioned in the following article, "IBM seeks to ease database burden" By Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com

DUnit for .NET

DUnit for .NET is port of the popular DUnit framework. Dunit is a unit testing tool.
Download from http://codecentral.borland.com/ccweb.exe/listing?id=21036

Is .NET causing the Big Sucking Sounds around Win32?

http://blogs.slcdug.org/jjacobson/archive/2004/09/07/516.aspx

".NET seems to be draining a lot of good resources down into an abyss that has no short-term gain and increasingly questionable long-term gain. Now instead of spending their time on better Win32 stuff, somebody at Borland now has to address this .NET SP1 issue. Resources at RemObjects that would be devoted to a scripting engine are now eaten up in a language that appears to be no use to Win32 developers such as myself. Countless third-party Win32 component makers are now toiling on .NET components instead. And the list goes on and on. This all represents a serious opportunity cost.And for what? Better threading, cleaner OO under the hood, and language independence, in the long run. I don't think this is worth it, as good as those things might be. The software development industry has lost sight of what is important: user needs. Instead developers are rewriting unbroken applications just so they can use VS.NET or .NET in general. "Software development is fun again!" I heard one developer exclaim in response to .NET. Here's a good challenge for somebody: disabuse me of the belief that there are too many excited lemmings doing software development. Users are not just updating their machines every time MSFT says to either. And even if they do, they still don't get .NET by default. Look at XP SP2 (or is it SP1?). It is being rejected wholesale by the corporate and private world en masse and didn't have .NET in it anyway! Those with a good memory will remember that there was once a time when it was promised that XP would come with .NET installed as part of the operating system. [Young over-excited lemmings of course don't remember that anything ever preceded their beta copies of VS.NET 2005.] Up to this point I've been investing/wasting a lot of time writing and rewriting my newsreader so as to ease the transition to .NET for version 2. Enough is enough. It is time for me to ***t or get off the pot, and that means no more taking out components that look doomed to remain Win32 only or that I won't be able to upgrade when a new version of Delphi comes out. Time for me to practice what I preach. "

.Net does not do it well

Design flaw with the Windows Forms Designer

Interbase up for sale? ;)

The Cape Verdean Minister of Finance and Planning, João Pinto Serra has put Interbase up for sale, wonder if Borland knows about it?

Only 2 days until BorCon 2004!

http://www.borland.com/conf2004/
The annual Borland Conference is a premier event for technical education and this year’s conference will bring together the software industry's most talented speakers and trainers. Attendees will learn about new Borland products, advance their skills on the latest technologies and gain powerful tools for accelerating the application lifecycle.

Slashdot article - Firebird At 20 Years

mAriuZ writes "From Jim Starkey: "September 4th is the 20th anniversary of what is now Firebird. I quit my job at DEC in August, took a three day end-of-summer holiday, and began work on September 4, 1984 in my new career as a software entrepreneur. As best as I can reconstruct, the first two files were cpre.c and cpre.h (C preprocessor), later changed to gpre.c and gpre.h. The files were created on a loaner DEC Pro/350, a PDP-11 personal computer that went exactly nowhere, running XENIX. Gpre was my first C program, XENIX was my first experience with Unix, and the Pro/350 was my very last (but not lamented) experience with PDP-11s.""
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/06/1239231&tid=221&tid=8

New Delphi Open Tools API Reference

Mustangpeak has a new Delphi OTA page with examples. Very good stuff.

InterBase with Windows XP SP2

This article explains how to configure the Windows XP Service Pack 2 firewall to allow clients to connect to an InterBase server. Not surprisingly, you need to open port 3050.

IBReplicator V1.5.8

IBReplicator V1.5.8 is available for download. This update fixes a problem related to releasing a handle that was allocated by another connection. Therefore generating spurious ErrorNos: 49 and 49b.

More on the .Net SP1.1 and D8 Issue - Shotgun fix for .NET 1.1 SP1...

Following up on this post about the update to the .Net Framework 1.1 and it's effect on Delphi 8:
Fikele has a good post on what to do. One of the tricks to do if you update either Delphi 8 or the Framework, is to always delete the *.dc?il files for all of your projects. These files, just as in the Win32 world, are compiler dependent, and they are Framework dependent as well. Of course, since you have source, these all can be reproduced and linked against the proper version of the Framework.
Allen Bauer has more information as well.