Synopse

The Synopse SQLite3 Database Framework was just released under version 1.9.1:
- internal SQLite3 database engine is updated to version 3.7.2;
- new TSQLRecordFTS3 record, for using FTS3 virtual tables, i.e. implementing full-text search;
- new SQLite3UIEdit unit, to edit table content with a dialog created from RTTI;
- new dedicated BLOB methods and JSON array serialization;
- a lot of fixes and speed enhancements (including our HTTP/1.1 RESTful server now using Thread Pool).

The new 3.7.2 version of the SQLite3 engine, which is mandatory according to SQLite3's authors, is included.

Speaking about [upcoming] 64 bit Delphi compiler, I did forecast they will surely release their compiler 5 years later than FPC's... hoping they will follow the FPC way, just as Intel did about 64 bits instructions, against AMD.

What I was referring to is that AMD was the first to publish a 64 bit x86 CPU, with a new instruction set. Intel released somewhat later their own 64 bit x86 CPU, following the same instruction set.
There are some variants between AMD and Intel CPU, some dedicated instructions or implementations.
But most instruction set is perfectly compatible.

And I suspect the more it gets, the less compatible FPC and Delphi will be.

The main difference between Delphi and FPC is that the first is a business company project (Embarcadero), the second an Open Source solution. They are not two billions dollars companies fighting each other, with some state-level institutions watching about any unfair competition or monopoly... FPC compiler is technically a great and robust project, but EMB follows business rules. I don't think anyone will play "Anti-monopoly" in favor of FPC.

In a recent thread in the Embarcadero Discussion Forums, Vedran Vuk posted some questions about object keyword.
His purpose was to use object instead of class to improve speed and memory consumption: 

I do use classes. I just want to use objects on smaller classes that don't really need initialization or RTTI. Plus, I can directly operate on it like a record with no need for constructors and it can be sealed and has inheritance. Every byte matters in this case.

As I wrote in a previous post, Delphi string, dynamic array and memory manager don't like multi-core CPU.

My proposal is to add a threadlocalvar keyword, to be used instead of var in your code, to mark some variables to be used in only the current thread. Then the compiler and RTL won't have to use the LOCK instruction, and the application will be MUCH faster in multi-thread environment.

You sure heard about the "CrossKylixGate"... A Great tool I used for years (CrossKylix) has just been updated. Its author (named Simon) posted an announcement in the Embarcadero forums. Then the post has been deleted by "Team B" members, because of some old story.

But not only Simon has been censured. Since I like and use this free tool, I posted a very "soft" post just with the announcement of the CrossKylix update, with some explanations and precisions. No debate. Just a link to the download page. Then my whole thread was deleted.

It just sounds like a "damnatio memoriae" to me.

The Synopse SQLite3 Database Framework was just released under Version 1.8.

SQLite3 just officially reached version 3.7.0, so it's time to commit our changes from our source code repository to the main "stable" zip.

Using our SynPDF library and a public domain THtmlView component, and discussion with some of our users, we were able to make a html to pdf conversion tool.

Didn't you ever wanted to unzip some archive content, or embed a zip file into your exe?

Didn't you ever wanted to create a zip archive file, from some data in memory, in pure Delphi code, without using any external dll?

One of the open source unit we use allow you to do these tasks in a easy way.

I'm still using Delphi 7 as my favorite IDE.

Our PDF engine has been updated, it's now on version 1.8.1.