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Archive-name: clpd-welcome.txt
News-answers-archive-name: pascal/delphi/welcome Posting-Frequency: weekly, alternating between comp.lang.pascal.delphi.announce,comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.misc, comp.lang.pascal.delphi.databases,comp.answers,news.answers and comp.lang.pascal.delphi.announce,comp.lang.pascal.delphi.advocacy, comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.usage, comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.writing,comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc Last-modified: June 25, 1998 See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Welcome to comp.lang.pascal.delphi.* (FAQ) Latest changes: Update URL for Torry's Delphi Pages. ======== Contents ======== 0. Overview 1. Newsgroups in the hierarchy A. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.advocacy B. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.announce C. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.misc D. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.usage E. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.writing F. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.databases G. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc 2. Other Borland Delphi related newsgroups A. comp.sources.delphi B. alt.lang.delphi and alt.comp.lang.borland-delphi C. borland.* D. installshield.* E. Groups in regional or language hierarchies 3. General MS Windows programming newsgroups 4. Newsgroups that don't want to hear about Borland Delphi A. alt.online-service.delphi B. clari.sports.local.mid-atlantic.pennsylvania.philadelphia and clari.web.sports.local.mid-atlantic.pennsylvania.philadelphia C. comp.lang.pascal.borland 5. Other resources on the Internet A. Delphi Archives B. FAQ sites 6. A few netiquette points A. Minimize crossposting B. Use a meaningful Subject C. Don't expect an immediate answer D. Read the newsgroup E. Pros and Cons of address mangling 7. Disclaimers and Copyright ===== 0. Overview This document deals primarily with the main Usenet hierarchy concerned with Borland Delphi, comp.lang.pascal.delphi.*, and secondarily with other newsgroups that Delphi programmers may be interested in. A few pointers to useful WWW sources have been thrown in as an afterthought. It doesn't provide any answers to programming questions. Instead it will, hopefully, help the reader get such questions answered by using the newsgroups in the comp.lang.pascal.delphi.* hierarchy effectively. ===== 1. Newsgroups in the hierarchy A. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.advocacy Description: Contentious issues related to Delphi. Charter: This group is for the discussion of Borland Delphi as it compares to other products with similar purposes. This includes debate over decisions made by Borland in the development and marketing of Delphi. B. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.announce Description: Delphi related announcements. (Moderated) Article submission: clpda@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us Admin contact address: clpda-request@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us Posting guidelines: http://www.infonex.com/~dacroyle/clpda/clpda-guidelines.txt Archive: http://www.infonex.com/~dacroyle/clpda/ Charter: A moderated newsgroup for the posting of announcements and information relating to Borland Delphi. This includes one-shot announcements such as: New/revised components, libraries and tools for Delphi Publication of books and magazines on using Delphi Web and FTP sites devoted to Delphi Users-group formation and meetings In addition periodic postings such as Delphi FAQs, FAQ pointers and HOWTOs are encouraged. Among the types of article not appropriate for posting are employment related announcements or articles containing binaries or significant amounts of source code. In all cases, follow ups are to be directed elsewhere in the comp.lang.pascal.delphi.* hierarchy. The purpose of moderation is to keep the group within its fairly narrow charter. Follow ups and other general posts are to be rejected with a pointer to a more suitable group. It is also the moderator's duty to verify the URLs of Web and FTP sites to confirm that they are reachable and contain Delphi related material. C. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.misc Description: General component issues. Charter: This group is for general discussion of Delphi components, both those supplied by Borland and those available from third parties. In particular, attempts to locate components for specific tasks and opinions about the relative usefulness of available components are directed here. D. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.usage Description: Using pre-written components. Charter: This group is for questions and discussions on how to use existing components in the course of writing Delphi programs. It covers both Borland supplied and third-party components. E. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.writing Description: Writing Delphi components. Charter: This group is devoted to writing components for use with Borland Delphi. Writing components (whether original or derived), creating property editors and creating Help files for them are on topic, usage questions are not. F. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.databases Description: Database aspects of Borland Delphi. Charter: This group would be for discussions related to using the database aspects of Delphi. Discussions of Database Desktop and Reportsmith would belong here, as would discussions of the database aspects of VCL, client-server issues, and most other things relating to databases. G. comp.lang.pascal.delphi.misc Description: General issues with Borland Delphi. Charter: This would be the catch-all discussion group not dealing with the specific technical issues covered in the other groups. The name "misc" was chosen to be in line with current newsgroup name conventions. Discussions of how to use the IDE and help system, how to install components including VBXs, how to use VCL and Object Pascal (except database specific issues)*, how to port code from other languages to Delphi, how to create DLLs, bugs and workarounds in VCL, announcements of new products**, general help in getting started, where to find ftp and www sites regarding Delphi, etc. would all be on topic here. * later moved to comp.lang.pascal.delphi.components.usage ** later moved to comp.lang.pascal.delphi.announce ===== 2. Other Borland Delphi related newsgroups A. comp.sources.delphi Description: Delphi and ObjectPascal source code. (Moderated) Article submission: csd@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us Admin contact address: csd-request@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us FAQ: http://www.infonex.com/~dacroyle/clpda/csd-faq.txt Posting guidelines: http://www.infonex.com/~dacroyle/clpda/csd-guidelines.txt Archive: http://www.infonex.com/~dacroyle/csd/ Charter: A moderated newsgroup for the posting of Borland Delphi and ObjectPascal sources, specifically source code and associated binaries such as .RES or .DCR files. Submissions must meet the following criteria: - Source code and files necessary for compilation _only_. Precompiled units and executables will be rejected. - You are legally permitted to submit the files for posting. - The moderator is legally permitted to post the files. - The files contain no viruses or trojans. - Binary files should be uuencoded. - Small sample data files may be submitted with a project. The moderator will take all care to ensure that copyrights are enforced, but will not be held responsible in the event of a mistake in this regard. Articles which are not acceptable include anything which is not required for compilation or an associated sample data file. The purpose of moderation is to keep the group within its narrow charter. Followups and other general posts are to be rejected with a pointer to a more suitable group. B. alt.lang.delphi and alt.comp.lang.borland-delphi These two newsgroups were created soon after the first version of Delphi was released in a futile attempt to get rid of the traffic that was then flooding comp.lang.pascal. Despite the fact that their creation went against all the guidelines for creating alt groups, they've managed to get decent propagation and get a reasonable amount of on-topic traffic. C. borland.* Inprise has established a private hierarchy that contains a number of Delphi related newsgroups. The home of this hierarchy is their NNTP server: forums.inprise.com. Some of these newsgroups appear to be being propagated to outside servers. See http://www.inprise.com/newsgroups/ for further information. D. installshield.* Installshield appears to have established some private hierarchies to support its products, including a group for the version that ships with Delphi. The home for these is at news.installshield.com. Some of these newsgroups appear to be propagating to outside servers. E. Groups in regional or language hierarchies This list is based on a quick run through the active file. Additions and corrections would be greatly appreciated. de.comp.lang.pascal.delphi (German) es.comp.lenguajes.delphi (Spanish) fido7.delphi fido7.kharkov.delphi (Russian) fido7.ru.delphi (Russian) fido7.ru.delphi.db (Russian) fido7.ru.delphi.info (Russian) it.comp.delphi (Italian) pl.comp.lang.delphi (Polish) z-netz.sprachen.delphi (German) ===== 3. General MS Windows programming newsgroups If you have a problem with something in the Windows API that isn't encapsulated by the VCL, asking questions in a Delphi oriented newsgroup may not be overly effective. The answers that you get in a more general newsgroup will probably be in C++, rather than Pascal. Windows is written in C++ and learning to at least read the language is a necessity if you want to go beyond hooking black boxes together. comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.controls comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.graphics comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.memory comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.misc comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.multimedia comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.networks comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.nt.kernal-node comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.ole comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools.mfc comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools.misc comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools.owl comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools.winsock comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.vxd comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32 comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.winhelp The microsoft hierarchy was created by Microsoft. It was originally a private hierarchy, but is now widely carried. Potentially interesting newsgroups include: microsoft.public.win16.programmer.gdi microsoft.public.win16.programmer.kernel microsoft.public.win16.programmer.networks microsoft.public.win16.programmer.pen microsoft.public.win16.programmer.tools microsoft.public.win16.programmer.ui microsoft.public.win32.programmer.gdi microsoft.public.win32.programmer.installwizard.beta microsoft.public.win32.programmer.international microsoft.public.win32.programmer.kernel microsoft.public.win32.programmer.mapi microsoft.public.win32.programmer.mmedia microsoft.public.win32.programmer.networks microsoft.public.win32.programmer.ole microsoft.public.win32.programmer.pen microsoft.public.win32.programmer.tapi microsoft.public.win32.programmer.tools microsoft.public.win32.programmer.ui microsoft.public.win32.programmer.wince 4. Newsgroups that don't want to hear about Borland Delphi A. alt.online-service.delphi This newsgroup deals with the online service Delphi, which operates in the US and UK. Their use of the name predates Borland's by several years. The regulars on this newsgroup sometimes get irate when people ask them programming questions. B. clari.sports.local.mid-atlantic.pennsylvania.philadelphia and clari.web.sports.local.mid-atlantic.pennsylvania.philadelphia While it should be obvious that these to newsgroups have nothing to do with Delphi, they get hit when someone tries to post to every newsgroup that has 'delphi' in its name. Both newsgroups are moderated. C. comp.lang.pascal.borland This newsgroup deals with Turbo/Borland Pascal in all of the versions that predate Delphi. ===== 5. Other resources on the Internet Neither of these lists is exhaustive. There are a huge number of Delphi related WWW sites. These are merely intended to provide a starting point. Additions and corrections welcome. A. Delphi Archives Delphi Deli: http://www.delphideli.com Delphi EXchange: http://www.delphiexchange.com/ Delphi Super Page: http://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/delphi/ Torry's Delphi Pages: http://www.torry.ru/ B. FAQ sites Inprise's Delphi 3.0 FAQ: http://www.inprise.com/devsupport/delphi/qanda/index.html Delphi FAQ site: http://www.sbrain.syh.fi/delphi/delphi_faq.html ===== 6. A few netiquette points This section is not intended to replace the articles to be found in news.announce.newusers. If you're new to Usenet, reading what's posted there is an excellent starting point. This section is concerned with practices that might help get your questions answered. A. Minimize crossposting Very few articles are really on-topic in more than one or two newsgroups. While crossposting to every newsgroup that seems vaguely related might appear to be a way to reach more people, there are several factors that can negate that. To begin with, many news sites quietly drop articles crossposted to more than a certain number of newsgroups. This means that your article won't be seen by readers at those sites, or at any site that gets net news from them. Individuals often do the same thing on a smaller scale by killfiling articles crossposted to more than a few newsgroups. Properly designed newsreaders only show a given article to a reader once, in the first newsgroup that the reader looks at, and many people won't reply to an article that seems to be in the wrong place. Finally, many people will respond to a crossposted article only in the newsgroup where they read it, and you'll miss the reply if you aren't actually reading that group. Don't, however, take this to mean that you should post the same article to several newsgroups individually. Crossposting is evil, but multi-posting is worse. B. Use a meaningful Subject People are more likely to read your article if the Subject line gives some indication of the contents. "Please help" or "TEdit problem" isn't very helpful. On the other hand, you don't want to try to fit the whole contents of the article into one huge line. Try to indicate the general problem in 20-40 characters, then be as specific as you can in the body. C. Don't expect an immediate answer Your article may not get of your home news server for hours, and may not reach someone who can and will answer it for weeks (if at all). Be patient. Remember that everyone reading the newsgroup is a volunteer, and that your problems are not necessarily a priority for them. D. Read the newsgroup Read before you post. It will give you an idea of what the newsgroup is actually about, and you might stumble across something useful. Read after you post. Even if you ask for mail replies, many people will only respond in the newsgroup. E. Pros and cons of address mangling Some people mangle their e-mail addresses in an effort to stay off of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE) lists. This can work to some extent, especially if you've never used the address publicly in news or on a web page. On the other hand, in some quarters using a mangled address is viewed as net abuse in its own right. It violates several standards, and makes extra work for the DNS and mail servers. It also makes it harder for the people that you do want to send you mail to do so. Mail filtering is a better option. If you have a shell account that will let you use procmail, a few simple recipes can work wonders. If you only have dial-up access, there are several free mail clients that can sort your mail and bury the unwanted stuff in a junk folder. ===== 7. Disclaimers and Copyright All trademarks used in this document are the property of their respective owners. The opinions expressed are those of the author, and not those of any other organization. The author is not responsible for the content of newsgroups or WWW sites referred to. The information provided is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. This document is Copyright 1997-1998 by Donald A Croyle. It may be used or reproduced freely, under the terms of the GNU General Public License, see http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html for details. -- Approval for posting does not constitute an endorsement. Articles posted to comp.lang.pascal.delphi.announce are archived at: WWW Archive: http://www.infonex.com/~dacroyle/clpda/ User Contributions:
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