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The community of Delphi programmers is very strong and there is a large number of Delphi newsgroups in which they share their experiences and help each other out. If you run into a problem with Delphi that you cannot solve on your own, you can probably find someone who can help you out on one or other of the newsgroups.

Read about newsgroups

Timo Salmi's list of newsgroups

Where are the Delphi Newsgroups?

Before you ask a question

  1. Try to solve the problem yourself:
    • Use the Delphi Help files; the more you use them, the more skilled you will become
    • Experiment for yourself. Try out different methods in a simplified test project
    • Study the code in your Delphi examples folder
    • Check out the FAQs (frequently asked questions) and Tips,
      especially the COMP.LANG.PASCAL.DELPHI.MISC Mini-FAQ.
    • Search one or more of the Newsgroup archives. Nine times out of ten, you will find that your question has already been answered many times over.
    • Read through recent newsgroup posts.
    • Don't be a Help Vampire ,
  2. Make sure that you understand how newsgroups work
  3. Make sure that you know how to ask good questions
        (Do not be put off by the frequent use of the term "hacker" on this site.
        It is used in the sense of "experienced programmer" and the site has clearly written and pertinent advice for anyone using programming newsgroups.)taqmar

When you ask your question

  1. Choose your newsgroup carefully. Make sure that your post is on-topic for the group. Look for posts on similar questions
  2. Choose your Subject line carefully. Try to make sure that it clearly indicates the nature of your problem
    Avoid
    • Meaningless subject lines such as
      "'HELP!!!!".
      "Newbie problem"
      "Need help on problem with Delphi"
      "What is wrong with my code?"
    • Long subject lines with the most important bits at the end
    • All capitals. Shouts will be ignored.
    • Multiple exclamation marks (!)
    • The word "urgent". In the eyes of the questioner, most questions are urgent. Do not try to push yourself to the front of the queue.
  3. Observe good Newsgroup Etiquette
  4. Make sure that you include the question in the body of your post, rather than depending on the Subject line
  5. Indicate which Delphi version and Windows version you are using.
  6. If you think that your code may be at fault, include a stripped down version of the code that shows the problem and is capable of being compiled (unless, of course, the problem is that your code will not compile)
  7. Delphi code requires special attention. Make sure that:
    • your code is laid out to show structure with consistent indents
      (avoid using tabs for indents, instead use 2 spaces),
    • you keep the length of each line to less than 72 characters to avoid having the line broken at an inappropriate place,
    • you include a space after any inline comment marker ("//"), to avoid Microsoft's Outlook Express rendering it incorrectly as a URL,
    • no line starting with the word "begin" has 2 blank spaces immediately following the word, otherwise some newsreaders (including Microsoft's Outlook Express) will terminate the post at this point.

CodeGear's own Newsgroups

These are the embacadero.public.delphi.* newsgroups hosted on the CodeGear servers at forums.codegear.com.

Please note that, following the acquisition of CodeGear by Embarcadero Technologies, and the malfunction of the Borland Newsgroup servers, the these newsgroups (and forums) are in a state of flux.

List of CodeGear Delphi newsgroups

These newsgroups were 0riginally set up by Borland (AKA Inprise) to give peer-group support for their Delphi products and these groups are now hosted on the CodeaGear servers.

The advice given on the CodeGear groups is generally authoritative, and if not, is soon corrected. A number of the users who frequent these groups have been authorized by CodeGear to add the tag "( TeamB)" to their posting names. These groups are monitored by the members of TeamB and the advice given by them may be regarded as authoritative (but no-one is infallible).

There are around 50 Delphi groups available on forums.codegear.com and a number of others for the other CodeGear products.

Note that you may see "borland.public.delphi.*" and/or "embarcadero.public.*" newsgroups on non-CodeGear servers, along with the Usenet groups. Their use should be avoided.

To find out more about the CodeGear groups and to subscribe to an original/"genuine" CodeGear Delphi group go to http://info.borland.com/newsgroups/ng_delphi.html.

Borland's newsgroup guidelines (Especially note the rules regarding multi-posting, cross-posting and over-quoting.)

Usenet Newsgroups

alt.* newsgroups

Although unmoderated, these groups are remarkably free from offensive posts and Spam, although these nuisances do crop up from time-to-time. There is little difference between the three and many messages are cross-posted, with some being multi-posted.

comp.lang.pascal.delphi.* newsgroups

(from "The weekly FAQ item about the Pascal newsgroups' reorganization" by Timo Salmi.)

Please duly observe the good netiquette in the Pascal newsgroups. For example, please note that, while posting source code snippets of reasonable length is welcome, you should not post binaries or binary attachments (uuencoded, mimed, base64:d, HTML, multi-part, word-processor or similar files) to these newsgroups. If you have such material to show or share please make it available at an FTP or WWW location and post only the pointer. In the Pascal newsgroups only use straight ASCII text.

embarcadero.public.delphi.* newsgroups on non-CodeGear servers

The embarcadero.public.* groups should not appear on non-Borland/non-CodeGear servers so please on forums.codegear.com and NEVER post to a borland.public.delphi.* group on a non-Embarcadero/non-CodeGear server.

Some newsgroup providers copy the messages for selected groups from the CodeGear servers to their own servers and then allow them on to the Usenet propagation mechanism. This creates a problem in that CodeGear do not copy back onto their servers any posts made directly to other servers. The result is that if you make a post to a borland.public.* group using a non-CodeGear server, it will not appear on the CodeGear servers and so not be seen by those who use them. Since most TeamB members (and many others) restrict themselves to the CodeGear servers, this will mean that any post you make to a embarcadero.public.* group on a non-CodeGear server is unlikely be seen by those in the best position to help.

The only time that you should consider using the borland.public.delphi.* groups on a non-CodeGear server is if you are seriously seeking help and have not had an answer to a post to the appropriate group on forums.codegear.com. In such a case, if your normal newsgroup provider lists the group, it may be worthwhile checking it out in case a replier has sent their reply to a non-CodeGear server.

In any event, the borland.public.* groups on non-CodeGear servers should most definitely be regarded as "read-only".

Not all of the 50 or so Delphi groups available on the CodeGear servers are copied onto the non-CodeGear servers.

Other Delphi newsgroups on Usenet

There are a number of Usenet newsgroups, other than those listed above, which you may be able to access via your newsreader. Some of these may be intended for speakers of languages other than English.

Search in your newsreader's Subscribe to Newsgroups dialog for "delphi". What you will see will depend upon what what is available from your newsgroup provider(s) and many of the groups shown may have nothing at all to do with CodeGear's Delphi.

Newsgroup archives :

Contact habitsoft@gmail.com Last updated August 21, 2008