You’ll recall that back in 2004, a client asked that I develop some software for them….the big catch is that it needed to run on Windows 3.1, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.  It also needed to be easily deployable, so my choice was to
use Delphi.  Delphi was, and continues to be, one of my favorite development tools, but the idea of revisiting this code scared me just a bit.

So there I was, happily working in .NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005, when I get email from this client telling me that after 2 years, a bug developed in the software when they switched print drivers on the client systems.  My first reaction was “WTF?” since I used the standard printing mechanism in Delphi (open the printer, create a canvas, draw to the canvas, etc.)

They emailed me a log file so I could see where the application actually failed.  Turns out, there wasn’t quite enough logging in the particular area of the application that was causing the issue, so I added more logging, updated the version number, recompiled and sent it to them.

I’m still waiting for them to send me a new log file, but I have the feeling that this is gonna be a really simple fix.  They’ve also expressed an interest in having me re-develop the app in ASP.NET!   Now that’s what I’m talking about.