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May 2003 General Meeting
General Meeting
Location:Auditorium
Date:Wednesday, May 7, 7:00 pm
Topic: Dynamic Application Development in Delphi using Plugins and Plugin Systems
Speaker: Tim Sullivan, Unlimited Intelligence Limited (www.uil.net)
 
  If you've ever wanted to make your applications easier to update, support, or add new features to, you won't want to miss this presentation! Tim Sullivan, an expert in Delphi plugin development, will be discussing how to add new functionality to your application in a variety of different ways.

Topics that will be covered include:

  • What are plugins?
  • Types of plugins
  • Deciding which approach to use
  • - DLL plugins (advantages, disadvantages and using)
    - Package plugins (advantages, disadvantages and using)
  • Architecture and design decisions (the importance of application services)
  • Off the shelf solutions for plugin development
  • Do plugins fit into a .NET Future?

By the end of this session, you should have a comfortable grasp of the issues surrounding plugin-based application development, as well as a good start on how to add plugin functionality to your own applications, whether it be writing your own, or using an out-of-the-box solution.

Tim has been developing plugin systems using DLLs and Packages since 1998. In 1999, he offered his first Delphi plugin system for free to the Delphi community. Less than 3 months later, he revolutionized plugin development by creating Visual Plugins, and keeping the product free. In 2001, he released the completely rewritten UIL Plugin Framework that again raised the bar for plugins using Delphi.

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