About Us
When Borland came out with Delphi 1 in 1995, a new world opened up to Pascal programmers--Windows programming was now easily within their reach.
Sure, there had been Borland Pascal 8 for Windows, but not too many people wanted to tackle the OWL (Object Windows Library) with all its C-like complexity
and steep learning curve. With Delphi, many of the necessary details of Windows programming were hidden in "wrappers" or components that could be simply
chosen from a palette and dropped on a form.
Soon, books and magazines started teaching Delphi programming and in Portland, Oregon, like many areas around the country (indeed, around the world!), developers
wanted to get together and talk about this new programming environment, to strengthen their skills, learn new techniques, and build professional relationships.
So, in early 1996, a few of these people got together and started meeting on a monthly basis in Legacy Emanual Hospital's Lorenzen Center Auditorium.
There was no one really "in charge" at first, just a group getting together and talking about Delphi. But the meeting room definitely had a stage and we wanted someone
up front! Soon Greg Postlewait stepped forward to lead. Greg's professionalism and ability to bring good topics and speakers to the meetings, grew attendance rapidly.
We setup an email list at eGroups--which has now been merged into Yahoo! Groups. Since we were able to get the meeting room for no charge and the mailing list was
free, we have never charged for admission or annual dues.
After four years, Greg move out of the area and handed the reins over to David Cornelius, who is the group's coordinator to this day.
At some point along the way, a web site had been established, but since there was no budget, it moved a couple of times depending on who would host it for free.
In late 2000, David Cornelius arranged with John Kaster of Borland to host the group's web site on Borland's "Homepages" server. Also, a copy of Kylix 2 Enterprise (Delphi's
Linux counterpart) was awarded to the group to build a dynamic web site. Finally, in March of 2004, the hand-edited HTML files were replaced with semi-auto-generated
ones from a CLX application pulling it's data from a Firebird database.
The group continues to meet in the Lorenzen Center Auditorium and typically meets on the third Monday of each odd-numbered month. People start showing up
about 5:30 PM and our official presentations preceded by short announcements begin at 6:00 and usually end by 8:00. We always have time for questions and answers and just general discussions.
To contact the coordinator, David Cornelius, send an email to
odug CorneliusConcepts.com.
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