Merks' Meanderings

Modeling Daze

2009-11-23T09:44:00.005-05:00

The Modeling Days have left me in a bit of a daze so I'm way behind with my blogging. The New York Eclipse Modeling Day was hosted by Credit Suisse in the smaller building next to their main tower across from Madison Garden.

Ian Skerret started the day with a quick introduction followed by Joe Wood of Credit Suisse who talked about how modeling is rapidly becoming a central aspect of Credit Suisse's information technology infrastructure. They're very focused on industry standards to help facilitate integration across organizations. Following those quick introductions, I did my stupid modeling talk.

After the morning break, Richard Wood of Credit Suisse presented a case study on model transformation. They're using oAW and EMF. He talked about Gobal Services as Enterprise Java Beans for which service interface definitions were specified as UML class models. It was a quick and dirty solution with the drawback that the UML API was complex to use and hence the templates were difficult to maintain. Using a specialized model to express web services helped simplify the transformation process of producing WSDLs and XSDs. In other projects they used profiled UML to describe the different design layers of a large project, i.e., the presentation layer and the business data layer, which they mapped onto a specialized DSL and from that generated the parts of the application. He also talked about generating a profiled UML instance from a model and talked about some of the lessons learned. The requirements for the model that are needed for generating is often different from the original high level model, so using transformation to produce the more specialized form can help simplify the design. He suggests to avoid generating directly from UML because it's too complex and that complexity obscures the logic of the templates to make them unreadable and unmaintainable. He feels that static content in templates needs to be independently maintained. He also advises to reuse existing technology whenever possible, e.g, the oAW XMLWriter. One of the questions afterward was about why UML was being used at all; the primary reason given was that UML is simply a standard requirement for which there is existing experience and tools.

After lunch, Bjorn Freeman-Benson, Miles Daffin of Morgan Stanely, and I did our b3 talk. It went pretty well I think. The b3 project completed its creation review just last week, so we're off to the races! Our talk was followed by Eike's CDO talk where he explained many of the same things I've seen at the Munich code camp and at ESE, so it's starting to sound simple and familiar.

Moritz's talk about combining graphical and textual views followed the final break. He focused on some of the qualities of good textual notations, e.g., readability and writability, as well as the tooling aspects that further facilitate these aspects, e.g., syntax highlighting and content assist. Then he compared different aspects of textual and graphical notations, e.g., text tends to be presented in its entirety whereas graphics tends to hide much of the model in properties not directly visible.

The day finished with a closing panel where the panel asked the audience questions to stimulate more two-way interaction. All in all, it was a very fun day. One of the ladies I chatted with remarked how great it was to be able to attend a free mini-conference like this. "Usually something like this costs a lot of many," she remarked. Soon it was time to say goodbye to the bright lights of New York.

The Toronto modeling day was fun as well. It follow much the same format and included mostly the same content. IBM's facilities were very nice, but they asked us not to use cameras. It was especially nice to see some familiar faces. I did my stupid modeling talk yet again; people always seem to like it so that's rather gratifying. My build talk was after the break, so basically I talked the whole morning and was very tired after that. Following lunch I attended the MDE talk as well as Mile's AMP talk. Both were very interesting.

I think the Toronto day went even better than the New York; folks seemed more inclined to interact with each other. That same evening there was a demo camp as well, so we had even more opportunities to chat and mingle. If I wasn't so darned tired, I'd have taken a few pictures. With all the excitement behind me, Frank and I were able to focus on setting up this year's festival of lights.

We refuse to be outdone by our neighbors, not that we're competitive or anything.

Do It Better With A Model

2009-11-09T06:35:00.004-05:00

Has the spark of excitement in your life slowly dwindled? Do you suffer from performance anxiety? Are you concerned that you won't be able to fully satisfy Helios? Fear not for you are not alone! Fortunately for you, we have a new drug free solution. Forget about all those ads for pills and mechanical devices filling up your spam folder. We have discovered that real live models bring a whole new perspective.

Our carefully selected models aren't merely super, they're versatile and flexible enough to satisfy your every need. Just relax and let them do their thing. Of course if you feel so inclined, you can take control anytime the urge arises. If you aren't yet fully convinced that our stimulating models are exactly what you need, have a look at this testimonial from one our many completely satisfied customers. He's clearly taken aim and hit the mark, and he's not alone.

Best of all, our models aren't merely good for builds, they're good for development in general. Whether you like to do it top down, bottom up, or some other way we've not yet imagined, our models will be there to help you feel like the real developer you've always wanted to be. Your imagination is the only limitation, so take a bit of time to dream of the many exciting things our models might do for you do today. The e4 team has, and now there's no holding them back. Just keep in mind that no problem is too small or too big for our models. After all, I doubt this grand palace was built without the aid of a model.

We're so fully convinced that our models are world class, we've scheduled free modelings days in two of North America's great cities: New York and Toronto. Register immediately for these exclusive events before time runs out! You'll spend a fun filled day learning about b3, Xtext, CDO, AMP, Papyrus, and SAP's exciting new query technology from some of the world's leading experts as well as discovering how these technologies have been effectively exploited. Not only that, all four authors of the EMF book are expected to be at the Toronto event, so bring your books to be signed. At the end of the day, I'm sure you'll agree: it's simply more exciting to do it with models.

Eclipse Summit Europe 2009: The Final Day

2009-10-30T00:35:00.012-05:00

The day started with Tony Ballenti's keynote about the dynamics of open source.

He explored the various reasons why organizations get involved in open source and how that motivation matures over time.

As with all things in life, investing more effort generally generates more reward, or at least the potential for that. Nevertheless, many if not most are quite comfortable investing very little while still reaping significant rewards. Tony spent a lot of time talking about ecosystems with these takeaways.

From a modeling perspective, we've gained a great deal of value from innovative individuals including many researchers. In addition, a significant number of companies have grown in this space and are investing heavily in it, which is very good if you consider where we'd be if we still relied primarily on the two large organizations that kicked off this venture.

After the break, during which I talked with Bernd, Boris, and Kai about using Xtext to specify a CSS subset for e4 styling, was Kenn Hussey, Raphael Faudou, and Patrick Tessier's Papayrus talk.

The room was way overcrowded and there just wasn't enough air. They outlined the history of the project, i.e., they started as a number of separate external UML tool efforts. These efforts merged under the Papyrus 2 umbrella which is now producing some very slick looking technology. Kenn described the "perfect storm" that's bringing things together.

The project aims to separate out a DSL backbone that can be reused with other models such as SysML, BPMN2, and so on. Stay tuned for other developments in the area of a common DSL workbench...

Markus Herrmannsdoerfer's COPE talk was in the same room and it was even more crowded, so much so that people just couldn't fit in the room anymore.

I assume many people have data that needs to be migrated as their models change. Go figure. The idea behind Cope is to track the changes made to the Ecore model and then apply those same operations to the actual instance data. He demonstrated how it really works with a simple state machine model.

Hajo Eichler's Model Execution Framework talk was also in the same room.

Thank goodness someone figured out how to open a window or I'd have died by now. He did a bit of slide "borrowing" for his talk; Eike and I made it clear intend to send the license police after him. Quickly thereafter, you could hear the police sirens out in the street, and he looked worried. He showed how he extended the Ecore model to be able to express behavior using a subset of UML activities. There's an intepretter to execute the model as well as a debugger for interactively tracking the execution process. It looks very promising.

After that was lunch, during which Thomas, Henrik and I talked with Wayne about how we can help with aggregating p2 repositories for Helios and for projects not on the release train. Unfortunately, I missed all the afternoon sessions dealing with modeling project management issues. If I told you about them, I'd have to kill you. I really wanted to see EuGENia;I heard from others that it was really cool. I also wanted to see the progress that was made on EEF. It was a bit of a bummer to miss all the interesting sessions that afternoon. There should be more time for chatting at these conferences...

By late afternoon, word had gotten out that it was my birthday. During the closing session, Ralph incited the entire audience to sing happy birthday for me. How embarrassing is that? According to German custom, I should have bought cake for everyone and invited them all to a party. Sorry dudes, I can't afford that much cake. As expected, ESE just keeps getting better each year and I look forward to next year.

Eclipse Summit Europe 2009: A Day of Talks

2009-10-29T00:48:00.008-05:00

The morning started with the keynote about functional programming by Don Syme of Microsoft.

I loved functional programming back in my university days, which seems like so many eons ago. He argues that certain classes of problem are far simpler to solve using functional programming and shows a number of examples where F#'s syntax is far simpler, i.e., less verbose, than C#. Personally though, I'm not one who easily buys into the idea that syntactic conciseness in and of itself makes a language significantly better. Simplicity of the underlying semantic/mental model is ultimately what counts, and that of course needs to be balanced against expressiveness power, which generally is the counter point to simplicity. F# definitely looks powerful.

The break was an opportunity for many interesting discussions. One of the great things about conferences is the face to face discussions they facilitate. The summit is particularly conducive to that type of interation. Unfortunately that resulted in missing the start of the e4 talk. The diverse e4 team has made a lot of progress.

After another yummy lunch I was torn between Sven's Xtext talk and Tom's e4 model talk. Two cool things at once. Darn! I know more about Xtext than the e4 model, so I opted for the latter. It was interesting hearing all Tom's reasons for using EMF in e4.

He showed how a simple application model specifies the logical structure of the user interface, eliminating the need to build up these structures with a pile of boilerplate Java code. Then he showed how to extend that base scaffolding with embedded parts. He even showed an example where one process is editing an e4 model stored in a CDO repository while another process is rendering that same model from the shared repository in the actual UI; changes are immediately reflected across the process boundary effecitvely giving you a WYSIWYG editor. He also explained how you can define your own renderer to display the same model in various different ways. It's looking very good!

After that I attended Bernd Kolb and Christian Mohr's query talk.

Bernd explained some of the shortcomings of the existing EMF query technology; it's definitely pretty crude. SAP had some existing query infrastructure that was part of their proprietary MOF implementation; that's what's being contributed to Eclipse. They demonstrated examples of the cool SQL-like query language they support. The query execution engine makes use of the EMF index project, but can work against in memory resources as well as directly against a database too.

Frederic Jouault and Hugo Bruneliere's EMF Oslo talk was next.

They explained that M consistst of three complementary languages: MSchema, MGraph, and MGrammer, analogous to Ecore, EObject, and Xtext. Bridging these technologies involves mapping these specific concepts. To start one could define an Ecore model for MSchema so that it's possible to transform Ecore instances to MSchema instances which could then be serialized to conform of the MSchema textual syntax. They demonstrate their progress toward implementing this approach including ATL transformations for doing the mapping.

Henrik Lindberg and Thomas Hallgren's b3 talk followed a short break.

One might summarize the approach as model driven builds. Key aspects of the build and provisioning process are captured as declarative models, e.g., buildable units which are analogous to p2's installable units, and these ultimately drive the build process. Xtext is being used to provide human readable syntax for the build models. There's a lot of cool stuff planned! If you're working on an Eclipse project, you're probably painfully aware of how much of a nightmare it currently is to set up and maintain your builds. Goodness forbid someone changes the requirements for what needs to be pumped out at the end!

After that I had a chance to chat with a guy hoping to get involved in GEF, a project that certainly needs some fresh and lively committers. Maybe I'll be able to help. This was followed by the Buckminster talk from Henrik, Thomas, and Filip Hrbek.

It attracted a very large audience.

Henrik explained that provisioning a workspace or building a p2 repository ought to be as simple as ordering your favorite burger at your burger outlet of choice.

Filip and Thomas demonstrated that it's as simple as specifying a query to locate the root feature and asking for its p2 repository to be built.

The tools, e.g., the dependency visualizer, are looking very slick. They also demonstrated the repository aggregator, which is based on an EMF model and an EMF generated editor. It can even produce a Maven repository as well as a p2 repository. How cool is that? At the end they explained how the lessons learned from building Buckminster will be used to drive further improvements into the b3 project. Models, models, everywhere.

This was followed by the reception. It included a talk by Microsoft that felt a little too much like advertisement to me. Oh well, they paid for the the food and the spirits---the salmon was excellent and so was the wine---so it was a reasonable trade-off. I finished the day at a birds of a feather session discussing how to transform the modeling project into something suited for supporting a DSL workbench as well as how interested consumers could help fund that effort. It was a very interesting day indeed!

Eclipse Summit Europe 2009: Tutorials and Symposia

2009-10-28T00:38:00.015-05:00

Eclipse Summit Europe started today. The weather was very mild making the short walk from Nestor Hotel to the Schlosspark Forum particularly enjoyable. It's a grand looking facility.

Eike, Tom, and I started the day with the EMF Tutorial. It was an extremely large group of people.

They didn't all fit in one picture.

I started with basic concepts about resource management and XML serialization, Eike went into depth about CDO, and Tom finished with an overview of EMF's data binding integration.

The Modeling Symposium also had a very large turnout.

The room was packed.

Christian Meier of UBS kicked off the Modeling Symposium with a presentation about the relevance of modeling in the enterprise.

He would like to see Eclipse evolve toward a first class IDE for developing models with integration through repositories to better manage the integrity of large interdependent models as they are modified by distributed groups of developers.

Eike continued with a brief demonstration of CDO as applied to his eDine restaurant model.

He showed how several applications can coordinate around a single repository and thereby reflect changes made to the state at that central repository.

Next Frédéric Madiot of Mia-Software presented the MoDisco project which is focused on discovering the models that underlie complex applications.

This information can be used to evolve and modernized those applications. He showed the generic browser that can help analyze any EMF model. It supports specifying queries that can be used to alter how the model is viewed. He shows how this can be used to specify a derived feature that's external to the actual model. Once you induce an interesting view on the model, you could use those queries to extract that into a formal model of the application.

Next Skhiri Sabri of Euranova demonstrated his live model to model transformation technology.

He talked about how an underlying model drives many of the related parts of an overall application. They have a model for the UI, a model for the data objects, and a modeled transformation layer for mapping the object model onto the UI. The tansformation layer is designed to listen to the source instances so that it can update the target instances as the source changes. In many ways, it acts similar to data binding, but is focused on always on live model to model transformation. It would have been cool to see it in action.

Markus Voelter did a lightning presentation about feature models which are used for managing variability.

A feature model describes how a valid instance is composed of parts, some of which might be mandatory, optional, or perhaps one choice of many options.

Frédéric Jouault of Ecole Des Mines Nantes described the MDE diploma he's helping to develop.

It will teach students basic MDE concepts and technologies with a focus on things that have direct industrial application. He outlined the basic curriculum they plan to support. It will include an internship program.

Cédric Vidal of ProxiAD described EMF Customerizer, a technology for customizing generated models.

It uses a CSS-style syntax for expressing the customization. This way the customizations can be expressed external to the model and hence can be reapplied to a modified version of that model. Perhaps in the future, direct changes to a model could be persisted as a customization.

Sebastian Benz of BMW presented EFactory, a textual syntax for creating instances of Ecore models.

He used Xtext to define it and showed how it could be used as textual syntax for building Ecore itself. How cool is that?

Cédric Brun demonstrated Acceleo's support for MTL. It looks like a nice language and the editor is quite slick.

There is support for prototype-based template generation, traceability hooks, and even a profiler to help tune generator performance. Very impressive.

During the final discussions, we talked about the problem of wanting fine grained object level repositories as well course grained textual resources. Part of the issue is how often do conflicts arrive from simultaneous users. But even there, a textual file can be converted to a model, and comparisons can be done at the model level instead of the file level when merging changes. The problem is often establishing identity, which is generally lost in a modified textual representation. Names could be used for identity, but refactoring can change a name. Ideally we could edit textually but not produce wholesale changes in the underlying model. It was an interesting discussion, but such a large room with a large group is not a great venue for including all the interested parties.

Afterward I sat through the Foundation 2.0 Symposium, but I quickly started to feel that pulling out a fingernail would be far less painful. I'm still not sure why model bashing is a necessary part of improving the foundation. Consider the 150+ people interested in modeling at ESE today, you'd feel safe to assume that modeling is quite an important part of the foundation's future. Oh well, you can't please all of the people all of the time. At least things progressed to more constructive contributions, such as how best to build an ecosystem where people can pay for bug fixes as well as fund feature development. I had to leave early for the sponsor's dinner, which was far more enjoyable!

Life in the Fast Lane

2009-10-23T02:54:00.008-05:00

Do you ever feel as if life is speeding by in a blur? I often feel that way these days.

My time in Berlin is rapidly nearing the end. How can the last five weeks have gone by so quickly? It's been more than a bit little dazzling.

Next week is Eclipse Summit Europe, so I'll be off to Ludswigburg. I love the cozy atmosphere of the summit! I've been fortunate to have been able to attend every single one; I've only missed one EclipseCon, but let's not go there. The summit gets better every year so I have particularly high expectations. No doubt it will be grand.

Ralph would be very happy if you registered immediately; we all live to make him happy, don't we? Of course it will make your pocket happier not to wait until next week. Note that last I checked, there were at least 60 people planning to attend the modeling symposium. Bernd and I have a few interesting sessions lined up already, but there's still room if you having something cool you'd like to show off. It doesn't have to be anything too formal.

The registration for the Eclipse Modeling Days is looking very good too. That's something to look forward to after Frank, Else, and I leave Berlin behind at the beginning of November. These days, Berlin is the city of lights; I'll always remember it fondly.

When you live life in the fast lane, there's never a dull moment. I even fixed almost the entire defect backlog this week!

Much Ado About Modeling

2009-10-16T00:05:00.007-05:00

What a relief! Eike and I completed our Code Camp yesterday here in Munich. It was a great deal of effort to prepare the material and given my strong dislike for working on powerpoint slides, all the advanced work seemed particularly onerous. But it was fun once we got started and now that it's done we have excellent material for the next time. The attendees were certainly very positive in their reviews; look at how studious they were doing their exercises.

Everyone had a great time and even I learned a lot listening to Eike's excellent presentation about CDO. CDO is totally cool and I bet a lot more people would use it if they knew more about it. Eike's CDO tutorial at ESE on October 27th is bound to be well attended; Tom will also be involved to explain how EMF and databinding are as complimentary as nuts and chocolate. Speaking of totally cool, the DSL tutorial at ESE I'm sure will be a big hit as well; Xtext is one of my favorite things. It goes without saying that attending the ESE Modeling Symposium after the tutorial of your choice is an absolute must; don't forget to send us your abstracts so we can prepare a fascinating agenda. It's clear that October 27th will be all modeling all the time! Even the b3 symposium and the e4 symposium are about modeling. In Germany, every time you turn around, there's another model, or statue if you like.

Of course you don't have to attend ESE to learn more about modeling. For example, the itemis guys are doing several training sessions in the coming weeks, not to mention the upcoming modeling days in Toronto and New York. Don't forget to register! Personally I'm very excited to learn more about the Agent Modeling Platform, among other things; Miles is doing some really cool stuff. There are definitely interesting things on the horizon as well as a clear path for how to get there.

Eike and I were going to go sight seeing in Munich today, but it's unseasonably cold---it snowed the last few days--- and we're just not properly equipped with warm jackets, so we'll head back to Berlin around noon. I'm not exactly sure what to sink my teeth into next.

No doubt it will be modeling related. Perhaps I should tackle that growing defect backlog!

Really Big Models

2009-10-06T02:47:00.006-05:00

My modeling pilgrimage to Nantes the other week was most enjoyable. The stupid modeling talk went over well and it was great fun spending time with Jean as well as the academic and industrial modeling researchers from the area. Instead staying at an impersonal hotel, Stéphane, Etienne, and Cédric each hosted me at their respective homes. I even participated in the swimming portion of the La Baule Triathalon. Checkout out my awesome team.

After the triathlon, we played soccer for a few hours; I hate to admit that I had trouble walking the next few days. Thanks to the Nathalie Effect, my soccer team crushed the other team; sorry Etienne, better luck next year. The day was rounded off by a giant barbecue party at Cedric's country estate.

Since then I've been working with Eike to prepare for the Eclipse Code Camp which is next week; did I ever mention how much I dislike preparing slides? I've also been working with Ian on the plans for the Eclipse Modeling Days as well as with Bernd on the agenda for Eclipse Summit Europe's Modeling Symposium. If you're interested in participating in these events please let us know! Lately I feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew...

This last weekend was a special event for Berlin: the wall came down twenty years ago. As part of the festivities, I saw the biggest model ever!

The small giant above was 7 meters tall but the big one was 14 meters!!

I can say without fear of contradiction that models are big in Germany!

What's All This Fuss About Modeling?

2009-09-24T02:53:00.008-05:00

I've been incredibly busy these past few weeks. After getting home from Berlin last month I headed for California two days later to present at the Googleplex. My presentation was about build and provision of all things! Speaking of which, did you see the b3 proposal? Clearly models are good for everything, including builds. While in California I met up with Peter who presented an introduction to DSLs. It was an excellent talk and overall the Google folks hosted a great event. Afterward, Peter came back to my place for a visit, and the next day Frank, Eike, and Rene arrived as well. It was kind of a German invasion of my home but my killer guard dogs lost their killer instinct long ago.

Peter only stayed for a few days, but the rest stayed until just this past weekend. While I went to Boston last week for the Eclipse Board meeting---yet more travel---the guys took a trip to Ottawa to visit Kenn and Lynn. The girls are always concerned whenever anyone left the house with suit cases.

Given that I have several events to attend in Europe in the coming weeks, I decided to head back to Berlin along with my guests. Frank and I arrived Monday after a flight in which nearly everything that can go wrong did go wrong. How exactly does a confirmed flight segment disappear from the system? No really, I do want to end up in Berlin, not Frankfurt! And no, I don't want just one of us to be upgraded to business, thanks for the kind offer. It made me a little prickly, but all is well that ends well.

On Monday I got a chance to spend time with Wolfgang Neuhaus who made a special trip out to Berlin so we could discuss itemis business in person. We spent a sunny day at a lovely cafe a short walk from Frank's place and decided to avoid sitting under the chestnut trees which were dropping spiked chestnut bombs with frightening regularity. It was very enjoyable. This area of Berlin is incredibly beautiful, especially the botanical garden!

Yesterday I headed to Nantes to spend time with my friends at Obeo. Today I'll talk again about the unbearable stupidity of modeling. I'll be presenting in French; just kidding! Jean Bezivin invited me to present and I'm just a boy who can't say no. It's simply beautiful here in Nantes, and the people I'm staying with are all so nice. Too bad I forgot my camera!

In an upcoming week I'll be helping Eike with the Eclipse Code Camp. I'll be presenting in German; just kidding! It will be four action packed days of fun and learning so don't miss the opportunity if you're able to find your way to Munich the week of October 12, or is that Oktober. I feel a bit dazzled these days.

For Eclipse Summit Europe I'm going to clone myself so I can attend both the Modeling Symposium and the B3 Symposium. Speaking of which, for the modeling symposium we want to give people a chance to present short 10-15 minute presentations about the modeling technology they're working on or to propose discussion topics. If you're interested, please send a short abstract for a talk or a proposal for a discussion topic to ed.merks@gmail.com and bernd.kolb@sap.com; please use a subject line of the form [ese2009]...

And finally, in November, there are going to be some Eclipse Modeling Days, but that's a secret, so I can't tell you about it, especially not about their secret locations in Toronto and New York. We're still gathering abstracts. Interested?

Berlin's Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch

2009-08-20T01:32:00.010-05:00

The Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch in Berlin yesterday was a lot of fun. Eike and I arrived a few minutes late only to realize we'd really not made good arrangements for how to find others at the huge beer garden. Eike took off his hat to be more easily recognizable; clearly I should have worn my pink shirt. Fortunately it didn't take us long to find the early birds; the hats with little propellers really helped. Beer is not my drink of choice, but I'm acquiring a taste for weißbier so I promptly started on one of those. After the social lubricant, we got down to some real hard work. First we created an economic model which we used to resolve the economic crisis.

Then we built a climate model and promptly came up with a way to halt global warming without banning SUVs.

Next we hashed out a new food distribution model to solve the problem of world hunger; there really is plenty of good food to go around.

And finally we created a new agent model to arrive at a proven policy for achieving world peace. We're calling the new policy: Open Source for Open Minds.

When all the great problems of our times were resolved, Ralph showed up to shower us with praise and more importantly, the free beer I promised.

I lost track of time after that. Good company and good beer tends to do that! Thanks for the fun time to those of you who came; sorry you couldn't make it to all the rest of you. Maybe next time...

Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch Plans

2009-08-18T02:26:00.005-05:00

As my plane approached Frankfurt early Friday morning, the sun peeked over the horizon with promises of good things to come, which of course includes tomorrow's Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch Eike, Ralph, and I blogged about last week.

So far nineteen people have responded to our poll. We'll host the Stammtisch at Der Biergarten of the PraterGarten and start at around 6:30PM. What better place for free beer? It seats 600, in case a few more people decide to join the last minute. This is a golden opportunity to meet and greet!

Don't miss it. See you tomorrow, i.e., Wednesday August 19th.

Berlin: There I Go Again

2009-08-11T13:35:00.006-05:00

Berlin was so cool I'm going back later this week to see all the things I missed in June.

Eike, Ralph, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to host an Eclipse Modeling Stammtisch on Wednesday August 19th. If you're not into modeling, you're still more than welcome to join the party; expect to be converted into the fold.

Please let us know your intent to join by completing this poll. We'll find a good location based on attendance. Did I mention Ralph's promise of free beer?

On Dead Lines

2009-08-03T12:54:00.006-05:00

Although lines don't die, deadlines are nevertheless an ugly fact of reality. In particular, the opportunity to submit a talk for Eclipse Summit Europe 2009 is rapidly reaching its inevitable conclusion. This year's drop dead date is August 19th so you have just barely over two weeks to dilly-dally before it's too late. After that, it will just be so much water under the bridge, or is that over the falls...

The runtime folks are certainly off to a running start with their submissions---not that I'm competitive or anything---while the modeling submissions are sadly lagging. No doubt folks are busy modeling their submissions first and will hence be far ahead of the game in the end. Of course my whining is really just a case of the pot calling the kettle black given that I've not yet submitted a proposal for the modeling symposium, as I committed to doing several weeks ago. In my defense, I've been traveling and Vancouver was way too beautiful to spend at a computer! To my credit, today I'm working during a holiday.

Grieving Over the Death of a Cash Cow

2009-07-07T03:42:00.005-05:00

A sizable portion of the software cash cow herd is dying and our industry is learning to cope with grief, the natural expected response to death. Grief is painful, but absolutely necessary and completely unavoidable. Shock, anger, guilt, obsession, depression, confusion, and feelings of helplessness, emptiness, and loneliness are among grief's many facets. It's almost too much to bear.

Once upon a time, vast herds of carefully controlled cash cows were tended with loving care until some of the cows mutated and escaped. Actually, let's be frank, the cows were deliberately genetically engineered and then set lose with the disruptive intent, e.g., to undermine competing herds of cash cows. Those with the biggest herds were often in the best position to sacrifice a few cows and could draw attention to the virtue of their sacrificial offerings. Consider though how much it cost to develop what's at Eclipse today, i.e., hundreds of millions. No doubt this is dwarfed by commercial investments in Linux, i.e., multiple billions. Do these appear to be purely noble acts intended to build a grand public edifice?

Most certainly open source investment is generally not a selfless act; yes, it really does involve investment and yes, there is virtue in it as well. However, whenever a valuable resource is consumed, a return is expected. It is the economic way of the things. There can be no exceptions for long. So we must wonder, who will continue to tend the free cows and what return on investment do they expect? I.e., what is the emerging business model for our future software economy? In other words, how will Eike stock his bar so the goodness of CDO continues to flow?

I've already suggested that open source can act as a way of targeting competitors by undermining their cash flow thereby making them less of a competitive threat. Of course that tends to commoditize the domain so that no one makes money from it. A related strategy is to open source only part of the solution, just the basic frameworks and capabilities, and then provide value added software to drive revenue, i.e., a free cow complemented by a cash cow. In principle this can be quite effective because consumers love free things. From that perspective, open source software is almost like a coupon. If it could be contained to that, we'd not need a new business model, so this approach is a pinnacle of success and has shining appeal.

Another approach is to just open source everything. After all, we all know that free software still takes effort to install, learn, use effectively, and keep up-to-date, so there's still money to be made in the services around all this "free" software. Unfortunately, all this free software has produced a debilitating almost viral condition known as freetardation: the irrational belief that paying a dollar for anything software related is offensive in principle. How many organizations and individuals don't end up spending person weeks of time and effort doing poorly something they could have accomplished more effectively with appropriate technology or expert assistance at a small fraction of the real cost? The old penny wise pound foolish principle often rears its ugly head particularly when all the costs and benefits are not properly measured. The problem with the service model is that it's not a license to print money the same ways as is selling software. Software is practically infinitely scalable, i.e., just provide enough download bandwidth, while service generally requires more people, highly skilled people who are themselves expensive and in short supply. Still, it's also a proven model that's held up well.

A valuable aspect of open source software that's more easily overlooked is as protection against vendor lock-in. A few weeks ago at one of the banks it was explained to me that they're fed up with the products they're using. They're too expensive and provide little value over and above what's available in open source. What they're most frustrated with is that each year the salesmen show up with a laundry list of cool new features that justify the upgrade price and yet doesn't include a single feature they actually need. Open source provides better cost control and a better hedge against arbitrary future changes. Self service is even possible and while open source software too can change, there's always the option to fork. Decision makers are in a much better position these days to control their destiny.

I'm not really sure how this will all unfold in the longer term. I doubt anyone is, but the trend toward open source is clear. Probably some of the cash cows will survive, perhaps the value-add approach will work well, at least for those most skilled at riding the leading edge of the crashing wave, but most certainly the service model will survive regardless, because all the models rely on service. This should give committers pause for a bit of self reflection.

Personally I'm not grieving, at least not over the demise of software cash cows. Like other committers at Eclipse, I am a highly skilled expert, and that puts me and professionals like me in the driver's seat. We fit into the economic picture regardless of what business model prevails. If you think of software as content, much like a song, book, or movie is content, then we are the content producers. If you think of software as a service, we are the service providers. There is no software without us, and no, ten unskilled workers will not produce the same result as will one highly skilled individual. So while employers will be tempted to farm out your job to someone else if they think they can save a dollar, they're definitely going to need someone just like you. By being the best at what you do, you're in an excellent position to control your destiny because those in need of expertise will often be willing to pay top dollar to get the very best.

Talking About Connected Data Objects

2009-07-02T08:09:00.004-05:00

My personal Berlin tour guide, Eike Stepper, and I did a Galileo Series Podcast about CDO with James Sugrue the other day.

Eike and his rapidly growing team are doing some extremely cool things with CDO, so you might be interested to find out more.

Going Gaga Over Galileo

2009-06-24T05:49:00.007-05:00

As a true friend of Eclipse, I had early access to Galileo and thanks to the fast friendly mirror, I downloaded the classic SDK in just over three minutes. A friend of mine who isn't a friend of Eclipse (and who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) is finding his download will take an hour. Friendship is a bountiful font from which many good things flow and that brings a smile to my face.

Cloudsmith, my latest additional benefactor, is providing a cool community service that we've dubbed Galileo Plus. Projects like Teneo and CDO provide integration with LGPL libraries like Hibernate that can't be distributed by Eclipse. The p2 repository at http://download.cloudsmith.com/galileoplus/ is basically a clone of the Galileo repository with additional libraries such as Hibernate. Don't worry if your browser says the page for this link has forbidden access, there really is a p2 repository there and you can add it as a site in your installer like this:

Now clients of these modeling technologies have a p2 site with one-stop-shopping for their installation needs; you'll find additional categories like "Net4j Database Adapters" and "Third Party Libraries" among other things. We intend to grow this repository to include more missing bundles as well as other interesting additional bundles. If your project could benefit from this type of one-stop-shopping, send me a note and let the good times flow.

Goodbye Galileo, hello Helios.

Blow Away the Blues in Berlin

2009-06-12T08:22:00.008-05:00

Blue is my favorite color, but being a bit blue bites badly. I remind myself frequently that life's colors are just as bright as they ever were, it's just my perception that's changed.

For this reason, I'm very much looking forward to blowing away my blues with a trip to Berlin next week. I've never been there before, and Eike Stepper will be my personal tour guide, so I'm totally stoked. The Eclipse Board of Directors meets June 17 and 18. As Mike mentioned, it's the first meeting of the board outside of the states and it's in Germany in recognition of the large number of German members who have been traveling across the planet for so many years; consider how far California is from Germany! I don't suppose it's very green regardless of where we have the meetings.

As a small part of my fun filled week, we're planning a modeling party on June 16th starting at 7:00PM at the Bavarium hosted by Eike and yours truly. We promise free beer and witty commentary. A professional photographer will attend. If you plan to partake, please register your intent. Well, I confess I've become a bit delusional; it's actually a "Meet the Board Members Stammtisch," but I'm a board member and you'll get to meet Eike and me, so that makes it a modeling party, in my humble opinion. See you there!

I Don't Care Much for Words of Doom

2009-06-01T09:24:00.000-05:00

Likely it's mostly a reflection of personal sensitivity given my fluctuating moods of late, but it seems to me I've witnessed more negative navel gazing in the past few weeks than is entirely healthy. The balance between optimism and pessimism is always a challenge, but if you pay attention only to the rain brought on by life's dark clouds, you'll tend to miss the bright colors revealed when the sun peeks out, as it inevitably does.

It's best to be on guard against creeping negative attitudes because positive change flows only from constructive actions and those actions are nurtured by the feeling of empowerment.

In every problem lies an opportunity that's waiting for someone to take action. Of course there is value in identifying problems; the world if full of arm chair critics who excel at that. There is even more value in identifying solutions; there tends to be a plethora of those as well. But in the end, the greatest value lies in taking action. After all, grand designs don't build themselves.

One of the problems I see is a lack of leadership from many of Eclipse's largest commercial members. We could bemoan that situation at length, but I gave up on that approach last July; soon it will be a year since I threw my shackles away. It's best to view the current situation as an excellent opportunity for smaller players and even individuals to step in and take charge. Don't complain about the economic downturn either. Sure this presents a significant barrier to all the players large and small, but those who persist will prevail and those who whine will fail. We should feel empowered by the extent to which individuals are making a significant impact at Eclipse; history is rife with such individuals and ultimately they shape our world.

I don't care much for words of doom. We should look beyond problems toward solutions and then take the next step toward action. And don't look to others to take those actions, look to yourself. Are those imaginary shackles constraining you? Throw them off! If someone tells you it can't be done, prove them wrong. Your greatest feeling of accomplishment will come from overcoming the most daunting adversity, so embrace challenges with a vengeance.

If Only it Were That Simple

2009-04-30T05:08:00.002-05:00

Simplicity is a holy grail touted as an ideal for which to strive. Keep it simple stupid, KISS, is sacred doctrine. Yet is the world a simple place? Are the problems you are solving simple? Are Java or C++ simple languages? In fact, do simple things ever stay simple? After all, C evolved into C++, and Java too evolved to support generics and enumerations, and those clearly didn't make the languages simpler. Consider too why it is that a simple mind is not a good thing despite the fact that simplicity is such a good thing. The reason is simple: extremes are typically not optimal. In the end, there needs to be a delicate balance between simplicity and complexity. I certainly don't want my garden to be simple!

Consider for example a Turing machine. With an optimally simple set of symbols, i.e., only zeros and ones, it's effectively impossible to come up with a simpler computational model. So why don't we all flock to this simplicity? Because it's a mirage. The expression of our solution isn't helped by the simplicity of the Turing machine, rather it's hurt by the lack of expressiveness. It's for this very reason that I bristle when I hear people say that EMF is too complex. I'll argue that it's neither too simple nor too complex, it's a higher level abstraction and it's just right. If you can do better, make my day sunny.

So many people are so used to solving their problems with rocks and pointed sticks that the mere thought of more sophisticated technology scares them away. This situation is particularly ironic because these same people are typically working on foisting some synthesized technology of their own on their unsuspecting end users. Of course everything they produce is simple, right? It's always the other guy who produces complexity. After all, I understand my stuff, so therefore it's simple, right?

Here is what I consider to be the gist of rocks and pointy sticks argument. Why would I need to build a big fire with my pointy sticks, and smelt my rocks to render metal, just so I can make a better rock or pointy stick? It's such a complicated process and it's so much extra work given that I can just smack my problems with rocks and poke them with pointy sticks already. Well, guess what folks, some of us have seen a way to move beyond the stone age caves, but feel free to hang out in yours, if that's where you feel most comfortable.

I totally agree with Michael Scharf's blog about the problem of How to Explain EMF? How do you describe something that's both a floor wax and a dessert topping? It's just not that simple. The responses to his blog were very interesting too, and while there is underlying truth in them, they typically also miss the point a bit. Consider for example that given an XML Schema, or simply annotated Java interfaces, EMF will generate a fully functional Eclipse IDE or RCP application. You don't have to know much of anything about Eclipse, and poof, there you go, a running application. That's pretty simple. It takes about a minute. But then you start to dissect it and realize oh my goodness, there's a lot going on here and gosh but it all seems so complicated. That's right because it's a complicated problem, yet would it have been simpler to have spent the months it would have taken to learn how to get all that working from scratch? No it would not! But feel free to hang out in your cave chipping stones and sharpening sticks if that gives you a sense of purpose.

Even with modeling's layered architecture, people complain that all the layers are confusing. Granted very little of modeling is well documented, the marketing message is poor, and the web organization leaves much to be desired, but please people, is there an alternative to layered architecture? Don't forget too that EMF has a book. I think this really is Michael's fundamental point, i.e., poor marketing. Rather than polishing the technology, which as developers is what we (and most of all I) like best, we need to address this marketing problem with a higher level of priority.

There's even the premise that modeling is good but EMF, not so much. The argument is actually stronger than that: EMF stifles modeling and harms the ecosystem. I think the important point being missed here is the extreme value of "the one model to bind them all," i.e., Ecore/EMOF. The modeling ecosystem is rife with other meta models---gosh but I dislike using the word meta. For example, there's UML, BPMN, XML Schema, and so on. This reality is not the hallmark of a constrained ecosystem. In each case, the value of the model is enhanced by the fact that Ecore/EMOF is the underlying meta meta model---gosh, two metas in a row, I should be shot.

Here's a fundamental assertion I'm sure will never be proven wrong: if you tried to replace Ecore/EMOF and the rest of EMF's core with something better, you'd merely end up with another EMF; only if you're lucky (people care about what you've done) and highly skilled (you've learned from EMF's successes and mistakes) might it actually be relevant and a bit better. In any case, feel free to build another ecosystem if you're feeling lucky and skillful. Don't forget to take sociology into account; you're likely better off in an established ecosystem.

No doubt it's true that I'm way too steeped in this technology to understand the perspective of someone looking at it for the first time, but surely there have been plenty of people looking at it for the first time that just a few of them might have tried to help out the next guy with their fresh insights; kudos to Michael on that front! E.g., these are the five things that took me weeks to grasp and would have been nice to have realized up front. Ultimately, simplicity like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. May you always see simplicity where others see complexity so you can lead the way forward.

A Truly Good Person

2009-04-16T08:19:00.003-05:00

A great many people from the Eclipse community as well as close friends and family have helped me in countless ways over the past months, often in ways they may think small but collectively to me looms large. I want to express my appreciation for everyone's kinds thoughts, kind deeds, and what I'd characterize as goodness of spirit. Larry and I both appreciated it more than you might imagine. Instead of Ed the software engineer, I will pretend for just this one time to be Ed the poet. I'll express my thoughts in the form of a poem, and no, I won't give up my day job. Larry would be proud of that, I believe. He was most certainly a Truly Good Person.

The title of what I'll call the Truly Good Person poem resounds with the truth that underlies contradiction.

Goodness: The Eternally Transient Changing Constant

The goodness of spirit
and the spirit of goodness
are one and the same.

While theologians among us debate,
while rule followers and makers clash,
to all who behold,
it is clear when they look,
that goodness is manifest.
This is clear,
without faith,
without rules,
for there is manifest goodness wherever we look.

Be the manifestation of goodness,
and behold the manifestation of goodness in others.
Be the change that is good,
and behold the goodness of change.
Be the spirit of goodness,
the eternally transient, changing, constant.
Be a truly good person.

It's an important lesson for each of us: be a Truly Good Person for in doing so you will be loved and you will find peace. It's certainly clear to me that my social circle, which includes the Eclipse community, is rife with Truly Good People. You all know who you are and you should know that you are appreciated.

All Good Things

2009-04-10T06:13:00.004-05:00

All good things come to an end and Good Friday seems an apt day for endings. Eclipse has a great many contributors, not all of them well recognized. While many work in the foreground to make Eclipse what it is today, many more play important supporting roles in the background. Did you notice one of those background contributors in this picture from a previous blog?

I'll bet that when I said "It's important to keep in mind that although those in the foreground will tend to catch your eye, there's much more going on in the background than you might notice" you didn't take the hint to look more closely. If you had, you'd have seen Larry. As many of you know, he's been home since the beginning of February dying of cancer. He's been my guiding light for the past 27 years, so the girls and I did everything we could to make the end as dignified and comfortable as possible.

Today glioblastoma extinguished that light. Without him I might never have contributed to Eclipse and most certainly I would not have contributed as much. I don't use the word hate lightly, but I hate cancer and I despise glioblastoma for robbing his mind and then his life. Eclipse lost a significant contributor today and I lost something precious beyond measure. Thank goodness fond memories last a lifetime.

Value what you have while you have it because all good things come to an end.

Sharing: The Good Spirit of Open Source

2009-04-03T05:44:00.000-05:00

Sharing is a good thing. Every spring one of the good things the garden shares at the very start of the new season is the first snow drops. Their early arrival makes them special.

Open source too is fundamentally about sharing: the sharing of software. Earlier this week, Bjorn blogged about his personal view regarding "open source products." I agree, open source is not about products. It's about sharing what you create for free. Now there's a loaded word. In this case it means free as in freedom, i.e., the freedom to ignore anyone else in the universe who might take issue with what you shared with them for free. Hello? Did you noticed the $0 price tag dudes and dudets?! If you get nothing of value you've gotten exactly what you paid for. Of course everyone is more than free to be irrelevant as well. Ignoring the community is a most excellent way achieve irrelevance. Feel free!

In the end, the value of sharing is greatly enhanced when others partake. I'd like to think that when you share your software, you try---another loaded word; to try is a lie---to ensure that the things you share have "true value." Perhaps I project too much? Providing "true value" takes effort. It's a burden of responsibility not to be taken lightly. Life is a bounty but comes complete with a great many burdens that ought not to be taken lightly. Gardens, on the other hand share their bounty with no sense of obligation, like these crocuses, though the crocuses do anticipate pollinators will share their mobility.

When others use the software you share with them for free, they can help shoulder the burden of responsibility. They might shoulder it in recognition of the benefit received from sharing it for free in the first place. An excellent excellent example of that principle at work is seen in 270870. Achim Demelt shared his time and deep analytical insight to a cast light on a challenging technical problem. It's quite remarkable, and not just in my opinion. When you stop to consider that all the people and organizations in the community---those who have contributed and those who have not---all benefit from individuals like Achim sharing solutions to hard problems, you will have understood the true value of sharing in the context of open source. Social software indeed.

Surprising Things

2009-03-25T07:05:00.004-05:00

Life is full of surprises. Most are good though a few are not. Imagine my surprise to learn that my blogs are used to teach science to grade school children. I kid you not. I was trying to figure out the cause of the huge spike in the page views for my blog and discovered that a large number of referrals were coming from an online grade 6 science curriculum. The subject matter is "Interactions Between Living Things and Their Environment" and my posting titled Predation, Parasitism, Commensalism, and Mutualism in the Garden and in the Community apparently fits right in. The pond is starting to thaw and the robins are back, so I'll soon have more good stories and pretty pictures for the children.

It's better than "Where the Wild Things Are" around here! In fact, speaking of wild things and surprises, check out this video of the fox I shot just last week.

Given that I'm not at EclipseCon, you might be surprised to know that my stupid modeling talk has not been canceled. Peter has been staying at my place since the beginning of February and I spent a lot of that time convincing him of just how unbearably stupid modeling really is. Ruby really liked to make him feel comfortable while I droned on and on and on.

As a result of this long indoctrination period, Peter is fully prepared to pontificate about the excruciating obtuseness of modeling to a wider audience. I'm sure you'll enjoy being both enlightened and entertained.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2009-03-21T06:11:00.003-05:00

The Good

I'm very glad to be reelected to the Eclipse Board. It is a privilege to serve and an honor to get this vote of confidence from my peers.

Of course anything that promotes the use of models to drive software development is good, so I'm thrilled that Microsoft has created the M Specification Community, I'm honored to be involved as a charter member, and I'm flattered to be characterized as a key open source leader.

The Bad

I won't be able to make it to EclipseCon this year for the ugliest of personal reasons.

The Ugly

The grim reaper stalks my home to claim someone dear.

Thanks to all the people in the Eclipse community who have been so understanding and supportive during this most difficult period of my life, especially Peter and Mitch.

On Being a Scapegoat

2009-03-11T06:11:00.005-05:00

I've already blogged about the security problems caused by CDO and worse still, how CDO brought the world to its collective financial knees, but apparently the problems with modeling aren't isolated to that trouble making CDO component. Not at all! The problem seems to be a general Eclipse Modeling Framework shortcoming. It must be a fact because I just read about Microsoft's March Security Bulletin where the article makes it clear that "The problem stems from the way that the operating system parses and displays Windows Metafile- and Eclipse Modeling Framework-formatted image files." If that doesn't make your icicles shiver, nothing will!

Every community needs a scapegoat, so I say we pick on EMF. After all, if you have a really bad design, you can always blame EMF for generating it that way. Not only that, if you have really bad algorithms that perform poorly, you can always blame EMF for being bloated and slow. I've even heard that EMF isn't thread safe! Nothing distracts better than a scapegoat and EMF is really the ultimate scapegoat. If I'm reelected to the Eclipse board---you only have until Friday to vote for me---I promise to get to the bottom of this type of problem and root out the causes whomever they may be. No one will be safe from my careful scrutiny. We will reinstate public flogging to maintain order and discipline. Clearly I'm the no-nonsense candidate of choice.