Models give you the freedom to soar effortlessly.

Modeling is universally applicable in all fields of engineering. I’ll bet, for example, that the plane above was modeled in software before anyone actually built a physical model of it. Given its universal applicability, it’s no surprise to see the rapidly growing range of software applications that are driven by models.

An excellent example of model driven software development in practice is Skyway Builder. I have always found it particularly odd that more hasn’t been done in the past to exploit modeling in the web space. For some strange reason, although modeling is often used to help build the tools and runtimes, it isn’t often surfaced as a useful concept in and of itself by those tools and runtimes. I suppose that’s much like OSGi being used to build JEE servers, and then being hidden by them. However, given that XML Schema is a modeling language, it’s somewhat more inexplicable.

Not only does Skyway Builder make heavy use of EMF and GMF to build its tool infrastructure, much like Web Tools does, it also surfaces various powerful domain-specific models to the end-users who exploit them to design web applications declaratively and graphically. The design captured in the various models is employed to generate the actual application using JET.

This approach provides clients with a better long-term investment because their designs are captured in a high-level way that can be reused in the future as the underlying web application space continues to shift in unexpected directions.

Of particular interest in the upcoming version is the new two-way mapping between Skyway and UML. They’ve recorded a short video showing the technology in action. It highlights the integration with Rational Software Architect, but more relevant to the Eclipse modeling crowd, the technology itself works directly with open source UML, the basis for RSA. Even from that perspective, it’s a great example of how Eclipse helps disparate organizations better integrate their tools with the help of common underlying models. With modeling, the sky’s the limit.

For me personally, it’s gratifying to see Eclipse’s modeling technology used not only to build all this cool stuff, but more so to see integration with UML and, most important of all, to see the model driven software development concepts embodied by Eclipse reflected back in the Skyway user’s experience. For example, the round-trip engineering between UML and Skyway is just like the two-way mapping between Ecore and UML, so of course I’m going to like it! It’s clear that modeling isn’t just great for building tools and runtimes, it’s also valuable directly to the end users, even in the web space.

The day started with David Wood talking about the Symbian decision to become open source.

Fragmentation caused by too many mobile operating systems dilutes the industry’s effort while open source helps to create a more successful, cohesive, productive community. Stability and quality of the base, agility in responding to changing needs, and a growing base of skilled developers are key aspects to a platform’s success. Open source lowers barriers to entry, but it’s not a panacea because integration and cohesion are always a challenge, and fragmentation is always a risk and in fact open source makes that risk more likely. A copyleft license like Eclipse Public License helps avoid that, though it’s not always possible to consume the changes external parties make to the base. A very large number of companies have signed up to participate in this system. Good luck Symbian!

After that is was time for my stupid modeling talk. By the way, did you notice that in Ian’s blog, all the people talked about modeling, even Doug Gaff? Resistance is futile. As I tried to bring up my screen on the projector, my computer decided to go to lala land so I had to power down and reboot. There’s nothing quite like an untimely technical failure (like there’s ever a timely one!) to get a guy off to a great start. Oh well, I think it went very well, judging by the comments I got afterward.

After the meeting I had a chat with Axel Rittershaus of Skyway Software.

He really liked my talk and we speculated about the various reasons why there are so very many misconceptions around modeling. Skyway uses EMF to help build their tools and models and those in turn are helping their end-users generate web applications. There’s meta in action for you!

After that I chatted with Cameron Bateman of Oracle.

I’ve chatted with him a few times on IRC’s #eclipse-modeling, so it was especially nice to get to meet him in person. We chatted about how best to sync up a model and a DOM and about rendering something that’s better than the ugly properties view we have right now. It’s great working with enthusiastic people with a can-do attitude.

I was chatting with so many people, I missed the Ecore Tools talk and the Tom Schindl’s talk. That made me really sad, especially when everyone told me they were both really good. Darned ESE is too short so there’s not enough time to do everything. I also spent time with Stefan Eberle chatting about the AUTOSAR implementation he’s working on. I should have taken more pictures; yet more brain failure. Then I missed Rich’s Amalgamation talk. Double darn. I’m going to have to cut some of those conversations short next year, because before I knew it, the summit was over after short wrap-up at 5:00.

For dinner I went out with some of the board members and some of the folks considering the possibility of starting an automotive working group. We meet with them tomorrow early, and I still don’t have my slides ready. I’d best get to it!

As Ralph blogged yesterday, if you’re feeling blue, it’s high time to register against recession at Eclipse Summit Europe. Of course I stopped feeling blue a while back, and today I’m eagerly packing my bags. So though my German Ram is feeling proudly and happily blue, I’m feeling excited to be headed for Ludswigburg Germany followed by Paris France. Read the rest of this entry »

Just recently I blogged about how CDO mismanagement led to the world’s financial crisis. There’s another version explaining the CDO fiasco that’s even more facetious than my blogs, so don’t read it if expletives offend you. Apparently Eike Stepper has been a really busy guy, because I also discovered that he’s caused security problems at Microsoft in an article brought to my attention by Goggle Alert. Check out this part of the article:

Meanwhile, the lone moderate item is highly technical, involves only XP SP3 and deals with a potential information disclosure exploit in Microsoft Office that can be triggered through the use of a specially crafted Connected Data Objects, or “CDO,” URL. With CDO, programmers can upgrade and enhance a code-building facility called the Eclipse Modeling Framework for runtime support using Java or XML. This is a back-end vulnerability that an egghead hacker could really have fun with just to be mischievous, experts say Read the rest of this entry »

Modeling is simply over-hyped promises all of which fall far short of the mark like so much of the technobabbel generated by the world’s software marketeers. Have you ever been told you’d see a beach guarded by frogs turned to stone? Seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Read the rest of this entry »