This Is The Frequency

On Model-Based Modeling Builds...

2010-05-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

In principle, I think most people agree that builds should be a shared responsibility, i.e., everyone should be equally able to do builds and the effort to do so should be equally distributed. Unfortunately, equal effort can sometimes result in nobody doing anything at all, because hardly anybody wants to! Trying to do the right thing in this context has launched many an accidental career in release engineering. So the best we can do is make the build effort as efficient as possible, giving everyone less reason to complain.

This has become essential for the Modeling project, which now has roughly sixty active sub-projects, many of which are one or two committer efforts with no way to justify a full-time release engineer. With that in mind, the Modeling PMC has recently decided to standardize on one build engine - Buckminster (often affectionately referred to as "Bucky") - for all of its projects, starting with the Helios release.

Why standardize? The obvious reason is to spread the joy of supporting build infrastructure across multiple projects. Less obvious, but no less important, is our not-so-distant goal of having a single build chain that can support true continuous integration for the entire Modeling stack, which should be much simpler if all of the builds are using the same technology.

Why Buckminster? The people and technology were familiar, so that was obviously a factor. But we tried to make as objective a decision as possible. Key considerations were the following:

CDO and Teneo, having independently Buckminsterized last year, were enthusiastic supporters and made a strong case for the benefits.

Unlike the alternatives, Buckminster is model-driven (it uses EMF). This makes it a no-brainer for us modeling zealots.

We wanted to be able to reuse existing metadata, which is an advantage that Bucky has over Maven alternatives.

Having a build that runs the same way in a developer workspace as on the server makes it much more efficient to spread build responsibilities across the teams.

Adopting Buckminster gets us a step closer to using b3 (Buckminster will soon be supported as a build execution engine for b3), which we think is the future.

Last, but not least, someone (i.e., Cloudsmith) stepped up to do the work!

Upon closer inspection, Buckminster had a few holes that needed filling. Support for automated build identifier generation/insertion, CVS tagging, and dependency version range management were non-negotiable for build slackers like Ed Merks (not to mention the rest of us mere mortals), and automated build promotion via Hudson was also highly desireable. So we rushed these changes through in time for Helios.

The effort of migrating from various older build systems (PDE Build, Athena, and variants) was not inconsequential. However, it ended up being relatively painless. One reason I can say this is because Michal Ruzicka (Buckminster committer and my colleague at Cloudsmith) did pretty much all the work. Michal was able to Buckminsterize most of the key Modeling projects in roughly a month of effort, which was pretty amazing, all things considered. Thanks again, Michal!

The first Buckminster build of EMF went live with M7 two weeks ago and the many other Modeling projects will soon follow. We'll be cutting a few key projects over as Helios heads toward completion. A number of others have chosen to postpone switching until just after the Helios release.

We'll send out periodic updates as the individual projects adopt the new build system over the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, if you want to hear more about what we're doing (and how), let us know!

On Google I/O...

2010-05-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

I'll be out at Google I/O on May 19 and 20, talking up the work we've been doing with EMF on GWT and just generally learning more about all the great Google technologies we depend on.

Regarding EMF support for Google Widget Toolkit, we hope to have a working implementation of full modeling support for GWT applications before too long. Ed has been hard at work on this, and we'll soon have optimized object serialization between client and server, and a generic GWT editor for EMF-based models. We think this work will be really useful for GWT development once it's done.

With respect to other Google technologies, Cloudsmith is particularly interested in App Engine and BigTable; we're using them now but still coming up the learning curve. Next after that is Wave, which we'd like to use but doesn't seem quite ready for prime time. We're hoping/expecting to see a renewed Wave commitment and inspirational roadmap from Google at I/O next week.

Planning on being there? Let me know if you'd like to meet up!

On Where We're Using EMF...

2010-05-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

Where are you using the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF)? I've blogged recently about how perhaps the "E" in EMF ought to stand for Extensibility. More and more, I wonder whether maybe it should stand for "Everywhere" instead. While many feel a burning need to bring the Web to Eclipse, at Cloudsmith we see things a little differently. We see big potential in leveraging the great technologies at Eclipse in new and interesting ways (and places!), one of which is to bring Eclipse (and, more specifically, EMF) to the Web.

When EMF made its debut at Eclipse some eight years ago, it was a framework for developing IDE-like applications. Then, it followed the lead of the Eclipse platform and expanded its reach to support Rich Client Platform (RCP) applications. Earlier in the Helios release cycle, we added support for the Rich Ajax Platform (RAP), which - thanks to the RAP folks' great work, particularly support for "single sourcing" an application - can almost be treated as a variant of RCP.

With Helios M7, however, EMF moves past the boundaries of the Eclipse platform, and desktop applications in general, by adding support for the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) as a new application runtime. We've done this by formalizing the EMF code generator's notion of a "runtime platform" through an enumeration. Platforms that previously were only implicitly supported - 'IDE', 'RCP', and 'RAP' - are now explicit enumeration literals. And now we've added a new literal for 'GWT'.

So, what does this mean? Well, depending on which runtime platform you choose in your generator model (and which platform you're targeting), you'll get a different result when you generate your code. For IDE and RCP, the only difference is in the editor (since RCP comes with certain limiting assumptions). With RAP, your edit and editor code isn't all that different from RCP, except that you'll have the ability to run against alternative versions of EMF's runtime UI plug-ins, which have been customized for RAP.

In the case of GWT, however, when you generate your model and edit code (support for editor and tests will come over the next few months), you'll be targeting an entirely different EMF runtime, tailored to be translatable into Javascript modules and to leverage the capabilities of GWT (RPC serialization, localized message resources, image bundles, etc.).

Ed and I will have more to say about the technical details of this new runtime over the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can refer to the New and Noteworthy page for Helios to help you get started with developing EMF-based applications for GWT!

On Looking Good...

2010-05-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

Appearance isn't everything, but it certainly goes a long way, especially for things that are inherently visual. In light of this, the MDT Papyrus project is about to provide some new eye candy for its users. The project already has an impressive logo, but now they've made some fresh new icons for UML model element types. The Papyrus project lead, Sébastien Gérard, created a clever mosaic to show them off - see below. Let us know what you think!

On Noteworthy Pairs...

2010-04-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

Phew. I've finally caught up after the frenzied activity of the past few weeks and posted a New and Noteworthy entry for the M6 milestone of EMF. If you attended the EMF tutorial or RAP BoF at EclipseCon, or perhaps saw Ben's blog post (gotta love the title of that one!), you're probably already aware of a great new enhancement that was added to EMF, thanks to generous sponsorship from another one of my clients.

That's right, EMF now supports Rich Ajax Platform (RAP) out of the box. This means that you can now generate a sample "single-sourced" application that can be run against either an RCP (Rich Client Platform) or a RAP runtime target. Details can be found on the New and Noteworthy page for the Helios release of EMF. Thanks again to Ed and Ben for their help in making this happen in time for M6!

On Architecture...

2010-04-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

As you may have already gathered from Kim's blog (yes, we're both from the same province and home town, and no, the tidal bore is not a pig), I've recently been appointed to the Eclipse Architecture Council. It's an honor to be in the company of such great technical leaders, especially my Cloudsmith colleagues, two of whom (Thomas and Ed) are on the council as well.

I've actually been spending a lot of time looking at architecture (or lack thereof) of late, primarily within the Modeling project. As I've mentioned before, vision is one of the key contributors to a successful project, and a guiding architecture is an important part of such a vision. With the number of Modeling projects growing at an alarming rate (60+ and counting), it's going to be increasingly important to "bring order to the chaos", or risk the loss of potential consumers and contributors due to frustration, confusion, or both. Initiatives like Amalgam and the recently proposed Sphinx project certainly help, but there's a lot more that could be done.

Speaking of Sphinx, Stephan Eberle (one the proposed project leads) and I presented a talk at EclipseCon entitled "The Twenty Modeling Things", the slides for which can be viewed at Slideshare or via the EclipseCon session page. The basic idea of the presentation was to propose set of essential services that might one day form the basis for an integrated modeling workbench at Eclipse. Which "things" would you have included? Can you think of other services which ought to be on our list?

On Looking Up...

2010-04-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I last blogged, and much has happened in the meantime, including the completion of contracts with two different clients (more about those later), the M6 milestone of the Helios release, EclipseCon 2010, a vacation in the Dominican Republic, and, most recently, a case of Scarlet Fever (what a way to put a damper on a vacation!). It's funny, though, how much clearer you can see when your head is in the clouds.

As I've stated previously, I've been taking my time to carefully decide what my next venture would be. Well, I'm happy to say that, as of this week, I'm now working on a full-time basis with Cloudsmith Inc., as lead of product development. If you were at EclipseCon, you'll no doubt have heard of some of the great things Cloudsmith is doing. In case you haven't, you definitely will over the coming weeks.

On Those Sexy Models...

2010-02-23T08:47:00.000-08:00

This is the moment you all (OK, maybe not all) have been waiting for! Step aside, NetBeans girls! Get ready for the new sensation! It's time for members of the Eclipse Modeling team to take their rightful place among the unforgettable images of EclipseCon 2010. And this is your chance to help make it happen!

We've done the bobble head thing. Some suggested that this year we should do the Barbie thing. But we've got something even better in mind.

The Challenge

Take images of prominent committers (see the attachment to bug 303637) from Modeling projects and transform them into the models we know they're capable of being! For example, you could take their undeniably handsome heads and superimpose them on otherwise "superior" bodies.

The Rules

Each entry must be in the form of an attachment to bug 303637 (be sure to choose 'BigFile').

Each entry must consist of altered versions of all ten original images (already attached to the bug).

The altered images must be in good taste - give your peers the respect they deserve.

Entries must be submitted no later than March 17, 2010.

The Reward

Our esteemed judges (the infamous Ed Merks and Chris Aniszczyk) will decide on a winning image for each of the ten "models", to be revealed during the "Modeling Project Runway 2010" talk at EclipseCon 2010. Winners (those who submitted one or more winning images) will be presented with some great prizes (e.g., Eclipse schwag) at the end of the runway session (or we'll mail it to you if you're not there... but we know you will be!).

Come on, Eclipse, let's show everyone how creative we can be!

On the Catwalk...

2010-02-08T17:36:00.000-08:00

Yeah, on the catwalk. We'll do our little turn on the catwalk. We've got models, you know what I mean, and we'll do our little turn on the catwalk.

Speaking of evangelism, we're trying something a little different this year to promote modeling at EclipseCon. We're holding one session, "Modeling Project Runway 2010", where we'll be showing off new and noteworthy enhancements from ten of your favorite modeling projects. We've got a great lineup of presenters... lined up:

Cédric Brun (M2M ATL)

Sven Efftinge (TMF Xtext)

Bernd Kolb (EMF QTV)

Benoît Langlois (EMFT EGF)

Henrik Lindberg (EMFT b3)

Frédéric Madiot (GMT MoDisco)

Jonathan Musset (M2T Acceleo)

Remi Schnekenburger (MDT Papyrus)

Yves Yang (PMF)

Sebastian Zarnekow (EMFT MWE)

To add to the fun, we'll also be holding a photo contest over the coming weeks, to see who can best transform these fine gentlemen into visions of beauty befitting a proper modeling runway. Stay tuned for your chance to shape the face of modeling at Eclipse!

On The Future of BPMN (Too)...

2010-01-08T12:23:00.000-08:00

The future of BPMN (once Business Process Modeling Notation, now Business Process Model and Notation) is finally here. Or is it? After much politicking, design by committee, and intellectual debate, the OMG (Object Management Group) finally adopted the long-anticipated BPMN 2.0 specification last June (I know, old news). For those that are unfamiliar with the OMG Technology Adoption Process, when a specification is "adopted", it enters a finalization phase, during which vendors are expected to implement the specification and work together to iron out any of its kinks. Having gone through that process with the UML2 project at Eclipse, I have first-hand experience with the challenges of balancing specification finalization against the realities of shipping a product ... But suffice it to say that the age of tooling support for BPMN 2.0 is at hand.

Eclipse has actually had a decent BPMN editor for a few years now, courtesy of the SOA Tools Platform project. It's good enough that I know of at least two vendors that considered scrapping their internal efforts in favor of adopting the open source tooling. However, the BPMN Modeler was never based on a standard metamodel, for various reasons, among them being the fact that, well, the OMG didn't really have one (unless you count BPDM, but that's a whole other ball of wax) - until now. When I proposed the BPMN2 subproject of MDT back in late 2007, I was pleased to receive interest from the BPMN Modeler team in adopting the metamodel implementation, once available. Fast forward two years beyond project creation and six months beyond specification adoption and, unfortunately, as a result of changing priorities among the project's original participating companies (what else is new?) - none of which is participating in the project any more - we still don't have a metamodel implementation. In fact, I was on the verge of contemplating a termination review for the project when, unprompted, Intalio stepped forward with a willingness and ability to contribute the metamodel implementation themselves! So, I'm pleased to say that, in the not too distant future, we'll have an open source implementation of the BPMN 2.0 metamodel at Eclipse!

So, is that the end of the story? Well, not quite. To their credit, the OMG has started looking at the long standing issue of overlap between UML and BPMN (not to mention its other metamodels) and general lack of architectural cohension between its various modeling specifications (often referred to unaffectionately as the "metamuddle"). In fact, the OMG Architecture Board recently charted the “Architecture Ecosystem AB SIG” (or “AE SIG” for short), which is being chaired by Cory Casanave (Model Driven Solutions) and Jim Amsden (IBM). The mission of the AE SIG is to work with OMG domain and platform task forces, other relevant OMG SIGs (special interest groups), external entities, and related industry groups to facilitate the creation of a common architectural ecosystem (sound familiar?). This ecosystem will support the creation, analysis, integration, and exchange of information between modeling languages across different domains and viewpoints, from differing authorities. In particular, the need for business and enterprise level architectural viewpoints must be better integrated with the technical viewpoints that define systems to address enterprise needs. The AE SIG will focus on the capability to define and integrate languages and models in various viewpoints and support other groups that will focus on the specific viewpoints required for their specific domains. A set of viewpoints, supporting models, and supporting technologies will comprise the ecosystem.

Recently, Cory issued a poll to prospective members of the AE SIG on the topic of integrating BPMN and UML. Details of the poll, reproduced here with permission from Cory (thanks!), are below.

The Question

There has been substantial discussion on the needs and issues with integrating UML and BPMN. Using this as a "test case" we would like to take a poll on what would be the best way for this integration to happen, strategically. In other words, if you could design this from the ground up, what would you do?

The Options

[1] They remain separate standards. There is a BPMN standard with metamodel and a UML standard with metamodel. These standards are separate, intended for separate communities and tools. There is no relationship between these standards. This is, essentially, the current condition.

[2] BPMN is a UML profile with notation. The separate metamodel for BPMN is deprecated and the formal specification of the BPMN notation is as a profile of UML, using the BPMN notation. The result looks and feels like BPMN as it is defined today, but it is defined “on top of” UML. This option would include any adjustments in the UML metamodel required to make such a profile well-formed. Another interpretation of this option could be that the BPMN metamodel is retained and there is also a UML profile for BPMN, presumably with a mapping between the two. However, the profile of BPMN should look the same in either case. (The latter may be the interpretation most people who voted for the option intended, so one should interpret this option to be silent on the question of retaining the separate BPMN metamodel or deprecating it.)

[3] Create a unified model encompassing both. A MOF or MOF-like metamodel is created that is the superset of the capabilities of UML and BPMN as unified conceptual system. This model would have the semantics of process layered in such a way that redundant concepts have identical metaclasses (perhaps with different notations) and similar concepts have like capabilities factored into common superclasses. The nature of this unified model would be much like the UML and BPMN models today, but including the concepts and specifications of both notations.

[4] Semantic models with UML and BPMN viewpoints. This option pre-supposes more advanced meta modeling capabilities where an underlying semantic model (or set of models) is defined and then various “viewpoints” on the semantic model provides the specialization of those semantics for the needs of a particular kind of stakeholder. In this option both UML notations and BPMN notations share the same or related underlying semantic model and have an additional specification that specifies the specific structures required for BPMN and UML viewpoints. The difference between this and the prior option is that the viewpoints and semantic models are more loosely coupled. The models are constructed with the expectation that multiple languages and viewpoints will be constructed out of the semantic building blocks. The semantic building blocks are, likewise, loosely coupled.

[5] BPMN replaces UML activity diagrams. Activity diagrams as currently defined in UML are deprecated and replaced with BPMN notations and semantics. BPMN essentially replaces a portion of UML behaviors.

[6] BPMN grows to make UML not required. BPMN grows to encompass all the capabilities required for business-focused modeling and architecture, thus making any integration with UML redundant. BPMN may, some day, replace UML.

[7] BPMN and UML are separate models, mapped with QVT. BPMN and UML are separate metamodels as they are now. A QVT mapping is specified between them such that a portion of a model in BPMN can be used to create a UML model and a portion of a UML model can be used to create a BPMN model. Since the notations are not the same, notations would not be mapped.

[8] There are ways to make links between them. Both the BPMN and UML metamodels exist in parallel, much as they do now, but there are ways to “link” elements between them. This may require some additions to the OMG's metamodeling capability. The links would, for example, allow a behavior specified in the BPMN model to be the implementation of an operation on the UML side. There are, of course, questions and issues about how this is done and how the context and types on each side reference the other with some precision. This may require changes to both specifications to be less assertive about the types of elements used in associations.

[9] Other. Any option not reflected above.

The Results

From the results, it's clear that (for those that responded, anyway) the most popular option is to create yet another metamodel that encompasses both BPMN and UML (maybe UUML, the Ultra Unified Modeling Language?). How would you have voted? It's perhaps worth noting that the integration options (2, 3, 4, 5), when combined, are by far in the majority, so it seems that anything would be preferable to the status quo. Time will tell, I suppose. In the meantime, the MDT project will focus on providing another de facto reference implementation of an OMG specification. As always, if you're interested in helping, we'd love to hear from you.

On the E in EMF...

2010-01-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

What do you think the E in EMF really stands for? Of course, officially it stands for Eclipse, but given how useful the framework is, even independently of Eclipse, folks often question whether it should stand for something else. I'm sure many of you have heard suggestions that it should instead be "Ed" (because, after all, it is Ed's framework, isn't it?) or perhaps "Excellent" (despite some beliefs to the contrary).

Given the nature of enhancements that have been made over the past few years, and in light of more recent efforts to port the runtime to other platforms, like GWT and Android, I've come to think EMF should stand for Extensible Modeling Framework. Indeed, as of the recent M4 milestone of the Helios release, EMF is even more extensible, thanks to investments from two of my other clients. I worked with NexJ Systems to add support for delegation of constraint and invariant evaluation and with eXXcellent solutions to introduce similar delegation mechanisms for feature settings and operation invocation.

Validation Delegates

The core validation framework in EMF previously provided a way to declare invariants and constraints on EMF-based implementations using annotated Ecore models. From the perspective of this mechanism, a constraint is a statement that must be valid at some point in time, whereas an invariant is an assertion that must always be true. However, one limitation of this mechanism was that invariants and constraints had to be implemented, by hand, in Java source code; there was no means of specifying the behavior of invariants or constraints in an alternative format (such as expressions in some language), nor was there a way to delegate their execution to an external mechanism (such as an expression evaluation engine). With this enhancement, the core EMF validation framework allows the behavior of invariants and constraints to be deﬁned via additional annotations on Ecore models, and for them to be executed, both from generated code and from dynamic models, via registered external expression engines.

Execution of validation expressions can now be delegated to external expression engines via validation delegates. A validation delegate is a class that implements an interface deﬁning methods that can be called by a validator to perform validation, i.e., evaluate constraints and invariants. Validation delegates can be registered against specific URIs in a registry which can then be queried by validators when performing validation. A global registry of validation delegates, which can be populated via an extension or programmatically via Java code, exists, but it is also possible to create new registries for use in speciﬁc contexts, e.g., in cases where it is desirable to override the default (global) validation delegate for a given URI during a particular diagnosis. In order to use a registered validation delegate within a given package, it needs to be declared as a value in an annotation details entry on the package.

An invariant is implemented as a method on a class, deﬁned on the model, and is considered a “stronger” statement about validity than a constraint. The behavior of an invariant can now be deﬁned as a string expression in the details entry value of an annotation on the Ecore operation representing the invariant. In order to delegate evaluation of the expression to a registered validation delegate, the URI for this annotation needs to match one of the values in the details entry of an annotation on the nearest Ecore package. Evaluation of a properly annotated invariant is delegated to the corresponding registered delegate by a validator during a validation operation either statically (via generated code) or dynamically (via reﬂection) on a model instance.

A constraint is implemented as a method on an external validator class, not on the model itself, and is considered a “weaker” statements about validity than an invariant. The behavior of a constraint can now be deﬁned as a string expression in the details entry value of an annotation on the Ecore class or data type for which the constraint is deﬁned. In order to delegate evaluation of the expression to a registered validation delegate, the URI for this annotation needs to match one of the values in the details entry of an annotation on the nearest Ecore package. Evaluation of a properly annotated constraint is delegated to the corresponding registered delegate by a validator during a validation operation either statically (via generated code) or dynamically (via reﬂection) on a model instance.

Feature Setting Delegates

EMF previously provided a way to declare that features in EMF-based implementations are derived via metadata in Ecore models. From the perspective of EMF, a derived feature is a feature whose value is to be computed from other, related data. However, the computation of derived features had to be implemented, by hand, in Java source code; furthermore, there was no means of specifying the values of features (derived or not) in an alternative format (such as expressions in some language), nor was there a way to delegate their computation to an external mechanism (such as an expression engine). With this enhancement, EMF allows the values of features to be deﬁned via additional annotations on Ecore models, and for them to be computed, both from generated code and from dynamic models, via registered external expression engines.

Computation of features can now be delegated to external expression engines via setting delegates. A setting delegate is a class that implements an interface deﬁning methods that are called by the EMF runtime to access the feature’s value. Setting delegates can be registered against specific URIs in a registry which can then be queried when accessing the values of features. A global registry of setting delegates exists, which can be populated via an extension or programmatically via Java code. In order to use a registered setting delegate within a given package, it needs to be referenced as a value in an annotation details entry on the Ecore package.

The computation of a feature can now be deﬁned via an annotation on the Ecore structural feature. In order to delegate computation of the feature’s value to a registered setting delegate, the URI for this annotation needs to match one of the values in the details entry of an annotation on the containing class’s owning Ecore package. Evaluation of a properly annotated structural feature is delegated to the corresponding registered delegate when the feature’s value is accessed, either statically (via generated code) or dynamically (via reﬂection) on a model instance.

Operation Invocation Delegates

EMF previously provided a way to declare operations in EMF-based implementations via metadata in Ecore models. From the perspective of EMF, an operation is a behavioral feature whose speciﬁcation is beyond the scope of the framework. Although a mechanism already existed to specify the bodies of operations, in Java syntax, via annotations, the behaviors of operations generally had to be implemented by hand, in Java source code; there was no means of specifying the behaviors of operations in an alternative format (such as expressions in some language), nor was there a way to delegate their execution to an external mechanism (such as an expression evaluation engine). With this enhancement, EMF allows the behaviors of operations to be deﬁned via additional annotations on Ecore models, and for them to be executed, both from generated code and from dynamic models, via registered external expression engines.

Execution of operations can now be delegated to external expression engines via invocation delegates. An invocation delegate is a class that implements an interface deﬁning a method that is called by the EMF runtime to execute the operation’s behavior. Invocation delegates can be registered against specific URIs in a registry which can then be queried when executing the behaviors of operations. A global registry of invocation delegates exists, which can be populated via an extension or programmatically via Java code. In order to use a registered invocation delegate within a given package, it needs to be referenced as a value in an annotation details entry on the Ecore package.

The behavior of an operation can now be deﬁned via an annotation on the Ecore operation. In order to delegate execution of the operation’s behavior to a registered invocation delegate, the URI for this annotation needs to match one of the values in the details entry of an annotation on the containing class’s owning Ecore package. Execution of a properly annotated operation is delegated to the corresponding registered delegate when the operation’s behavior is invoked, either statically (via generated code) or dynamically (via reﬂection) on a model instance.

Details of these and other enhancements being made to EMF for the Helios release can be found on the project's New and Noteworthy page. I'll also be covering the new extensibility mechanisms described above as part of a proposed tutorial at EclipseCon 2010 (assuming the submission is accepted). Hope to see you there!

On What I've Been Doing...

2010-01-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

At the Eclipse DemoCamp in Ottawa a few weeks ago, someone mentioned to me that it's not entirely obvious from my blog what I've been up to lately. So, in the spirit of blogging more about what I do than what I think, I figured I ought to rectify the situation, perception being reality and all.

When suddenly faced with freedom last June, I thought I'd take some time to carefully decide what my next venture would be. In the meantime, started my own consulting company, focused on making my clients successful with open source. Weeks turned into months and, well, I'm still "deciding". To date, I've been involved in several client projects, some related to Eclipse and some in other areas (but still using Eclipse tooling!). I'll blog about each of them in my "spare" time over the coming days, in no particular order, starting with Zeligsoft.

I worked with Zeligsoft to prepare some project proposals for one of their clients and then represented them at Eclipse Summit Europe in Ludwigsburg. They are taking a serious look at the feasibility of building an open source, industrial strength model based engineering environment using Eclipse technology. While at the Summit, I presented a long talk with Raphael Faodou and Patrick Tessier entitled "Papyrus: Advent of an Open Source IME at Eclipse". We were stuck in a room with only 36 chairs and ended up with nearly 60 people in attendance. Our message seemed to resonate very well and many people seemed quite interested in, and impressed with, what's being done in Papyrus.

Of particular note in Ludwigsburg was evidence of a growing interest in an open source modeling workbench at Eclipse. The Birds of a Feather (BoF) session I held on that subject on the Wednesday night was also very well attended; it was scheduled for only one hour, but after over two hours in a stuffy room, nobody had left. We had a good discussion about the various efforts that are either already underway or in the works, followed by some disagreement about how best to proceed, i.e., this project vs. that project vs. a working group vs. an external consortium. Finally, Martin Fluegge, from the Dawn project, gave a demo of some really cool technology for collaborating on diagrams over the Web (without using Google Wave).

One initiative that I became aware of during the Summit was Sphinx, an emerging project proposal to create a generic DSL workbench at Eclipse. There was much overlap between what was being proposed in Sphinx and what the backbone in Papyrus is intended to be. As a result, we've started looking at extracting the Papyrus backbone and combining it with what is being contributed in Sphinx, working together as one team. The proposed project lead, Stephan Eberle, is looking for feedback and is keenly interested collaborating with other parties. Might you be interested in participating?

In November, I delivered an updated version of the Papyrus talk at the Eclipse Modeling Day in Toronto (which was also quite successful), and have submitted two proposals for related talks at EclipseCon 2010 in March. The first would be another update to the talk I presented at the Summit and the Modeling Day. For the second, I'm collaborating with Stephan Eberle to take a look at "The Twenty Modeling Things", i.e., essential services that might make up a modeling workbench at Eclipse. If either of these is of interest to you, why not express your support by adding a comment to the submission(s)?

On Grievances...

2010-01-04T12:25:00.000-08:00

A year ago, I started an annual tradition of creating a wordle of my blog, so here is this year's visual.

Comparing it with the one from last year, not a lot appears to have changed, at least on the surface - still a lot of Eclipse and modeling. By contrast, this New Year will no doubt bring a lot of change.

Last week I tweeted about ten things from 2009 that I hope to do without in 2010. I thought it would be fitting to start the year by posting them here so that I can reflect on each item in more detail.

10. Corporate Politics

I've never been a fan of office politics, but having worked closely with executive teams over the past few years, I've had more than my fill for a while. So far, working independently has been a welcome breath of fresh air.

9. OS Upgrades

Somehow I allowed myself to get sucked into the hype of Snow Leopard and jumped the gun. The outcome of my various installation attempts was probably best summed up by Mosspuppet in his video review. Luckily, I had the foresight to back everything up with my Time Capsule ahead of time, so all was not lost. I was amused, though, upon taking the media back to the Apple store for a refund, at the salesperson's suggestion that I try another copy, implying that somehow my copy may have been defective. Huh? Oh, and Windows 7? I don't think so.

8. Piracy

I had to laugh when more than one person replied to this one with a suggestion that I avoid boating in Somalia. I had to clarify that I was referring to things more torrent-related. Yes, I believe in open source and I do feel that the concept of ownership is evolving rapidly in response to the new economy, but I refuse to use my altruistic beliefs as a justification for pirating content (movies, music, games, software, etc.). I guess that means I'll be waiting to see the second season of True Blood until it's finally (if ever!) released on DVD. Assuming I can convince my wife to wait. ;)

7. Overdue Invoices

One of the hardest things to get used to about being a freelancer (for me) is cash flow (or lack thereof). On more than one occasion I found myself waiting longer than I should have for invoices to be paid. In the future, I'll consider front-loading my engagements or building interest charges into the contract terms.

6. Protracted Renovations

We hired a contractor for what we were told would be a three week project which ended up taking over three months. The irony was that we went with a contractor in the interest of expediency, thinking that it would take us much longer to do it ourselves. Next time, we'll think twice.

5. Airline Status

I achieved airline status for the second year in a row. To me, that's a indication that I've been traveling too much. Luckily, I've had much fewer reasons to travel since becoming an independent, so I doubt I'll achieve status next year.

4. Censorship

This is my blog. The thoughts and opinions expressed on it are, and always have been, my own, and I intend to keep it that way. I'll not again consider changing the content of any of my posts to placate any of its readers.

3. Staycations

Our plan for summer vacation last year was to spend a few weeks at a fractional ownership cottage we were buying. But, the economy took its inevitable toll on that venture, and we wound up staying around home for a summer "stay"cation. Unfortunately, though, I was too busy dealing with my new employment situation to relax, so it wasn't much like a vacation at all. The past couple of weeks home with the kids have reminded me what's most important in life, so we'll be taking that vacation this coming summer whether we can afford to or not!

2. Legal Fees

Lawyers are there to protect you when you need them, but ultimately they're out to make a living too. One of the tidbits from the Lead to Win program that really resonated with me was the notion that the law is often argued on the basis of principal, not principle. In any case, I plan to keep situations (real estate, business, or otherwise) where I need a lawyer to a minimum.

1. Cancer

Some are shocked by my openness about the details of my personal life, and in particular my mother's recent battle with breast cancer. Personally, I've been surprised by the number of people I know that have since shared details with me about encounters with the disease in their lives. I'm not sure why we don't talk more openly about things like this, but we should. I'm happy to say that my mother's treatments (chemotherapy and radiation) were a success (as far as we can tell) and she's well on her way to getting back on top of her life again (not that she ever really faltered). As of today, I start training again for the Weekend to End Women's Cancers in Ottawa this coming June. Donations are, of course, welcome and appreciated!

Here's to 2010 and all the changes (for the better) that it will bring!

On Leadership...

2009-12-07T07:25:00.000-08:00

Among other things, last week's exchange on The Planet ought to be a reminder to all of us of how hard good leadership is to come by. I'm sure you've heard the term "thought leader", but it's always been a bit of an oxymoron to me. Ideas are cheap, and thinking can often get you into trouble (I should know, I've been there). Yes, actions do speak louder than words, so a more appropriate term for someone who displays true leadership, in my mind, would be "action leader" or, even better, "action hero". It's ironic that use of the latter isn't more prevalent in our industry. Forget being a rock star, I want to be an action hero.

When I think (danger, Will Robinson!) about it, it's the posts from people doing amazing things at Eclipse that tend to earn more of my respect. So, rather than accusing anyone of biting the hand that feeds or questioning whether others have poisoned the well, I'm looking to the action heros at Eclipse to continue doing such a stellar job of leading by example. Indeed, it is they, and others like them, who, if anyone, will keep our ecosystem from collapsing under the weight of our collective self-importance. In truth AND in deed.

On Momentum...

2009-11-05T07:02:00.000-08:00

Despite rumors of a resistance movement (ha!), the momentum of modeling at Eclipse continues to build, as attested by last week's summit. By all accounts the various tutorials, presentations, and discussions about modeling were quite productive. I'll be blogging in more detail about the BoF and long talk that I helped deliver at ESE in the coming days, but before I do I wanted to bring your attention to two other upcoming events that may be of interest to modelers.

In just under two weeks, Eclipse will be hosting "Modeling Days" in New York and Toronto. The line-up of presenters is terrific, and in case you missed my presentation on Papyrus in Ludwigsburg, I'll be delivering (an updated version of) it at the Toronto Modeling Day on Wednesday, November 18. Registration is free, so there's no excuse for missing this opportunity to interact with thought leaders in the Eclipse Modeling community.

I alluded to the second event some time ago, but now it's official - another Eclipse/OMG Symposium is being held, this time at the OMG Technical Meeting in Minnesota, Minneapolis on June 23, 2010. The call for participation is already open, so it's not too early to consider submitting a proposal and making your contribution to the joint future of open source and open specifications.

On the Mo...

2009-11-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

Having witnessed, first-hand, the transformative effect that hair (or absence thereof) can have on our personal lives, I've decided to grow some hair, this time for a cause. That's right, it's Movember and I've joined the Eclipse Mommitters in their effort to raise money to "help change the face of men's health". I'll be posting pictures of my progress over the next few weeks on my "Mo Space" (personal page). Check it out, consider making a donation to our team, and think about how you could do your part to help fight prostate cancer.

On Big "M" Modeling...

2009-10-05T12:45:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Wayne, I, too, was recently interviewed by a German magazine, JAXenter. Following his example, I thought I'd post the English translation of the interview for the benefit of those (like me) that can't read German. It's a little dated (especially since our Helios plan is now in place and we've already started development), but hey, better late than never, right? ;)

Can you describe the Eclipse MDT Project in a few words?

The Model Development Tools (MDT) project focuses on big "M" modeling within the Eclipse Modeling project. Its purpose is to provide implementations of industry standard metamodels and exemplary tools for developing models based on those metamodels.

Can you give a typical use case for the project?

Developers use MDT as a framework for building professional-grade modeling tools based on industry standard languages such as Unified Modeling Language (UML), Object Constraint Language (OCL), and XML Schema Definition (XSD), among others. End users use MDT's exemplary tooling (currently provided by the UML2 Tools and Papyrus components) to develop models based on those languages.

What's new in the Galileo Version of MDT?

Four of the nine components in MDT released as part of Galileo. OCL 1.3 saw the addition of finer-grained control over debug tracing, support for big numbers, and an extensible type checking mechanism. UML2 3.0 subscribed to the EMF "ultra-slim diet", migrated to the latest released version of the UML specification (2.2), and made some extensibility enhancements in the area of profiles. UML2 Tools 0.9 includes enhanced support for working with profiles and stereotypes, vastly improved look and feel, provisional support for sequence and timing diagrams, and the ability to specify which elements are included (synchronized) when creating a class diagram. Finally, XSD 2.5 added support for using an ecore:nsURI attribute on a schema element to specify the namespace URI for a schema without a target namespace.

Where do you see the MDT Project in one year? How will the project evolve after Galileo?

We have yet to prepare our plans for the next major release of MDT (dubbed "Helios"), but I can give you an idea of what I'd like to see happen. First, I'd like to see revival of ODM (Ontology Definition Metamodel) support in MDT (in fact, we already have a proposal), especially given the resurgence of interest in RDF (Resource Definition Framework) in the industry of late (e.g. Linked Data). I also anticipate compliance with the latest releases of industry specifications, particularly BPMN, OCL, and XSD. Integration of EMF-based support for things like searching, comparing, and indexing of models in our end-user tooling should also be a priority. Finally, I hope to see some innovation in modeling tooling and techniques, including support for such things as facet-based metamodels, task-focused tools, and collaborative design.

On Auspicious Dates...

2009-10-01T11:49:00.000-07:00

I was reminded recently, while volunteering as part of my son's Beaver colony, of the Scout Motto: "Be prepared". Of course, a good way to be prepared is to have a plan. Wayne has done a great job this year of reminding project leads, both on the mailing lists and on his blog, of their responsibility to get their project plans in place in time for yesterday's deadline. My only question is, if you plan to fail and you fail, have you failed or succeeded?

In any case, the MDT plan for the Helios coordinated release is now finally in place... more or less. Looking at the release schedule, I was amused by the significance of some of the milestone dates for "+3" projects (of which MDT is one). M3 is on Remembrance Day, M6 is on St. Patrick's Day, and M7 is on Cinco de Mayo. I'm not sure whether that's a good sign or a bad one, but either way, I'm looking forward to an exciting cycle of development at Eclipse!

On Going Forth to the Past...

2009-09-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

And so it would seem that, while there are things, both personal and professional, that we must let go of in life, there are some we may choose not to. Open source is one such thing for me, and open specifications are another. To that end, I'm happy to say that I was recently appointed representative of the Eclipse Foundation at the Object Management Group. This means that, while I won't be resuming all of my former responsibilities at the OMG, I am once again able to actively participate in shaping the joint future of these two organizations.

I'm currently working on organizing a follow-up to the symposia that were held back in 2008 (I'll post more information on that as it becomes available). Of course, before hosting such an event, I want to ensure that steps have been taken to address at least some of the important issues that were identified at the first symposia. At this point, I think the intellectual property relationship between Eclipse projects and OMG specifications is more clear than it was before. To further preserve this lineage, Eclipse is participating in the OMG's IPR policy review process on an ongoing basis.

As for a better means of tracking issues at the OMG, work has begun to migrate the large database of OMG issues, along with their associated triage processes, to Bugzilla. With any luck, it should soon be possible to submit and track an issue against an OMG specification as a Bugzilla record and, ideally (longer term), be able to do so from within a tool that is based on that specification (e.g., by using Mylyn tasks with contexts based on models). If you're interested in seeing this happen, or perhaps even in helping bring it to fruition, I'd love to hear about it!

On Letting Go...

2009-09-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

Woah, it's been quite a while since my last entry. While my new life as jetsam has taught me a whole new meaning to the expression "the truth will set you free", I've been focusing more on figuring out what to do with my freedom rather than dwelling on how I earned it. I've been exploring a number of alternatives over the past couple of months, some of which I'll be blogging about in the near future.

One thing I know I'll be doing for sure is continuing my commitment to open (but not free!) source and, of course, Eclipse. In that vein, I'm thrilled that my long talk proposal for Eclipse Summit Europe, entitled "Papyrus: Advent of an Open Source IME at Eclipse", which I co-submitted with Raphael Faudou, Patrick Tessier, and Cedric Dumoulin, has been accepted. I finally completed my registration this morning (after overcoming some browser obstacles) and am looking forward to being in Ludwigsburg again this October. I'm particularly stoked about who one of the keynote speakers is this year. I had the distinct privilege of spending time with Tony Bailetti this summer as part of the Lead to Win program (more on that later), so I know first-hand that we're in for a treat. This year's summit is shaping up to be a dandy; I hope to see you there!

On Lighter Loads...

2009-07-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

What are the odds that my closest friend and I, he in the hardware industry and I, in software, would both lose our jobs during the very same week? Talk about s ynchronicity! As it happens, full-time employment wasn't the only thing that we shed this past week. My mother recently lost all of her hair as a result of the chemotherapy treatment she is undergoing for breast cancer, so the two of us decided to shave our heads as a gesture of solidarity.

I wasn't kidding when I said that I was facing this transition with an open mind! Thanks to all of you that have shared your best wishes for my future endeavors. Having offloaded the weight of the corporate world... and now my hair, I feel more invigorated than ever to take on my next challenge. Stay tuned for details.

On Falling...

2009-07-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

It's been just under two years now since I left the mother ship for an opportunity with Embarcadero, and I've seldom looked back... until today. On this day, when most other Canadians are celebrating the birth of our great nation and the freedom it affords its citizens, I'm faced with commemorating a new found freedom of my own. I've been exiled from Cubicle Nation.

This isn't exactly the kind of change I had in mind when I wrote my last blog entry, but I'm committed to facing it with an open mind (seeing as I have no choice). I don't know what I'll be doing for income yet (if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them), but in the meantime I thought it would be an apt occasion to take another wordle snapshot of my blog (exactly six months after the last one).

So far, 2009 has been a challenging year. But, a friend of mine told me recently that a kick in the pants is still a step forward, and I'm inclined to agree. I really should be seeing this as more of a beginning than an end, and I'm sure that once I've landed with two feet firmly planted on my next venture, this will be obvious in hindsight. One thing is for certain, though. I'll not be looking back again.

On Galileo...

2009-06-24T14:50:00.000-07:00

And so, the big day is here. I'd like to say a big "thank you" to the members of the Model Development Tools (MDT) development team that made this release possible. This past release cycle has been an eventful one, with committers and components both coming and going. I'm proud of what we accomplished as a team (given the challenges we faced) and especially of the fact that MDT is listed as the third most popular project on the Eclipse Downloads page, behind PDT and Web Tools. A true testament to the value that modeling tools bring to the Eclipse ecosystem!

So, what's new in this release of MDT? Four of the now nine components in MDT released today as part of Galileo. OCL 1.3 saw the addition of finer-grained control over debug tracing, support for big numbers, and an extensible type checking mechanism. UML2 3.0 subscribed to the EMF ultra-slim diet, migrated to the latest released version of the UML specification (2.2), and made some extensibility enhancements in the area of profiles. UML2 Tools 0.9 includes enhanced support for working with profiles and stereotypes, vastly improved look and feel, provisional support for sequence and timing diagrams, and (at long last!) the ability to specify which elements are included (synchronized) when creating a class diagram. Finally, XSD 2.5 added support for using an ecore:nsURI attribute on a schema element to specify the namespace URI for a schema without a target namespace.

But of course, that's not the whole story behind what took place this past year. Two components (EODM and OCL Tools) were terminated and two new ones were created (Papyrus and MST). We also received a number of project proposals, some of which may yet see the light of day. We were sad to see the departure of some of our past contributors (most notably, committer emeritus Christian Damus, former lead of the OCL component) but heartily welcomed the many new ones that arrived! If change is an indication of healthy progress (and I believe it is) I'm happy to say that the MDT mini-ecosystem is alive and well. Here's to a another successful release and the changes that the future is sure to bring!

On Renaming Eclipse...

2009-06-19T07:34:00.000-07:00

I was reminded yet again this week, by a self-proclaimed analyst, that Eclipse is dead. I sure hope that's true. I mean, I'd like to think that what we have come to know Eclipse to be dies every day and becomes something different (and better!) the next day. That's the nature of continuous innovation. Otherwise, what we're stuck with is the status quo, and that's not going to get anyone much of anywhere.

I was reading an entry in Chris Guillebeau's blog the other day, and it dawned on me why Eclipse is at risk of missing the next wave of innovation - it no longer has a well-defined enemy. Remember that classic Weird Al song? "I know Darth Vader's really got you annoyed, but remember if you kill him then you'll be unemployed". The battle with that eternal yellow sphere was won some time ago, and it seems unlikely that the other "evil empire" will ever amass an open source ecosystem quite as impressive as the one Eclipse has. So what's left that's worth fighting for? United we stand, divided we focus on squeezing every last possible incremental improvement out of our existing "value added" products.

But fear not, all is not lost! The Empire is striking back, albeit under a different guise. Perhaps Eclipse should be renamed to properly reflect what our new war cry ought to be. How about "Dissonance"? Then again, they say that if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em. This time 'round I'm thinking that's not such a bad idea... and I'm happy to see that efforts have already begun in that direction. Yeah, come to think of it, maybe "Resonance" is a better name, especially given who discovered the phenomenon and the milestone that Eclipse is about to to achieve next week. ;)

On Cadences...

2009-06-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

The Weekend to End Breast Cancer. It ain't just for ladies anymore (or at least is shouldn't be). I was one of a handful of men among over a thousand women that walked 60 kilometers this past weekend and raised over two million dollars for cancer research in the process. I was humbled by the many examples of courage and hope that I witnessed. There was a man who has done the walk 30 times and who, last year (or so I am told), wheeled his deceased wife's empty wheelchair for two days. There was a cancer survivor who pushed her walker faster than many of us could walk unaided. There were women in very late stages of pregnancy, one of whom was having contractions but refused to see her midwife to deliver her baby until she had finished walking for the day. There were several who carried empty walking shoes once worn by women whose journey has come prematurely to an end.

I want to thank the four women, one of them a cancer survivor, who were gracious enough to allow me to walk with them on the second day. One of the most powerful moments, for me, occurred less than five kilometers from the finish line when the route diverged from the sidewalk onto a path of crushed gravel. We had been walking nearly the whole day together, but only just then noticed that our cadences were perfectly in sync. It was a true testament to what shared vision is all about. Like all of the other participants, we were there for similar goals, but there's no doubt in my mind that what we were able to accomplish together was more than any of us could have done on our own. We were among the first forty or so to finish, and I'll not forget the feeling any time soon.

On the Verge...

2009-06-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

Speaking of action (and the need for doing more walking and less talking), I now stand at the precipice before the Big Weekend. Thanks to all of the family, friends, and colleagues that have generously donated, I have qualified to participate in The Weekend to End Breast Cancer, which starts tomorrow. I've walked nearly 300 kilometers over the past ten weeks in preparation for this journey, and the weather forecast looks promising, so I'm looking forward to a great weekend. Of course, it's not too late to show your support, so if you want to make a last-minute donation, please see my personal page. For those that are interested, you can follow my updates over the next two days on Twitter. See you on the other side!

On the Letter W...

2009-06-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

Today's entry is brought to you by the letter W. What is it with the letter W, anyway? Many of the major innovations in this information age of ours seem to begin with that letter. Windows, World Wide Web, Wiki, Wii, and now Wave. All I can say is wow.

I've been thinking a lot about innovation lately (on my walks), and after reading Doug's and Dave's blog entries I feel compelled to comment. I don't think the distinction between successful and unsuccessful innovations comes down to a question of propriety; indeed it seems inevitable that all software will be open source before too long. Instead, I think it's a matter of shared vision. There's a big difference between a diverse collection of participants with similar goals and a team of collaborators (whom need not work for the same employer) with a shared vision, especially if/when that vision is compelling enough to be contagious.

The team that originally brought us Eclipse had such a shared vision, and it seems that the team developing Wave does, too. Of course, it's harder to achieve mindshare across geographical, cultural, and organizational boundaries; interestingly, these are the very challenges that Wave appears to be taking a huge step toward helping us overcome. Yes, Ed, the time is nigh for taking action. Hang on, because it's going to be a heck of a ride!

On Bodies at REST...

2009-05-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

Newton got beaned by the apple good. So goes the lyric from another song by the band that inspired the name of this blog. Of course, Newton was probably most famous for his laws of motion, including the principle that a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon an external force. This rang especially true for me when my mother was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. For some time I had been looking for the motivation to become more active (yoga once a week just wasn't cutting it). Rather than "resting on my laurels", I decided to do something positive about my mother's prognosis (and my sedentary lifestyle) and signed up to participate in the upcoming Weekend to End Breast Cancer in Ottawa. As a participant, I have to raise a minimum of $2000 and walk 60 km over the course of two days in June. I've been training for about seven weeks now, but could really use your help raising the funds (I'm just about half way there). For details, please see my personal page.

On the subject of REST (the acronym) I finally received the speaker feedback for the EMF tutorial Marcelo and I delivered at EclipseCon back in March. As Ed and Michael have been observing lately, EMF is a complex topic, and considering how much Marcelo and I tried to cover in such a short amount of time, I think we did OK. By contrast, REST is actually quite simple; at its core, it is a set of architectural principles for defining, addressing, and manipulating resources in distributed hypermedia systems. The e4 resources team had an interesting discussion about REST during our bi-weekly meeting a couple of weeks ago and Doug suggested I blog about it (hey, better late then never!).

So, what does it mean to make resources more RESTful in e4? The important thing (and biggest challenge, in my mind) will be to look beyond the basics of resources and well-defined operations for manipulating them (which we undoubtedly need), and focus more on the distributed and hypermedia aspects of RESTful applications. After all, this is what we mean when we say we want to "bring the Web to Eclipse", is it not? We really have to free ourselves from the "traditional" ways of doing things and embrace new (and, presumably, better) approaches - indeed, we have to innovate. Much of the work that I've seen in e4 so far has been about how we will continue to do many of the things we've always been doing in Eclipse, but on the new platform. For example, there has been some exploration as to how the Project Explorer might work in e4. Wait a minute! Why assume we even need a Project Explorer (or projects themselves, for that matter) in e4? The new generation of workers (and the Web itself) doesn't rely on structural browsing the way we "dinosaurs" have in the past. They search for things they need now and tag things they want to remember later. Rather than a Project Explorer, why not provide a UI that is optimized for exploring sets of related (hyperlinked) resources and for discovering relationships between them?

I see e4 as an opportunity for integrated tool environments (for modeling, development, you name it) to take a giant leap forward into the future (or is that the present?) in terms of consumability. We just need to find the means and the courage to help Eclipse overcome the gravity of its legacy and launch it into the cloud (and beyond). Yes, this IS the time for change, in so many ways. Eclipse will remain "at rest" unless acted upon by an external force... and that force is you!

On Elephant Shoes...

2009-04-16T07:36:00.001-07:00

Do you remember playing that game when you were young? You'd mouth the words "elephant shoes" to someone and it would look like you were saying "I love you". It was great, because if the boy or girl objected, you could say "What? All I said was 'elephant shoes'!". Apparently, a movie has even been made about it...

A few weeks ago, at EclipseCon, the elephant in the room was that Ed wasn't there, and more specifically, the reason why. The absence of people like this (and others whose presence isn't as noticeable but whose contributions are just as important) is what I was referring to, in part, by "recent events" a couple of posts ago. Ultimately, a large part of what helps me keep my game face is the people - after all, its the contributions of good people that make or break a community of interest.

That was also a common refrain at Enterprise Data World last week - "it's not just about the data, it's about the people". We certainly saw evidence of that at our booth in the exhibit hall. They had a "bingo" game, for a chance to win a free book, with cards where you had to visit each vendor listed on the card and get them to cross of their square (each with a unique color). We were surprised by the number of attendees who asked us to cross off our competitors' squares because they didn't want to have to talk to them. We also saw a number of cards where one of our competitors had scratched our square out with a big "X". Ah well, it takes all kinds...

The ER/Studio community of interest held its annual special interest group (SIG) session last Wednesday, and it went really well. It used to be that a member of the user community had to organize a SIG as part of the official program, but apparently the rules must have changed because one of our competitors was allowed to organize a last-minute SIG themselves. Too bad they forgot to mention when it was...

We also held a cocktail party for about thirty of our closest friends (customers) last Wednesday evening, and it was a raving success. You really get a sense for how much your customers love your products when they're still hanging around long after the event is supposed to end (and the free beer is gone). One of the things we kept hearing was how much our customers appreciate how responsive we are to their needs... for the most part. Things got a little out of hand when some of our customers started placing bets on whether/when EA/Studio models would ever be supported by the ER/Studio Repository and Enterprise Portal. Patience, grasshoppers.

We wrapped up the week on Thursday afternoon by meeting with some members of our Product Advisory Council (PAC). We listened to their needs, presented our plans for this year and next, and gave them a sneak peak of what's in store for our September release of ER/Studio. We received a lot of really good feedback and, overall, folks were really pleased with our road map. All we have to do now is deliver on it!

On Participation...

2009-04-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

I blogged some time ago about my belief that the OMG had to make some changes in order to remain relevant in today's industry. It seems that some of Bjorn's recent thoughts have led some people to express similar beliefs about Eclipse. I delivered a presentation at EclipseCon last year, comparing and contrasting various aspects of these two organizations; I'd like to take moment here to comment on their models of participation.

At Eclipse, participation in projects is open to individuals (as committer members) and, indeed, membership is not even required to participate as a contributor. Privileges (e.g. the ability to write to the source code repository and vote as part of the Eclipse Development Process) are associated with the individual rather than the organization - if an organization discontinues its membership or an employee leaves his/her member employer, the individual retains those privileges. This is good for the individual but not so good for the organization - as Jochen reminded participants of the Eclipse Open Source Executive Strategy Summit, the risks of losing knowledge, leadership, and write access to code when a participating employee (committer) leaves his/her employer should not be underestimated.

At the OMG, on the other hand, participation in task forces, submission teams, and working groups is generally restricted to representatives of member organizations. Privileges (e.g. the ability to evaluate draft specifications and vote as part of the OMG Technology Adoption Process) are associated with the organization rather than the individual - if an organization discontinues its membership or an employee leaves his/her member employer, the individual loses those privileges. This is good for the organization but not so good for the individual - after all, it's the efforts of individuals that make open specifications a reality, and it seems unfortunate to exclude what could be valuable contributions from individuals just because they don't work for a member company.

I'm not sure whether one model is better than the other, but I'd like to think that maybe a different participation model might better serve the needs of both member organizations and individuals. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?

On Your Game Face...

2009-04-04T17:21:00.000-07:00

You might say what separates professionals from amateurs is their ability to maintain their game face, even in the face of adversity. Recent events have made it increasingly difficult for me to keep my game face on these days. How do you maintain your game face?

Speaking of games, this coming week is the "Super Bowl" for data modelers, the annual Enterprise Data World conference (formerly DAMA). In fact, as I write this, I'm sitting on the balcony of my hotel room, overlooking the marina at the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel and Marina. While my presentation is on Sunday evening, I'm very much looking forward to the chance to interact with many of our customers next week, especially at the ER/Studio SIG and Embarcadero Customer Cocktail Party on Wednesday, as well as the Embarcadero Product Advisory Council meeting on Thursday. If you're going to be at the conference, track me down! I'd love to hear your enterprise data stories, especially during these uncertain times.

On The Death of Eclipse (and Modeling)...

2009-03-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

Eclipse is dead. That's why, at a time when most conference organizers are, in Mike's words, "either canceling their events or losing their shirts", EclipseCon 2009 will likely turn a profit. That's why companies like Microsoft, for example, sent more attendees to EclipseCon than ever before, and Sun Microsystems (or is that IBM?) was actually a sponsor. That's why the bird's nest attracted more than 250 occupants (many of whom, like me, were first-time tweeters) in just a few days.

Modeling is dead, too. That's why I saw so many fresh faces at my EMF tutorial last Monday. That's why Peter's (Ed's) "stupid modeling" talk was so well-attended (and well-received, from what I've heard). That's why there were not only one, but two, modeling BoFs last week ("the sequel" and "the sequel to the sequel").

Yeah, Eclipse and modeling are "dead". You can go ahead and quote me on that. But if you do, please don't take my words out of context.

(Oh, and if you can't sense the sarcasm in this post, I'd be concerned that Eclipse and modeling aren't the only things that are dead...)

On Switching Gears...

2009-03-20T10:41:00.000-07:00

And so, DataRage has come and gone. What an event! I have to say that it was so good, today feels a little anti-climactic. If you missed it (you shouldn't have!), recordings of the sessions will be made available in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for details.

Now, it's time for me to switch gears and get ready for next week's big event - EclipseCon 2009! I (and my cohort, Marcelo) have spent a fair bit of time over the past couple of weeks getting material ready for our EMF tutorial on Monday. I'm relieved to finally be able to say that we're ready... at least we hope we are. ;)

I've posted the slides for our tutorial on SlideShare and added a link to them from the session page. Or, if you want, you can watch them below. I'd like to say a special thanks to Ed for allowing us to reuse much of the content from one of his tutorials in our presentation. Ed, you will surely be missed next week, but make no mistake - despite your absence, your presence will still be felt!

Building RESTful Java Applications with EMF

View more presentations from kenn.hussey.

On Recurring Rage...

2009-03-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

It's happening all over again! For the first time ever! Embarcadero is hosting another virtual conference, but this time for the dataheads out there (you know who you are). Dubbed "DataRage", this virtual conference is three days of online technical sessions focused on database development and data management issues. And, like its CodeRage predecessors, it's free. Looking at the agenda, it's nice to see that so many sessions are about one of my products, ER/Studio. You ought to check it out.

Speaking of ER/Studio, the last time I blogged (wow, has it really been that long?), I had just arrived in Iaşi for a couple of weeks of planning with my ER/Studio development team. While watching this past Sunday's episode of The Amazing Race (which took place in Romania), I was reminded that I haven't yet posted the pictures I promised to share. So, here goes nothing.

Târgu Secuiesc

We started out on a 1000 km trek across the Romanian countryside early on a Saturday morning. Really early. After a few of hours of driving, we decided to stop for breakfast in a quaint town called Târgu Secuiesc. It had some of the most colorful buildings I saw during my two-week stay in Romania.

This town is in the part of Romania where the majority of the population is of Hungarian descent There was a statue of a famous Hungarian hero, Áron Gábor, in the square near where we parked the car.

Bran

Now that our stomachs were full, we set out to do what all good tourists do when in Transylvania - find Dracula. What better place to find Dracula than in what's come to be known as "Dracula's Castle", near Bran?

We were a little disappointed to find out that the castle seemed to be more about Queen Maria than the famous vampire. But, we were happy to have seen it nonetheless, as evidenced by the smiles on our faces, below. Here, you can see some of the key members of the ER/Studio management team - me (Program Manager, Modeling and Design Solutions), Kim Ouye (Vice President, Development), Jim Brodrick (Director, Development), and Jason Hahn (Software Development Manager, ER/Studio).

Braşov

Our next stop was Braşov, where we planned to spend the night. We took what we were told would be a 20 minute walk (yeah, right) to a cable car from which we could get a vista of the old part of the city.

After getting a bird's eye view, we spent the evening wandering around the cobblestone streets. One of the highlights was the famous "Black Church" (Biserica Neagră) , which ironically (given its age - it dates back to 1477) sported a clock dated 1999.

Sighişoara

The next day, we set out to find the birthplace of the inspiration for Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. He was allegedly born in the citadel of Sighişoara.

This medieval city was probably my favorite stop on our adventure. Its landmark is the Clock Tower, which was built in 1360.

Bicaz Canyon

We spent the rest of Sunday returning back to Iaşi through the Bicaz Canyon in the Eastern Carpathian Mountains. Our first stop along the way was at Red Lake (Lacul Roşu) whose name comes from the reddish alluvia deposited in the lake by the Red Creek. Kim (our VP) told us that, on previous visits, he had both walked around the lake and paddled on the lake, and now he wanted to walk on the lake. Before we could stop him he was wandering out on the ice in the middle of the lake.

Our last stop in the mountains was Lake Bicaz, the largest artificial lake in the interior of Romania. Kim mentioned there was restaurant that he was told was located "in the middle of the lake". We found it, but discovered that, while not quite in the middle of the lake, it was in the lake - on a boat. Unfortunately it was closed, so after enjoying the view for a bit, we headed back to Iaşi.

On Vision...

2009-01-19T07:05:00.000-08:00

I met an elderly woman in the United Express check-in line yesterday. Unprompted, she proceeded to tell me how she came all the way from New Mexico to spend a week with a man she had met over the Internet. She had come to Ottawa on blind faith that things would work out. They didn't.

After nearly a year and a half of employment with Embarcadero, it was finally time that I made my inaugural visit to the epicentre of the company's product development. I placed my faith in the pilots and crew of several aircraft over the past day or so, with the expectation that they'd get me safely to Washington, then Vienna, and, eventually, Iasi. They did.

How many of the personal or professional things that you do depend on blind faith? Do you have faith that your doctors are doing all they can do to help preserve your well-being? Do you have faith that your employees are really working when they work from home? Do you have faith that your executive team is taking the company where it needs to go? Some things are out of our hands, but others are not.

At Embarcadero, we don't rely on blind faith to decide where our products are going. We rely on vision. As a program manager, much of my job is about vision. Just as Scott McCloud says, we program managers strive to learn from everyone (especially our Product Advisory Council, or PAC), follow no one, watch for patterns, and work like hell.

As I embark on a week of project planning here in Iasi, and think about what's in store for our customers in 2009, I can't help but be excited about what the future will bring. What are you doing to understand your future? Do you have a vision?

On the Last Year of the Ohties...

2009-01-09T05:57:00.000-08:00

Some have started this New Year by posting a list of their most popular blog entries from 2008. I've decided instead to enter (albeit a little late) the last year of the ohties (in this century) with a wordle of my blog.

I guess it's obvious what's occupied my time over the past year. It'll be interesting to see how different it will look a year from now...

On EclipseCon Idol...

2008-12-03T07:57:00.000-08:00

The submission deadline for EclipseCon 2009 has come and gone, and now the program committee has the unpleasant duty of selecting from among the many excellent submissions. But, like all good reality shows, you, the "viewer", get to provide input on what you think should be selected. Don't let your favorite submissions "get sent home"! Providing feedback will not only make the program committee's job easier, but will help ensure that the talks YOU want to see make it onto the program.

I've submitted several proposals this year (see below), and I'd like your feedback. Please follow the link to the EclipseCon submission system to post any comments you may have.

#272 Building RESTful Java Applications with EMF

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a style of software architecture for distributed hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web. However, it is possible to design any enterprise software system in accordance with the REST architectural style without using the HTTP protocol and without interacting with the World Wide Web. Systems that follow the principles of REST often referred to as RESTful. Proponents of REST argue that the Web enjoyed the scalability and growth that it has had as a direct result of a few key design principles. Among these principles are the notions that application state and functionality are divided into resources and that every resource is uniquely addressable using a universal syntax for use in hypermedia links. Another key principle of REST is that all resources share a uniform interface for the transfer of state between client and resource, consisting of a constrained set of content types and a constrained set of well-defined operations.

The Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) provides a Java runtime framework and tools for generative application development and fine-grained data integration based on simple models. Models can be specified directly using EMF's metamodel, Ecore, or imported from other forms, including UML and XML Schema. Given a model specification, EMF can generate a corresponding set of Java interfaces and implementation classes that can easily be mixed with hand-written code for maximum flexibility. When deployed, applications developed with EMF benefit from a powerful and extensible runtime, which, among other features, includes a persistence mechanism which has always supported the principles of REST – perhaps even before the term "REST" became popular.

This tutorial will provide an introduction to EMF, including alternatives for specifying a model, EMF's code generation tools, and key runtime framework concepts. As a practical usage of this knowledge, the presenters will show how EMF can be used to build RESTful applications, exploring some best practices for working with resources and other features of the framework.

#273 What's New in MDT?

The Model Development Tools (MDT) project focuses on big "M" modeling within the Modeling project; its purpose is twofold: 1) to provide an implementation of industry standard metamodels and 2) to provide exemplary tools for developing models based on those metamodels. Since its launch in September of 2006, MDT has undergone two major releases and is now working towards its third release as part of the 2009 Galileo Simultaneous Release. This short talk will provide an overview of the new features and components/projects in MDT and give an update on the status of its Galileo release.

#274 Data Modeling at Eclipse

In order to enable the much needed agility demanded by today’s marketplace, business functions and associated processes must be supported by semantically accurate and reusable information, i.e. data and its associated metadata. A data model is an abstract model that describes how data is represented and accessed. Data modeling is the process of creating a data model instance by applying a data model theory, typically to solve some business enterprise requirement.

Data model instances can be categorized into various levels or perspectives, including contextual data models which identify entity classes, conceptual data models which define the meaning of things in the organization, logical data models which describe the logical representation of properties without regard to particular data manipulation technology, physical data models which describe the physical means by which data are stored, data definitions which represent the coding language of the schema on the specific development platform, and data instantiations which hold the values of the properties applied to the data in a schema.In this short talk, we’ll take a look at examples of each of these kinds of data models and explore how they are supported by projects/components at Eclipse.

#275 UML? E/R? Let's Call the Whole Thing Off!

There is a long standing rift between software modelers and data modelers. You say class, I say entity; you say property, I say attribute; you say association, I say relationship; etc.. This long talk will take a candid look at the differences (and similarities) between UML and E/R modeling, and offer insight into what is being, or could be, done at Eclipse and elsewhere to reconcile the two. You might be surprised to learn that the divide between software modelers and data modelers isn't as great as you thought.

#276 Eclipse and the OMG: The Morning After

Last year, two symposia were held jointly by Eclipse and the OMG to focus on the synergies between open source and open specifications and to discuss how the joint future of Eclipse and the OMG can be shaped. By all accounts, both were quite successful. So, now what? Well, a lot of really useful feedback was shared, but not much has changed since then. The bottom line is that the status quo will no longer suffice. Design by committee and vendor politics won't get anyone anywhere. Neither will closedness and opaqueness. This long talk will review the feedback from the first two symposia and will compare and contrast the Eclipse and OMG ecosystems to identify concrete measures that can be taken to improve the state of affairs.

On Rage...

2008-12-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not talking about anger (although, not unlike Ian, I do sometimes feel the need to rant)... I'm talking about CodeRage III, CodeGear's annual virtual developer conference (hosted by Embarcadero Technolgies). It's happening right now. All week. And it's free. Details can be found on the session schedule page. Which sessions have you attended? Which ones do you plan to attend? Did I mention that it's free? ;)

In case you're interested, Ed Merks and I will be delivering Eclipse-related sessions at CodeRage III on Wednesday. My session, entitled "Towards Data Model Interchange and Traceability", is from 5:45 pm to 6:45 pm PST. I know, it's late for those of us on the East coast... but hey, this is a global conference! Ed will be giving his infamous stupid modeling talk ("The Unbearable Stupidity of Modeling") right after mine, from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm PST. Hope to "see" you there! Rage on!

On December 3...

2008-12-01T07:40:00.000-08:00

It's been especially difficult for me to keep my head above water these days. So much is going on, at times it's hard to decide what to focus on and when. Eclipse Summit Europe was already two weeks ago now, the Ottawa DemoCamp was last Thursday, submissions for EclipseCon 2009 were due on Friday, CodeRage III is this week, and there's an OMG Technical Meeting next week. I'll try to blog about each of these if/when I find a spare moment...

And that's just conferences. In terms of my "day job", this is a big week for modeling and design solutions at Embarcadero. Three of my products, ER/Studio, ER/Studio Enterprise Portal, and EA/Studio are all releasing new versions on Wednesday. I've blogged before about how lucky I am to be part of such a great team, but this time around the challenges we persevered were so numerous it was almost laughable. My partner in crime, Jason Tiret, will be hosting a webinar on Wednesday to talk about what's new in database modeling at Embarcadero. You ought to check it out!

On Ludwigsburg...

2008-11-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's hard to believe that the last time I blogged was nearly two weeks ago. Where has the time gone? Seeing as I wrote my last blog entry from my hotel room in Reston, Virginia on the eve of EclipseWorld 2008, is seems rather fitting that I write this, my next blog entry, from my hotel room in Ludwigsburg, Germany, on the eve of Eclipse Summit Europe 2008. As a colleague of mine, who shall remain nameless, might say, "I'm so filled with joy for Eclipse Summit Europe that I cannot contain it!".

Like Ed, it looks as though I may need to clone myself in order to participate in everything I want to here at ESE. I haven't decided yet which talks I'll attend, but I suppose I had better do that soon, before things get really busy. At this point I know I'll be participating in the Eclipse Members' meeting tomorrow (Monday) and the Modeling Symposium on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, I'll be delivering two short talks. The first, entitled "Data Models at Eclipse", will provide an overview of the different kinds, or levels, of data models and explore how they are supported by projects/components at Eclipse. The second, "What's New in MDT?", will provide an overview of the Model Development Tools project and, in particular, some of its noteworthy recent additions. If you're going to be at the Summit, I hope to see you there. Of course, if you can't be there for whatever reason, you can always view the slides from the submission page(s)...

On Separation Anxiety...

2008-10-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

You gotta keep 'em separated. Or so says conventional wisdom (and the song). One of the homework items for this week's UML Roadmap working group meeting was to propose a solution to the 'separation of concerns' problem in UML. I would argue that this, like many other problems with UML, is actually a symptom of more fundamental issues with the way specifications are defined/developed at the OMG, and that we ought to address these issues before it’s too late (if it isn’t already).

The bottom line is that the status quo will no longer suffice. Design by committee and vendor politics won't get us anywhere. Neither will closedness and opaqueness. In his webinar on ecosystem development the week before last, Mike suggested that ecosystems could be evaluated on the basis of five key concepts (see below). In order for the ecosystem of specifications (languages) that exists at the OMG to survive, I'd say its health in these areas needs to be measured and improved.

Co-evolved innovation. There's certainly a lot of innovation happening at the OMG, and by a lot of players. But sometimes I wonder how relevant the innovation is (in the absence of reference implementations) and how coordinated the activities are (sometimes chairing a task force seems a lot more like cat-herding than coordinated evolution).

Alignment of Vision. The OMG has a vision - MDA (Model Driven Architecture). But how aligned are the various OMG specifications with this vision? How long will the industry wait for it to be realized?

Degree of openness. The OMG is an open organization, in the sense that its reason for being is to produce open specifications. But its processes are less open than other organizations like Eclipse, and that has garnered it some negative press. To borrow from Bjorn's analogy, I think the OMG would benefit from being an openness bear that's "just right".

Degree of modularity. I think this is at the heart of the 'separation of concerns' problem. Languages like UML and its relatives are in fact designed to be modular - they're structured as sets of packages, or "capabilities" and then merged into various compliance levels... but something went wrong along the way, because subsets of these languages aren't as reusable as they were originally intended to be.

A network of niches. A set of vertices without edges is not a graph - it's just a set of vertices. I think many of the niches (UML, BPMN, IMM) are falling into place at the OMG; now, we just need to connect the dots.

Mike also talked about the importance of an open, extensible platform as the basis for a successful ecosystem. I think that's what's missing in the OMG ecosystem. Yes, it has MOF, but that's not a platform on its own; MOF is to the OMG as OSGi is to Eclipse. The OMG needs a platform (a working version of what the InfrastructureLibrary in UML was intended to be) upon which MOF-based languages can be built.

So, here's what I think should be done to solve the 'separation of concerns' problem in UML. Direct the renewed interest and energy in "fixing" UML toward defining a platform of shared concepts upon which UML (and other specifications like BPMN and IMM) can be based. Implement (yes, implement!) a proof a concept that demonstrates the benefits of refactoring UML based on this platform using mechanisms from the emerging Diagram Definition and Semantic MOF specifications, and extrapolate to infer how the same benefits could be reaped by other specifications like BPMN and IMM. Then, and only then, submit responses to the RFPs for Diagram Definition, Semantic MOF (MOF 3.0?), and UML 3.0.

Some say that making changes like this will only serve to disrupt the industry, to scare away the vendors and users once and for all ("they waited forever for UML 2.0; if we propose UML 3.0, we'll lose them for good!"). That's just FUD, if you ask me and, well, desparate times call for desparate measures. The way to avoid this disruption is to make the changes in a more open and transparent way than before, for example, in a project at Eclipse. Of course, we'd try to maintain backward compatibility if at all possible or, at the very least, provide an explicit migration path for existing tools. But let the (proven) technology speak for itself. If we build it, they will come. The time is now.

On Where I'll Be Next Week...

2008-10-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

EclipseWorld 2008, of course! It's shaping up to be a great conference, and three of my colleagues and I have the distinct honor of being on the "expert faculty". We'll be delivering technical classes on a variety of topics important to application developers and database professionals. Our presentations will explore concepts such as software archeology, delve into architectural styles such as REST, and provide how-to guidance for database development, data modeling, and application factories in Java.

Scott Walz, senior director of product management, will deliver a class entitled "Classic Database Development Mistakes Made by Java Developers — and Five Ways to Overcome Them" on Wednesday at 3:15 pm. In this session, Scott will outline the five most common databas development mistakes made by Java developers and offer specific direction on how to overcome them.

Ravi Kumar, principal architect, will deliver a class entitled "How to Implement Application Factories in Java" on Thursday at 8:45 am. In this session, Ravi will utilize real-world examples to demonstrate how to build an end-to-end Web application with core capabilities, from database table all the way to presentation.

Michael Rozlog, JBuilder evangelist and co-author of “Mastering JBuilder", will deliver a class entitled "I’ve Just Inherited 1,000,000 Lines of Java Code — NOW WHAT?" on Thursday at 10:30 am. In this session, Michael will help developers understand the concepts behind software archeology and the tools used to support it, as well as explain how to apply the techniques of static and dynamic analysis in the real world. This session has been selected as one of the nine hottest classes at EclipseWorld.

I will be delivering a class entitled "Data Models for Java Applications" on Thursday at 8:45 am and another entitled "RESTful EMF" at 10:30 am. In the first session, I'll be reviewing the various types of data models and exploring how they are supported by projects at Eclipse. In the second session, I'll be providing an overview of Representational State Transfer (REST) and discussing how Java programs can be developed in accordance with the REST architecture style using the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF).

In addition to the two technical classes on Thursday, I'll also be doing a Model Development Tools (MDT) project demo between 8:45 and 9:00 pm at the Eclipse Foundation party on Wednesday. I'll be giving a sneak preview of some of the technology soon to be contributed to Eclipse as part of the newly created Papyrus component and will also offer insights into more new subprojects on the horizon.

Where will you be next week? If your answer is the same as mine, I hope to see you there!

On Beginnings and Ends...

2008-10-17T12:58:00.000-07:00

So far, it seems that Microsoft's participation at the OMG is more like the end of the beginning than the beginning of the end. Pariticipants in the UML Roadmap working group met on Tuesday to discuss everybody's top three problems/concerns with UML, and there seems to be a concensus that most of the issues fall under a general theme of separation of concerns. More homework has been issued for the next call (to take place in two weeks); this time, the assignment is to provide feedback on a proposal to develop an integration architecture that would support a family of related languages (wasn't that what MDA was supposed to be?) and to make alternative proposals for addressing the "Separation of Concerns" problem in UML. Any ideas?

Speaking of beginnings and ends, there have been some bitter-sweet changes in the MDT project recently. Termination reviews for the EODM and OCL Tools components were "successful" as of last Wednesday (since nobody from the community requested a formal review), and so both have been archived. The OCL Tools component was actually never completely provisioned, so all that remains of it is a page in Eclipsepedia. EODM, on the other hand, was a more or less functional component for several years, but unfortunately it no longer had a community of developers to maintain it (despite a small but interested user community). The Eclipsepedia page for EODM also remains, and its newsgroup and mailing list have been archived, as have its downloads. Luckily, a proposal for a new ODM implementation at Eclipse is in the works; stay tuned for details.

On a positive note, there have been a couple of new beginnings in MDT. The Papyrus component has now been successfully created, and provisioning is nearly complete. The initial project team (one of the largest and most diverse that I've seen at Eclipse) has plans to provide a code contribution sometime in November; for more details, see the newsgroup or mailing list. Also, the proposal for a new Metamodel Specification Tools (MST) subproject in MDT has finally been declared. If you're interested, please join in the newgroup discussion or drop me a line!

On Ducks...

2008-10-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

All things in my world seem to be pointing toward ducks lately. I just unlocked the "Quacker" bike in Mario Kart Wii, I got a random sales call from Black Duck Software, and I stumbled upon the concept of duck typing for the first time. All on the same day. I've always been a firm believer, as Red Green often attested, that duct tape is indispensable. But now I'm starting to wonder whether all those years he was saying "duck type". If duct tape is a handyman's secret weapon, should duck typing be a programmer's secret weapon?

So what is duck typing? It's the notion that if something walks (waddles) like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it can be assumed to be a duck. Duck typing, commonly used in languages like Ruby and Python, is a style of typing where an object's current set of methods and properties, rather than its inheritance from a particular class, determines its semantics. Duck typing really isn't all that new - it's really about dynamic versus static typing. Real programming languages like Smalltalk have supported this concept for a long time. ;)

Who decides what the definitive characteristics of a duck are? Does something need to look like, dress like, or weigh as much as, a duck to be a duck (or a witch, as the case may be)? Does it have to feel, smell, and taste like a duck to be a duck? If "beauty" is in the eye of the beholder, does the beholder get to decide what a duck is? Is it a matter of perception?

After reading about duck typing, I got to thinking that it might be one approach to resolving the issue of unintended inheritance in UML. What if, rather than specializing metaclasses from a common infrastructure, or merging them into a hybrid representation using package merge, related languages could simply declare what they assume the definitive set of shared characteristics for each metaclass (duck) is? Should a metamodel perhaps be simply a selection of mixins rather than a complex heirarchy of (base) classes?

On What's Wrong with UML...

2008-10-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

Sure enough, I had an inevitable encounter with said company the week before last at the OMG technical meeting in Orlando. As Steve Cook said, he was welcomed with mostly open arms. The Analysis and Design Platform Task Force meeting was a little more interesting than usual because Steve had the gumption to point out many of the problems that exist with UML. I'm glad he did. Although many of his observations weren't a surprise to all of us, with any luck his fresh perspective will inspire the UML community to act rather than sit around and pontificate...

One of the things that came out of the Orlando meeting was the formation of a UML Roadmap working group, participation in which is open to any OMG member. As homework for today, participants were asked to come up with the top three things that they feel are wrong with UML. I'm sure many will cite complexity as a major problem with UML, but as I've said before, I think this failure is largely in the tools, not necessarily the metamodel. Rather than been passing the complexity of UML on to the end user, vendors should work smarter (not harder) to find innovative ways to make consumable products.

I don't claim to know everything about UML, but after spending several years developing and maintaining the de facto reference implementation of UML at Eclipse, I have a few opinions about what's wrong with the language. While difficult to choose only three, here's what I think my picks (mostly related to interchange) are.

1. Un-intended inheritance

The hierarchy of metaclasses in UML is deep and wide, and riddled with multiple inheritance. The designers of UML strived for a rich architecture with many reusable levels of abstraction; unfortunately, one of the side-effects of such a design is that concepts which make sense in one context (metaclass) are unintentionally inherited in another (metaclass). This is further exacerbated by package merge, which combines mutltiple flavours of a metaclass, from various contexts, into one overloaded representation.

2. Undefined namespaces for standard stereotypes and primitive types

The UML specification defines standard stereotypes for use in its higher compliance levels, but fails to define a normative URI via which the profiles containing them can be referenced. Similarly, UML defines a set of four standard primitive types, but rather then defining a model library with a normative namespace URI so that they can be reused, it merges them into the langage itself, forcing other related languages to do the same.

3. Inability to create a usable XML schema for UML

Currently, it's not possible to produce a working XML schema for UML because of its extensive use of multiple inheritance. Even with a schema produced using the XML extension mechanism a copy-down inheritance, a given UML instance document couldn't be validated, because UML doesn't make a consistent distinction between base classes and mixin classes.

Here's hoping this new working group will bear some fruit.

On Plans...

2008-10-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

What's that expression again? Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. I was reminded of this cliche recently while reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (a must read). How lucky are you? To be prepared, I think you need to have a plan.

I've been spending a lot of time planning lately. So much that I've had little time to come up for air. In addition to looking at what I'd like to release in the next versions of ER/Studio, ER/Studio Enterprise Portal, and other Embarcadero products in 2009, I've been looking at what will be part of next year's incarnation of MDT as part of the Galileo simultaneous release in June.

Plans for Eclipse projects were due yesterday, and I'm pleased to say that the MDT component leads were able to pull together plans for the MDT components just in time. There's a new, standard format for plans now, which I think is a good thing. One of the nice aspects of the standard plan format is that much of a plan's content can be populated dynamically using Bugzilla queries. Projects like EMF have been doing this for years; I'm glad that more projects will now be able to take advantage of this time-saving approach to planning.

Unfortunately, one of the not-so-nice aspects of the standard plan format is that much of a plan's content can be populated dynamically using Bugzilla queries. I'm cool with the notion that a plan is a "living document", and that using Bugzilla queries allows plan items to transition from "proposed" to "committed" or "deferred" without having to update the document. But this approach also allows bugs to be added and removed from a plan without an easily consumable record of these changes or why such decisions were made. Where's the accountability? In my mind, a plan is not just a document that you can point to at the end of a release to say what you ended up actually doing - that's what release notes are for.

One of the challenges I encountered early on while trying to put together the plans for my MDT components was the desire to view a plan after a release and have it still accurately reflect what was originally planned. Depending on how the Bugzilla queries in a plan are written, it seems that items (particularly ones with version-agnostic target milestones like "M6") which are on the plan for one release could conceivably disappear from that plan and reappear on the plan for a subsequent release. In the absence of the ability to assign multiple target milestones in Bugzilla (one of the features of JIRA that really like) I realized that I needed a way to tag a bug such that it would always be affiliated with the plan for a given release.

I proposed the introduction of a 'galileo' keyword (for bugs that are part of the plan for the Galileo release), but some folks were concerned about the proliferation of keywords (because they are global elements in Bugzilla). Then Denis suggested an even better idea - a 'galileo' flag that could be made available only for projects that wanted/needed it. As it turns out, it's quite a useful thing. Not only can I now tag bugs as being committed (galileo+) or deferred (galileo-) items on my Galileo plan (in perpetuity), I also have a way of marking bugs that get fixed in the Galileo release but weren't originally on my plan (indicated by the absence of the 'plan' keyword). Thanks, Denis!

On Neighborhoods...

2008-09-11T05:38:00.000-07:00

I was right! This is the beginning of the end (or is that the end of the beginning?). Said company has joined the OMG... I guess it's only a matter of time before they finally join Eclipse. There goes the neighborhood. ;)

On The Chrome Effect...

2008-09-03T06:04:00.000-07:00

With all the buzz around Google Chrome, I couldn't help but try it out myself. For a beta, this thing already seems fairly complete. To test that theory, I tried to see how hard it is to add a custom search provider to Chrome. The answer? Not hard at all.

First, select the 'Options' item from the customize/control toolbar menu (the one with the wrench on it).

You'll see a dialog like the one below.

Next, click on the 'Manage' button. You'll see another dialog, like the one below.

Now click on the 'Add' button, and enter the specifics for your custom search engine in the dialog that appears. In my case I added "ER/Studio Enterprise Portal" for the name, "ersportal" for the keyword, and "http://webportal.embarcadero.com/ersportal/SimpleSearch?PV=%s" for the URL. The '%s' is a placeholder for the search terms.

That's it! Now, you can make your new search provider the default if you want, but that's not necessary. Chrome has a super-smart URL field that supports both searching and browsing. All you need to do is type the keyword for your search provider ("esrportal" in my case) and you'll be prompted to press the 'Tab' key to search using it ("ER/Studio Enterprise Portal" here).

Press the 'Tab' key, type in your search term (I typed "customer"), and presto!

I'm sure there will be a never-ending debate about whether the world really needed a new browser... but I don't care. So far, I've been impressed by what I've seen.

On Resources...

2008-08-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

As I put the finishing touches on one of my presentations for EclipseWorld 2008 on this, the last day of blaugust, I'm reminded of how far the resource model in EMF, and in the Eclipse platform itself, for that matter, has come over the past few years. Nearly gone are the days where applications assume that everything is on the local file system or that a file extension dictates the content of a resource...

And, after reading Kevin's blog entry about declarative styling, I'm excited about how much farther we may yet be able to go. e4 will indeed change the way we, and the industry as a whole, think about Eclipse; if it doesn't, I believe it will have failed. I'm anxious to start making contributions, particularly in the area of the new platform's resource model. How do you plan on contributing to the future of Eclipse?

On Conferences...

2008-08-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

As Ian pointed out recently, it's almost conference season again. Although I'm not sure whether I've recovered from the last one yet (EclipseCon 2008, the Washington and Ottawa OMG technical meetings, and two Eclipse/OMG Symposia), my autumn is shaping up to be a busy one. So far I'm committed to attending OMG technical meetings in Orlando and Santa Clara, and I'll be speaking at EclipseWorld 2008 in October.

I'm also hoping I'll be able to attend Eclipse Summit Europe (in November) for the first time this year. I've submitted a few talk proposals, so with any luck one (or more) of them will be accepted. If you're thinking of submitting a talk, now is the time to do it, as the deadline is on Monday! The Modeling symposium on the day before the summit should also prove to be interesting. It sounds like Ed will be there too, as will many of the usual Modeling suspects. Come join in the festivities!

On Good Intentions...

2008-08-28T07:11:00.001-07:00

They say that the road to you-know-where is paved with good intentions. Unfortunately, good intentions aren't enough to sustain a project at Eclipse. As I've said before, to be successful, an Eclipse project must adequately address its three communities (contributors/committers, users, and adopters). This takes work.

We've had to make some difficult decisions in the Modeling project lately, to deal with some projects/components that didn't quite pan out as they were originally intended. To be clear, Eclipse is not a hosting facility (i.e. dumping ground). It's an ecosystem where like-minded individuals can work together to build extensible frameworks and exemplary tools.

In the Modeling project, we like to think of it being relatively easy to create a project, but hard to keep one. We don't want to stifle innovation, but at the same time we hold our projects to the same high standards that Eclipse had gained a reputation for. The mechanism for creating Modeling projects may change a little now that the new Eclipse development process has been approved, but our attitude will remain the same.

The good news is that, while some projects fade away, new projects are always on the horizon. The Papyrus component of MDT was recently approved for creation (stay tuned for the announcement), and a couple more proposals for new MDT subprojects are in the works. If you're interested in being part of the excitement, let me know!

On Schedules...

2008-08-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

The Pentaho BI Platform, on which ER/Studio Enterprise Portal is based, makes use of a Quartz database to schedule its jobs. Quartz is a full-featured, open source job scheduling system can can be integrated with virtually any Java application.

Unfortunately, the schedule administration interface provided with Pentaho is somewhat cryptic (and hence difficult to use), in part because it uses cron expressions to specify job schedules. There are several tutorials on cron triggers available on the Internet, so I won't provide a full tutorial here. However, I thought it would be helpful to describe what the format of a cron expression looks like and show a few examples that might be useful to, for example, set up a schedule for the synchronization of the reporting database with the ER/Studio repository database.

A cron expression is a string of six or seven fields separated by white space. Specific values, as well as certain special characters, are allowed for each field, as follows:

Seconds : values are 0-59, special characters include , - * /
Minutes : values are 0-59, special characters include , - * /
Hours : values are 0-23, special characters include , - * /
Day of Month : values are 1-31, special characters include , - * / L W
Month : values are 1-12 or JAN-DEC, special characters include , - * /
Day of Week : values are 1-7 or SUN-SAT, special characters include , - * / L #
Year (optional) : values are 1970-2099, special characters include , - * /

I won't go into detail on all of the special characters, but * means "all values" and ? means "no specific value" (useful when you want to specify either day of month or day of week but not the other). Here are some examples:

0 0 0 * * ? = midnight every day (the default schedule in the portal)
0 30 1 L * ? = 1:30 AM on the last day of every month
0 0 2 ? * 0#3 = 2:00 AM on the third Sunday of every month
0 0 * * * ? = every hour

It's important to note that schedules between midnight and 1:00 AM can result in either a skip or a repeat depending on changes due to daylight savings time.

On Changing Tack...

2008-08-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

In the world of sailing, the term 'tack' is fairly overloaded. In one sense it refers to the front bottom corner of a sail, in another it refers to the side of the boat on which the main sail is being carried (relative to the wind), and in yet another sense it refers to the action of turning the boat through head to wind (e.g. changing from a port tack to a starboard tack). When on a windward leg in a race, it's important to pay attention to variations in the wind direction that may force you to point the boat closer to the wind ("head up") or further away from the wind ("bear away") in order to stay on a close hauled (i.e. fast) point of sail. In sailing terminology, these are referred to "lifts" and "knocks". Generally, a knock on one tack corresponds to a lift on the other tack, so if you're frequently getting knocked, it's advantageous to tack (see, I told you the term was overloaded).

I've found that the same often applies in software development - a change in the way you are attempting to solve a problem can put you in a better position than you would have been with the original approach. I have been "knocked" for over a week now trying to regenerate the source code for the UML2 component of MDT in a runtime workspace. I've always done it this way because I typically need to use recent changes in UML2 itself to regenerate the UML2 source code. No matter what I tried (clean workspace, more memory, builder settings) I could not get one of the code generation templates to compile. What was most frustrating was that the same template compiled successfully in my development workspace.

So, I decided it was finally time to change my approach and make use of a PDE enhancement that was made as part of the recent Ganymede release. I used the 'dropins' folder as my workspace (e.g. -data "C:\Eclipse 3.4 MDT Galileo\eclipse\dropins") and the settings for my runtime workspace as the development properties (e.g. -dev "file:C:/Eclipse 3.4 MDT Galileo/eclipse/dropins/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.pde.core/MDT/dev.properties") and, voila, I was able to bootstrap UML2 and my template compiled successfully. Not only did this solve my problem, but it also means I have one less workspace to configure and maintain!

On Memory...

2008-08-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

It's been a week now since ER/Studio Enterprise Portal was released, and so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Yesterday I mentioned that, while testing the portal, I find the Tomcat service management utility helpful. One of the things, in particular, that I do is change the amount of memory that the application server's Java virtual machine makes use of.

The portal isn't officially supported on Windows XP, but it will run on it. Depending on how much RAM the machine has, and how many other applications are running, the maximum memory pool needs to be lowered to something like 1024 or 512. There's a way to do this via the command line as well:

"c:\Program Files\Embarcadero\ERStudioEnterprisePortal1.0\tomcat\bin\tomcat5.exe" //US//Tomcat5ERSPortal --JvmMx=1024

On Service Management...

2008-08-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that blaugust is drawing to a close... where did the summer go? Given that I have a few more blog entries left before I hit my target for blaugustFEST, I'll be spending some time this week covering lesser known aspects of Embarcadero's ER/Studio Enterprise Portal product (launched last week). While somewhat product-specific, I hope that this information will also be of general interest to those of you who may be using Tomcat as an application server or Pentaho as a business intelligence platform...

The Enterprise Portal makes use of Apache Tomcat as its application server, and installs it as a service in Windows. One of the things I've found, while testing and using the portal, is that I often want to know the current status of this service and/or do things like shut it down and start it back up again. Fortunately, Tomcat provides a service management utility to do this and other maintenance tasks related to the service. To launch it, type (something similar to) the following from a command prompt (or in the Run dialog available from the Start > Run... menu item):

"C:\Program Files\Embarcadero\ERStudioEnterprisePortal1.0\tomcat\bin\tomcat5w.exe" //MS//Tomcat5ERSPortal

After doing this, an icon will appear in the system tray (on the right-hand side of the task bar). If you double-click the icon, a window will open which allows you to start/stop/restart the service, change the way it logs on to Windows, set the logging behavior, configure the application server's Java virtual machine, among other things.

On Walk Thrus...

2008-08-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

How green are you willing to be? With all the talk these days about global warming, carbon offsets, ecomuseums, and the like, two recent drive thru experiences have got me thinking.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were at the window of a leading coffee company's drive thru to pick up the drinks we had ordered, and were somewhat surprised when they were handed to us in a tray. We explained that we had no need for a tray since there were only two drinks which could probably be managed just fine with the cupholders in our vehicle, and asked that the tray be taken back. To our dismay, the dutiful employee refused, saying that the tray had been used (despite our argument that it in fact had not). We suggested that perhaps they should ask their customers whether they would need a tray at the time the order is placed, but were told that, due to a new policy that was being enforced, employees were not allowed to ask that kind of question. We asked how, then, environmentally conscious customers could avoid wasting trays that they have no intention of using, and the response was that customers should remember to specify explicitly that they will not need a tray when placing their orders. Upon asking what we were to do with a tray that we clearly had no use for, we were directed to a blue recycling box several feet ahead of us in the drive thru... which, not surprisingly, was overflowing with "used" drink trays. Stupefied, we got out of our vehicle, picked up the trays that were strewn about, added ours to the pile (after stomping on it a few times), and pulled away, questioning whether that coffee company deserved our business in the future.

Just today, I was waiting in the drive thru of another leading coffee company (this time, a Canadian one) with my regular Friday lunch crowd, and was drawn into a recurring argument about minimization of greenhouse gas emissions via idle reduction. One of my friends has always maintained that an anticipated idle of longer than ten seconds justifies turning off the engine and restarting it. Another friend argued that, as he learned recently, the threshold is actually 60 seconds. In the midst of the discussion, they both stopped and asked whether vehicles needed to idle at all in drive thrus. They then proceeded to put the car in neutral, turn the engine off, get out of the car and, I kid you not, push the vehicle along, despite puzzled stares from patrons inside the restaurant and obvious looks of frustration from the drivers of the vehicles behind us.

Both of these are examples of fastidiousness. As with all things, I think it's important to have standards, and it often pays to be fastidious, especially in a role like mine. But sometimes we need to question whether those standards make practical sense...

On Triads...

2008-08-21T06:31:00.001-07:00

Word on the street is that I'm not the best program manager ever. At least, that's what the T-shirts say. Regardless of whether you can believe everything you read, and given that I'm often asked what it is that I do for a living, I thought I'd take a moment to explain what exactly a program manager (PGM) is...

A program manager at Embarcadero is a cross between a product owner (in the agile sense) and a project manager. We "own" the user experience; that is, we determine how requirements get turned into functionality that appears in our products. Organizationally, as a program manager, we're part of two triads.

As part of the external, or customer-facing, triad (the "cone of silence"), a program manager works with a product manager (PM) and a product marketing manager (PMM) to gather requirements, assess the market, validate product roadmaps, and analyze the competition. Being a keelboat racer, I like to think of this triad as as the strategic part of my job. In sailing, strategy is what you'd plan to do to win the race if there were no other boats on the course. For more insight into this side of the business, check out the interview that Greg did recently with my PM (Jason Tiret) and PMM (Josh Howard).

As part of the internal, or engineering-facing, triad, a program manager works with a software development manager (SDM) and a quality assurance manager (QAM) to deliver a product which satisfies its requirements, on time and with quality. I like to think of this triad as the tactical part of my job. In sailing, tactics is how you actually make it around the course when there are lots of other boats out there trying to do the same thing. There are typically two kinds of software projects: time-based (where the product is released on the scheduled date, even if the scope needs to change to do so) and content-based (where the product is released with the planned content, even if the date needs to change to do so). At Embarcadero, our projects are of the former kind, and "he who ships, on time, speaks".

Oh, one more thing. We're always looking for good people, so if this role sounds attractive to you, drop me a line. ;)

On Darkness...

2008-08-20T08:12:00.000-07:00

Speaking of darkness, I spent some time yesterday producing updated XMI serializations for UML 2.2 and was reminded of some recent banter in the blogosphere about UML's apparent demise. As original author of the de facto reference implementation of the UML 2.x metamodel (i.e. the abstract syntax), I feel the need to offer my perspective on the issue.

In my opinion, tool vendors have failed. MDD is a sham, at least the way it has been employed in tools to date. Rather than contorting the artifacts, interface, and user (!) to meet the needs of the model or modeling language (UML, DSL, or otherwise), tools should be applying MDD (and visualization in general) where it makes sense to bring about real productivity and result in better quality software. I know there’s increased productivity and quality to be gained from modeling because I (and many others I know) have experienced it. But then I tend to be more accepting of the whole “no pain, no gain” mentality than most users. Tools need to evolve to make consumption of this stuff painless.

What's interesting to me, despite reports of UML's decent into darkness, is that a once long-time detractor of UML has recently changed its tune and started incorporating support for it into one of its tools. Maybe this really is the beginning of the end. UML is dead! Long live UML!

On People...

2008-08-19T17:42:00.000-07:00

At the risk of getting sentimental, I'm going to get sentimental for a moment. Today, Embarcadero Technologies released ER/Studio Enterprise Portal 1.0, the first product I've been directly involved in launching since leaving my previous employer just over a year ago.

Looking back at how we got to this day, I'm reminded of a major reason why I came to Embarcadero in the first place - the people. A lot has been, and will be, said about the many virtues of this product. But when I think about it, I can't help but focus on the people that persevered through many challenges so that this product could see the light of day. This is what the word "team" is all about. w00t!

On Trojan Source...

2008-08-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

Like me, Gord's product is also on the eve of its release. Oh, what a feeling ! What a rush! The last time I felt like this wasn't all that long ago, actually. At the time, Ed blogged about how it felt like the end was nigh. Well, that end has since come and gone, and now everybody knows what Ed was really talking about. Personally, I think he should have entitled his farewell blog entry "So long, and thanks for all the FOSS".

Or is that FLOSS? The product I'm about to release is based on an open source platform that, believe it or not, isn't Eclipse (gasp). Their approach to open source, dubbed "professional open source", is somewhat... different from that of Eclipse. It seems ironic (at least to me) that a platform which boasts freedom from closed, proprietary software would switch to a more restrictive license mid-stream... it's almost like it was part of the grand plan all along.

So what does 'open source' really mean, then? According to the Open Source Initiative (OSI), which officially owns the definition, the distribution terms of open source software must comply with ten criteria. The OSI maintains a list of the open source licenses which have successfully gone through their approval process and comply with these criteria; both EPL and that other license are on it, as are many others. So what's the big deal? Just ask one of the customers or OEM partners who, if they want to adopt the next major version of said platform, may be forced to decide between releasing some of their software under the new open source license and purchasing a commercial license for the platform...

On Search Providers...

2008-08-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that I spent a lot of my time recently on a deep dive into one of Embarcadero's products that's about to release in the coming weeks. I had planned on giving a "sneak peak" as to what it's all about, but it turns out that Greg beat me to it (thanks, Greg!).

Rather than repeat everything that Greg said, I'll focus on a lesser known aspect of one of the portal's main features. Despite the incredible value of its shared reports, explore dashboard, ad hoc query interface, and administration console, perhaps the most popular (and most scrutinized!) feature of the portal thus far has been its search capability.

One of the cool things (at least in my mind) about the search capability of the ER/Studio Enterprise Portal is that, like other Web-based search interfaces, it can be integrated into the search bar of your favorite browser. I'll walk through the steps to do this for Internet Explorer as an example.

1. Select the 'Find More Providers...' item from the search bar's drop-down menu.

This will take you to a Web page where can choose from among several exiting providers or create your own.

2. From a different browser window, type 'TEST' into the search box of the ER/Studio Enterprise Portal and hit .

This will take you to the Search Results page.

3. Copy and paste the URL from the Search Results page (the "&x=8&y=6" portion at the end isn't necessary), specify a name for the new search provider, and press the 'Install' button.

This will open a dialog asking you to confirm that you want to add the search provider (click 'Add Provider').

4. Choose the new search provider from the search bar's drop-down menu, type in your text, and away you go!

To avoid having to log into the portal each time you want to search, you can also add your user name and password to the URL before pressing the 'Install' button in step 3 above by appending, for example, the string "&userid=MyUserID&password=MyPassword".

On Status Quo...

2008-08-05T06:05:00.000-07:00

What the heck is Blaugust, anyway? Well, it's what James has been calling the month of August lately in light of a little challenge we have going within the program management team here at Embarcadero (yes, another fest). blaugustFEST is a contest to see who can reach out to the community by blogging or commenting on a blog entry a minimum of twenty times during the month of August. So, keep your eyes peeled for some creative blogging by James, Gord, Wassim, and others... it could prove to be quite entertaining.

I don't mention Ian above because, alas, Ian has decided to move on to another pasture (I don't say greener since, as Ed often says, the grass on the other side only looks greener because you're looking at it from an angle). So, things aren't exactly status quo around here, for various reasons.

I'm glad. Not about Ian leaving, because we'll really miss him, but about things not being status quo. The problem with status quo is that it tends to stifle innovation. I get frustrated (and did just recently, in fact) when faced with a situation where "our users have come to expect that it works this way, and if we change it, we'll never hear the end of it". I'm sure many of you have been in the same boat. There's no doubt we'll be facing scenarios like that with e4.

There's this old story about a woman who always cut the ends off a roast before putting it into the oven. When asked why by one of her kids, she realized she didn't really know - her mother had always done it that way. The next time she saw her mother, she asked the same question, and her mother explained that she had to because she didn't have a large enough pan to fit a whole roast.

The real challenge, IMHO, is to face opposition in the name of progress. Sometimes we need to consider new, potentially better, ways of doing things. That's what innovation is all about, after all...

On Blaugust...

2008-08-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

Not unlike John, it seems as though I dropped off the face of the planet(s) nearly three months ago. James has a great expression for this kind of phenomenon - "going dark". Well, I can assure you that while I have been dark in the blogosphere of late, I've been bright in other spheres.

So where have I been? So much has happened since my last entry, it's hard to remember it all...

I participated in the e4 Summit in Ottawa. I know, old news, but now there's an actual proposal for the e4 project. What area will you be contributing to?

I had a chance to meet with my CodeGear brethren in Scotts Valley for the first time, and I'm very excited about what we'll be able to accomplish now as a combined company. Stay tuned!

I co-hosted the second of two Eclipse/OMG Symposia in Ottawa, and I'd venture to say that it was even more fruitful than the first!

I played a part (as lead of the MDT project) in ensuring that Ganymede, in all its glory, was successfully released. w00t!

I took a much needed vacation (they're never long enough!) - one week camping in New Brunswick and a second week at a chalet in Charlevoix. Oh, the stories...

I helped orchestrate a summit for Embarcadero's Software Consultants in Toronto. What a great team!

I did a deep-dive on one of my products that is about to release in the coming weeks.

I'll be taking time to blog about each of these activities (and others) in more detail over the next month because, as of today, it is Blaugust after all!

On Navigable Owned Ends...

2008-05-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

OK, it’s time for me to get a little bit technical (and to try out JBuilder 2008) for a change. While working on the E/R metamodel as a member of the IMM submission team, I ran into an “interesting” scenario recently involving associations with one end type. Consider the class diagram below (the names have been changed to protect the innocent).

Can you see what’s wrong with this picture? The intent of the modeler was to express the fact that a bicycle has two wheels, one of which is the ‘front’ wheel (from the perspective of the rear) and one of which is the ‘rear’ wheel (from the perspective of the front). If you think about what an instance of this model might look like if it were mapped directly to classes and fields in a programming language like Java (using EMF, for example), you’ll realize that each instance of the 'BicycleWheel' class would need a reference to the bicycle’s other wheel, but also to itself – in order to satisfy the multiplicities (both association ends are required, i.e. they have a lower bound of 1), each wheel must reference both the front wheel and the rear wheel of the bicycle; obviously not a desirable result. In fact, it’s currently impossible to create a valid instance of this model using Java code generated by EMF, since an attempt to set a reference from the front wheel to itself (to satisfy the multiplicity) would result in its reference to the rear wheel being discarded.

What’s interesting (at least to a modeling geek like me) is that this redundancy could, in theory, be eliminated simply by making the association ends (the 'frontWheel' and 'rearWheel' properties) navigable owned ends. What does that mean? Well, in UML 2.x, it’s possible to designate a navigable association end as being owned either by the end type (as in the diagram above) or by the association itself. In the latter case, a mapping to Java would require a class to represent the association; now, in addition to there being an instance of the 'Bicycle' class and two instances of the 'BicycleWheel' class, there would be (at a minimum) an instance of the class representing the association which, in turn, would only need to reference each of the wheels once to satisfy the multiplicities. Ed and I have been giving some thought as to how owned association ends might be mapped to Java using EMF, but this special case makes me think that we still don’t have it quite right – see below.

I think there would still be an issue here with respect to navigability, because given a bicycle wheel, it's supposed to be possible to navigate to both the front wheel and the rear wheel (according to the model). Would this require redundant entries in the maps? What if a front wheel is passed as an argument to the 'getFrontWheel(BicycleWheel)' method? What if the owner of the bicycle rotates its wheels every season? I’m starting to wonder whether it should be considered valid at all to model a bidirectional association with required member ends and one end type. In the absence of an answer to that question and/or EMF support for mapping navigable owned ends to Java, there are a number of ways the model could be changed and still (or better) express the original intent. The model we ended up going with (or, rather, a reasonable facsimile thereof) is below. What might you have done differently?

On Change...

2008-05-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

Embarcadero. It ain't just about databases anymore...

On the Efforts of the Few...

2008-05-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

Dave has blogged a couple of times recently about his thoughts on standards development. As someone who is actively participating in the submission and revision of several specifications (some of which are standards) at the OMG, these comments certainly hit home. I agree that it’s typically 10% of the contributors that tend to do 90% of the work, and too often it seems that I’m among the “lucky” few...

One of the challenges of developing an OMG specification is the lack of tooling support for CMOF (Complete Meta Object Facility) models. This was one of the many topics that were discussed during the “Mega Modeling Mania” BoF (and again during the Eclipse/OMG Symposium) at EclipseCon in March. Based on those discussions, there does appear to be some demand for tooling that will make it easy to create, serialize (in CMOF-compliant XMI), and document metamodels that form the basis for open specifications. In response, I agreed to coordinate a proposal for a new component in the MDT project (tentatively dubbed “Metamodel Specification Tools”, or MST) to provide this kind of tooling at Eclipse.

The idea would be for the MST component to customize and/or extend the existing (or forthcoming) UML editors (primarily for class and package/profile diagrams) to expose CMOF concepts which are missing in UML (like identifiers, namespace URIs, and XMI tags), leverage the CMOF (de)serialization support that was introduced in the UML2 component as part of the Ganymede release, and provide a mechanism for generating a specification (or at least a decent boiler plate for one) directly from the metamodel using BIRT. Of course, it might also be desirable for the component to automate the mapping between a metamodel and its profile representation (if there is one) and possibly to make use of the Eclipse Process Framework (EPF) to document and coordinate the specification development process. If you’d be interested in contributing to such a component, I’d like to hear from you!

On Planetesimals...

2008-04-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been asked the question, "What planet are you on?" I know I have... Going forward, I'm afraid I'll have to confirm peoples' suspicions when I respond, because I'm actually on more than one planet now that Embarcadero has launched its new blog aggregator, Planet Embarcadero. It makes me wonder whether I should start calling my blog a "planetesimal" instead of a "pob"...

On Giving a Damus...

2008-04-28T06:25:00.000-07:00

And another one gone, and another one gone. Christian Damus is the latest addition to the growing list of prominent Eclipse committers in exile, and he's got a clever new email address to boot! I think the answer to Ian's recent question about the effect of open source participation on career progression should be a resounding "yes". Best of luck, Christian!

On a FESTivus for the REST of us...

2008-04-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

A number of special occasions recently have reminded me of one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes. Remember Festivus? If only we could really escape commercialization…

Speaking of fests, Embarcadero recently launched db FEST, a series of challenges that, in addition to introducing the world to its professional grade database tools, will provide each participant with a free T-shirt. I’ve already got mine, and I have to say that they’re pretty cool. Have you taken the challenge?

Another occasion that’s been on my mind lately is EclipseWorld 2008. Submissions were due on April 16, so I spent some time last week putting together a couple of abstracts for technical classes. One of my submissions, entitled “RESTful EMF”, would highlight the ways in which EMF supports the design principles of REST, and identify some best practices for working with resources using EMF. This is especially pertinent, IMHO, given the many enhancements the EMF team has made as part of the upcoming Ganymede release to support things like URI handlers and content type definitions, among other things.

On Fake Ed Merks...

2008-04-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

Evidently, the most popular session at EclipseCon 2008 was the keynote delivered by Dan Lyons, a.k.a. “Fake Steve Jobs”. In case you missed it, Ed provided a nice summary of the session (which I witnessed him write in real time because we happened to be sitting together) on his blog. Speaking of Ed, I’ve been wondering for a couple of weeks now where the real one was on Thursday at EclipseCon. I mean, there was a guy who bore a striking resemblance to Ed, blogging furiously, at the Eclipse/OMG symposium that day, but I never would have expected the real Ed to sit through nearly four hours of discussion about the OMG! Maybe times really are changing...

I personally think the symposium was a success. Admittedly, we didn’t have nearly enough time to discuss the issues that were raised (which, in my mind, is better than having no discussion at all), and the participants might have felt a greater sense of purpose had there been an “official” OMG representative in attendance (the fact that the OMG Technical Meeting took place in Washington the week just before EclipseCon made this infeasible)… but I think the level of participation and the quality of the presentations were a testament to the fact that people are indeed committed to a future that involves more collaboration between Eclipse and the OMG. Of course, this was just the first of two symposia being jointly hosted the two organizations – the second one is scheduled to take place at the OMG Technical Meeting in my home city on Wednesday, June 25. I heard a rumor that there might also be an Eclipse DemoCamp that same week, so there will be more than one reason to join the party in Ottawa. Hopefully I’ll see you there (here)!

On Doing The Right Thing...

2008-04-04T06:47:00.000-07:00

Another frequent pain point of mine revolves around shopping carts. More specifically, the things people do (or rather, don’t do) with them. For example, I often find myself reorganizing the corral in the parking lot of at Loblaw’s or Costco just so that vehicles (including mine) can get by. Are people so concerned with their own interests that they can’t exert even a small amount of effort to return their carts in an semi-orderly fashion? Have we as a society become so preoccupied with our busy lives that we’ve forgotten simple things like common courtesy? Why is it that children so often seem to know better than we do? I was on a Family Day walk to Starbucks with my kids few weeks ago when they discovered a couple of abandoned shopping carts at a strip mall. Watching them struggle to push the carts all the way to the other end of the mall so that they could be returned to the corral got me thinking…

What is it that makes a community really successful? Is it not a critical mass of members that are committed to doing The Right Thing? Do the members of a community not get to decide what The Right Thing is? What if those members don't see eye to eye? Are the inevitable conflicts that arise not actually good for the community in the end? Is conflict not a necessary prerequisite to growth?

Projects at Eclipse have a responsibility to build and be responsive to three communities – contributors/committers, users, and adopters. What happens when what’s in the best interest of one of those communities is at odds with what’s in the best interest of another? I had to face a situation like this during the Birds of a Feature session that I moderated recently at EclipseCon 2008. The current leadership of the UML2 Tools component stated that one of their goals, in attempting to address the needs of the adopter community, was to regulate the commoditization of UML tooling at Eclipse. Many of the attendees seemed surprised to learn this, and made it clear that while working towards eventually being able to completely generate tooling using GMF is a noble pursuit, what the user community really needs now is a set of robust, usable editors for UML models. I’m quite happy with outcome of the session – representatives from at least four different parties (so far) have offered to pool their resources (nearly three times as many as the number of committers on the current component) in building a complementary set of exemplary end-user UML tools at Eclipse (most likely as part of a new component of the MDT project). Some may argue that this will only serve to further add to the confusion that already exists within the Modeling project, but I’m not sure I agree. Regardless, I’m encouraged by the prospect of what appears to be a true community-driven initiative to do The Right Thing at Eclipse...

On Maintenance...

2008-03-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it. I think that maybe I'm not meant to fly. My travel to and from EclipseCon 2008 (which I'll be blogging about in the very near future, once I collect my thoughts) was fraught with yet more joy (or lack thereof). I suppose it was foolish of me to expect things to get better, but what can I say, I'm an optimist at heart (or a sucker for punishment, depending on how you look at it). In hindsight, airline travel pain points aren't all about safety and security... they're often about maintenance.

My flight from Chicago to San Jose last Sunday was initially delayed because of a generator problem which somehow resolved itself, so we were cleared to fly about a half hour late (which was good, I thought, since I figured there was no way we'd all fit on later flights with all the masses heading to mecca). Once on the plane, though, the captain informed us that in addition to having to wait for the plane to finish being refueled (aren't they supposed to do that before people get on the plane?), there was an issue with the "chimes". Apparently, something about the forward lavatory was interfering with the pilots' ability to communicate with the crew. A technician boarded the aircraft and spent 30 minutes trying several things, including rebooting the plane, to resolve the issue. Another announcement informed us that a part needed to be ordered and that we were to stay on the plane and wait for an estimated hour until it arrived. Eventually it became apparent that the part would take longer than expected to arrive, and so those that wished to re-enter the terminal were allowed to de-board the plane. I decided to get off and stretch my legs, so I took my backpack with me and headed to the terminal. About fifteen minutes later, decision was made to abandon the aircraft, soon after which chaos ensued as those that had left their carry-on bags on the plane attempted to re-board the aircraft to retrieve them amidst the mass exodus of passengers whom had decided to wait it out. Miraculously, a replacement aircraft was found and we finally departed almost exactly three hours later than our original departure time.

My return flight (from San Jose to Washington en route to Ottawa) was only marginally better. All passengers had boarded and were ready to depart on time when the captain made an announcement that there was a minor maintenance issue that needed attention. I knew the drill. On comes the mechanic to go through his diagnostic routine which, again, involved "control-alt-deleting" the aircraft (to use the captain's words). Once the plane was restarted, the problem magically disappeared (which wasn't necessarily all that reassuring, especially after the captain admitted that the issue had been with the plane's navigation system), and after the ten minutes or so that were required to reprogram the coordinates of route to Washington, we pulled away from the gate only an hour later than we were supposed to.

When will the madness (maintenance) end?

On Airline Travel...

2008-03-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

Nick blogged the other day about pain points. Well, I have a few of my own to share based on my recent experiences traveling on commercial airlines. It’s easy to let frustration get the better of you in the face of the increasing number of ways in which air travel can make you feel quite insignificant, but hey – most, if not all, of it is in the interest of safety or security and hence for the common good, right? Sometimes I wonder.

Like Ed, I generally consider myself a fairly patient person. Lately, though, it seems that every time I fly, my patience is tested. On my way to Embarcadero’s Product Advisory Council (PAC) meeting in San Francisco last month, for example, one of the screening personnel at the security checkpoint gave me a hard time about my laptop computer. Here’s roughly how our conversation went.

Screener: Is this your laptop?
Me: Yes.
Screener: It’s kind of big to be a laptop, isn’t it?
Me: Oh?
Screener: Yes. I’ve seen larger, but usually they have some kind of handle built into them.
Me: Sounds more like a portable desktop computer than a laptop.
Screener: Exactly. Haven’t you heard of the MacBook Air?
Me: Yes, I wish I had one.
Screener: Then why don’t you get one instead of carrying this thing around?
Me: I don’t make decisions about what hardware I use for my job – my employer does.
Screener: Your employer doesn’t like you very much, do they?

See, I told you that branding is everywhere. I just didn’t expect to have it waved in my face by airport security. Somehow I think that if I were the one poking fun, the conversation would have taken a sharp turn for the worse…

Coming back from the PAC, I had what was probably the most pleasant flight from San Jose to Toronto I’ve ever had. I got to catch up with my old university acquaintance, Donald Smith, and we even had a spare seat between us. That’s where the joy ended, though. Upon arriving at my connecting gate in Toronto, I discovered that the aircraft for my next flight was late arriving due to a “maintenance item” that required attention. After a while, the plane arrived, and by the time we boarded and were ready to push back, we were about 45 minutes late. But apparently we weren’t the only plane looking to push back at that exact moment, so we had to wait another 20 minutes or so until the congestion cleared. Finally on our way to the runway (or so we thought), the captain announced that before we could take off, the plane needed to be de-iced, for which, unfortunately, there would be a 45 minute wait. We waited, and at last the de-icing was done, so we headed down the runway… but just before take-off, the plane slowed down and turned back toward the gate. The captain announced that the “maintenance item” had re-surfaced and that we had to proceed to the gate for an inspection by a maintenance crew. Of course, the maintenance crew deemed the aircraft unsafe to fly, so all of the passengers were cast out and told we were on our own since the remaining flights to Ottawa that night were full. We were instructed to proceed to the baggage claim area to retrieve ours bags, where we waited… and waited… and waited some more, until finally there was an announcement that somehow a spare aircraft had been found and that we had a new departure time which turned out to be only five hours later than our original one. Of course the tipping point came when, as we were boarding the “replacement” plane, one of my fellow passengers observed that the new aircraft seemed oddly familiar…

I was supposed to arrive in Washington for the OMG technical meeting on Sunday (yesterday). But we had near-record snowfall in Eastern Canada this past weekend (52 cm in Ottawa), which wreaked havoc on airline flights. My original flight, scheduled to leave Ottawa on Sunday at noon was, of course, canceled. After an hour and a half on the phone, I was able to secure a seat on the 9:00 a.m. flight Monday morning. Naturally, that flight was late departing because of gate mismanagement, so when I arrived in Toronto, I really had to hustle to make it to the luggage claim area and through customs to get to my connecting gate for my departure time of 11:25 a.m.. I arrived with 15 minutes to spare, which turned out to be 45 minutes because, of course, there was a “maintenance item” that needed to be addressed. So, I waited in line to board the plane only to find out that Air Canada, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that since my flight from Ottawa was late arriving there was no way I could possibly have made the connection, so they gave my seat to someone else and re-booked me on a later flight… nine hours and twenty five minutes later, to be exact. I was offered the opportunity to try for a stand-by seat on the 3:55 p.m. flight, but was told that the chances were slim since most flights were full due to the cancellations over the weekend. I had to do a podcast interview at 3:00 p.m., though, so I decided to shoot for the 6:00 p.m. flight instead (can you see where this is going?). As luck would have it, I made it onto the 6:00 p.m. flight, only to be the “random” passenger selected for the extra security search half way to the plane (apparently flights to Washington require extra security precautions – go figure). I finally arrived in Washington, but, you guessed it, my luggage didn’t. So, here I sit in the hotel room waiting for a call from the concierge to tell me that my clothing has arrived. If it doesn’t, it’s going to be an (even more) interesting week…

On Due Diligence...

2008-03-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not talking about e4 (surprise!). In the midst of the fray I let curiosity get the better of me this afternoon. I noticed Atoine Toulme's newsgroup post about a BPMN diagram of the Eclipse legal process and wondered what the same diagram would look like if created using the free community edition of EA/Studio, Embarcadero's Eclipse-based business process modeling tool. Here's what I came up with.

What was interesting to me, other than the obvious differences in appearance between two renderings of the same diagram, was that I would have chosen to draw the process differently. It reminded me of an article I read recently about the wide variation in the way different people choose to represent their processes. BPMN has indeed become the de facto standard for process model diagrams, but if everyone uses the notation in a different way, can we truly communicate our ideas using the same language? Food for thought.

On Branding...

2008-02-29T20:05:00.000-08:00

So, after blogging for just under two months, it would appear that I’ve already started to adopt a particular blogging style. To folks like Alex, my style may seem like advertising without trying to sell anything, but to me that’s something entirely different – branding.

As a society, we’re bombarded by various forms of branding every day. For example, I went to the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto last night to watch a movie (‘No Country For Old Men’ – now there’s a subject for a blog entry) and was somewhat taken aback when I was greeted by the cashier with “Welcome to Scotiabank” when I went to purchase a ticket. Not “Welcome to Scotiabank Theatre”, just “Welcome to Scotiabank”. I almost felt compelled to say “Thanks. I’d like to make a withdrawal, please…”.

I’m starting to believe that the days of the hard sell are numbered, as companies are becoming more and more preoccupied with brand recognition than with marketing specific products. Can you remember ever seeing an ad from IBM that mentioned the name of one of their products? Mind you, there’s good brand recognition and bad brand recognition. Seeing as it’s often not what you’ve produced, but how (well) you’ve produced it, vendors ideally want their brand to have a connotation of quality instead of being regarded as a “necessary evil”.

I’ve been thinking a lot about branding in Eclipse-based products lately. The Rich Client Platform (RCP) does a pretty good job of providing mechanisms for branding, what with its custom window images, About dialog, welcome experience, and all, but what about products that are delivered as plug-ins to an existing Eclipse shell? How does a vendor make it known in a subtle (but not too subtle) way that they’re responsible for that great (or not so great) editor, view, or action that you’re currently using? How are users to distinguish, among the potentially many plug-ins that have been installed into their Eclipse IDE, between the dross, the slag, and the cereal topper?

On Vocabulary...

2008-02-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

As it happens, one man’s dross is another man’s cereal topper. In case you didn’t know (it wasn't part of my vocabulary, so I had to look it up), dross is a mass of solid impurities floating on a molten metal bath. Apparently it’s used quite commonly as slang in the UK. Who knew?

Speaking of vocabulary, creation of another new component, Semantics for Business Vocabularies and Rules (SBVR), as part of the Model Development Tools (MDT) subproject at Eclipse has been approved. I’m really excited about this because now, not only will it be possible to model the various forms of data (relational data, logical data, conceptual data, business processes, etc.) in an enterprise using components in MDT, it will be possible to capture the semantics of the vocabularies and rules embodied by that data. Could it be that it will soon be possible to finally bridge the gap between business and IT using open source frameworks and tools from Eclipse? In light of this and other initiatives like the recently announced Open Requirements Management Framework (ORMF) project proposal, I’m optimistic that the answer to that question may well be “Yes!”.

On Thursday at EclipseCon...

2008-02-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's hard to believe it's taken me almost a month to select which talks I'll attend at EclipseCon this year. Since I started, even more interesting events have been added to the agenda, like the Mega Modeling Mania on Tuesday, the BlackBerry Developer Day on Wednesday, and of course the Hackathon. If you're attending EclipseCon, I hope you weren't planning on getting any sleep!

For what it's worth, here are the talks I've selected for Thursday. As it turns out, my selections for this day were easy.

Keynote - Cory Doctorow

This guy is a science fiction writer (and a blogger!). Cool. I wish I could make a living writing books...

Eclipse/OMG Symposium

This is the first of two symposia on open source and open standards (the other is being held at the OMG technical meeting in June). Seeing as I was one of the co-chairs for the program committee, I can't miss this one... nor would I want to. This a rare opportunity to focus on the synergies between open source and open specifications and to discuss how the joint future of Eclipse and the OMG can be shaped. Attendance to the symposium presentations is open to all registered EclipseCon attendees, so come join in the discussion!

Eclipse Community Project Spot Light

Ah, the always interesting conference wrap-up panel. This is also a session you don't want to miss. Of course, we'll all be anxious to see that slide with the conference statistics on it. I wonder how big a bar tab we'll be able to rack up this year...

On Super Fast Gro-Food...

2008-02-15T14:01:00.001-08:00

I was watching an episode ("Safe But Not Sorry") of The Tom and Jerry Show on Teletoon Retro with my kids the other morning in which they pour a bottle of "Super Fast Gro-Food" onto a seedling and within seconds it sprouts into a mature tree. The first thing that came to my mind, after getting past the fact that the label on the bottle was upside down, was how fast the Eclipse Modeling Project, and in particular its Model Development Tools (MDT) sub-project (of which I am lead), is growing.

MDT started just over a year and a half ago as a reorganization of existing framework projects and components (EODM, OCL, UML2, and XSD) into a cohesive whole. The first release, as part of the coordinated Europa simultaneous release, saw the addition of a UML2 Tools component, aimed at providing exemplary GMF-based editors for UML diagrams. Since then, another end-user component, OCL Tools, has been added to the sub-project. The next release of MDT (currently under development) is scheduled for June of 2008 as part of the Ganymede simultaneous release.

Just last month, two new components, BPMN2 and IMM, were created, and another component, SBVR, was proposed. Proposals for components based on the SysML and PRR OMG specifications are in also the works, and yet another one is about to be announced. It's almost enough to make one's head spin!

A number of things excite me about these most recent additions to MDT.

Firstly, the involvement of new organizations (like Adaptive, Embarcadero Technologies, Soyatec, and XML Modeling, among others) and committers (Dave Carlson, Nick Dowler, and Yves Yang, for example) represents growth of the community, which is one of the metrics of a successful Eclipse project.

Secondly, these new components have introduced opportunities for greater collaboration not only within the Eclipse ecosystem (with projects like DTP and STP, for example) but externally as well (with organizations like the OMG).

Finally though, and most importantly in my mind, these new components will go a long way towards enabling end-to-end integration of enterprise-wide data and tooling in Eclipse-based modeling applications, from business-level concerns (like processes, vocabularies, and rules) all the way down to IT-level representations of information (like relational databases, LDAP, and XML).

These are indeed interesting times! I'll be talking about the latest developments in MDT at EclipseCon 2008 in Santa Clara. If you're going to be there (you know you wanna), why not stop by to hear about ways in which you can be part of the excitement?

On PACing it up and PACing it in...

2008-02-10T12:49:00.000-08:00

I think it's Hammer time. Or so one might be led to believe if they read the signs... Well, one sign in particular, actually. On the way to the mailbox to retrieve my mail the other morning, I couldn't help but notice a recent modification that's been made to the traffic sign on my front lawn.

Apparently somebody can touch it after all. Speaking of popular rap songs from the early nineties, I was in San Francisco last week for Embarcadero's annual Product Advisory Council (PAC) meeting (yes, I intentionally misspelled "packing" in the title). The customers that make up our PAC love our products so much that they actually cover their own travel costs to meet with us once a year to discuss what we can do to better meet their ever-changing needs. What an experience!

My esteemed superior has already blogged about some of the feedback we received at this year's meeting. One of the things that surprised me that was that many of our PAC members hadn't heard of Eclipse... and among the few that had, there seemed to be a general consensus that Eclipse-based applications (particularly ones used for graphical modeling) are of questionable usability. Clearly, while things like the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) and the Rich Client Platform (RCP) have gone a long way toward enabling the development of consumable Eclipse-based products, we (the Eclipse community) still have our work cut out for us if we hope to remain relevant in the face of constant innovation in the industry.

On Wednesday at EclipseCon...

2008-02-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

Clearly I'd better wrap up my selections before the schedule changes on me!

Keynote - Sam Ramji

"Microsoft" and "Open Source" in the same sentence (not to mention an entire keynote)? This I gotta hear...

Pimp My Editor

What's in a name? A lot. This one has to rank up there among the best title talks this year. I had a hard time choosing between this and Migrating your Graphical Editor to the Eclipse Graphical Modeling Framework, but opted for the former since I should know how to develop a GMF-based editor by now... :)

What's New in MDT?
Building an Application with EMF Models
Intentional UI Modeling
Model Transformation goes declarative - QVT Relations in practice
Ecore Tools : Create a complete modeling environment for Ecore

The short talk format has to be my favorite. Here is another case where I should probably show up seeing as I'm presenting. The other talks in the slot sound really interesting, though, so I'd highly recommend attending them too!

Introduction to the Eclipse Babel Project
Why Eclipse Spaces Will Make Everyone Happy
The Eclipse Babel Project Translation Server
XAML in Java
Top 10 Deployment Secrets They Don't Want You To Know

Another great bunch of short talks. I hadn't realized that the translation project had actually got off the ground... and I guess I'm also gonna get myself some happy.

The Future of SWT

This is a critical issue IMHO. How does SWT stack up in the face of Vista and Web 2.0 and where is it going? Here's hoping Silenio and Steve can provide some insight on this.

Eclipse, Open Source, Wall Street and Competition: Big Drama, Big Money

Drama and money do go hand in hand, don't they? It seems the commercial arena around Eclipse is heating up. It's all about standardization, distribution, and commoditization...

The Next Wave of IDE Innovation: Eclipse and Visual Studio in 2010

Not only is he back, but he's saying a lot. I'm curious to hear Tim's take on the future of innovation as it applies to IDEs.

Poster Reception

Pass the beer nuts, baby!

On Tuesday at EclipseCon...

2008-01-26T18:09:00.000-08:00

OK, round two. I'm on Daddy duty all weekend while my wife is in New Brunswick celebrating her mother's birthday with her... So I'll see if I can't finish making my talk selections between gymnastics, Gymboree, soccer, Music for Young Children, groceries, skating, cooking, dishes, and changing diapers. Piece of cake, right? Meh.

Breakfast

I'm not sure how I missed this one on the first day... Yeah, I know it's not a talk, but hey, a man's gotta eat!

Keynote - Dan Lyons

Steve Jobs or not, this one should prove to be entertaining. I'm down with satire and I'm sure this keynote won't disappoint.

Apples and Oranges or Fruit Salad? A look at open source versus commercial platform strategies

Hey, who let this guy (back) in? Seriously, there are two sides to every story... and I think the world is much better off with fruit salad than a choice between just apples and oranges (even if one tastes better than the other).

Software Metrics - The Good, The Bad and the CRAPpy

I've heard of code smell, but this is taking it to the next level. I'm not sure about the sober part, but I like the sound of metrics for bad code, now that I don't get to write as much of it as I used to. Did I just say that? Oh man, I really am becoming a manager... :(

Open Source Meets Open Specifications: Eclipse and the OMG

I guess I probably have to attend this one (and you should too!), seeing as I'm presenting it. Unless, of course, I can figure out Bernd's secret...

Server-Side Eclipse - the dynamic server platform based on OSGi

Cool, so I'll get to see Jochen speak after all (after missing his tutorials on Monday).

Designing Business and Technical User Interfaces in Eclipse RCP Applications

This is a subject I have been keenly interested in for some time... to me, the major issue with developing products based on Eclipse today is consumability. I was considering submitting a talk in this subject myself, so I'll be curious to hear what Morten has to say.

Diversity is the Spice of Life

Ah, the dynamic duo! They've obviously been eating some of Tim's fruit salad. I'm part of the community that they'll be referencing, so I'd better listen in to keep them honest.

Exhibits Reception

Again, not a talk, but a man also has to drink! Oh, and collect free goodies for the kids. ;)

On Biting the Dust...

2008-01-24T16:55:00.001-08:00

And so the exodus continues. Now I can't get that song out of my head: "it won't be long 'til another one's gone...". It's as if, now that this whole open source thing has taken on a life of its own, its key contributors are taking on lives of their own. Talk about a revolution...

I, too, recall the glory days of OTI. Yes, I was there for a spell, if even just as a co-op student. Gone are the times when you could get paid to do things like develop a MUD using a real programming language... right Jeff? Ah, the memories.

It's now been just over half a year since Wassim and I left the good ship for green pastures. I say "green" and not "greener", because I don't think the grass is ever greener on the other side - just different. Ed marked the occasion by citing one of my favorite poems. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he blogs about this latest departure.

Wassim and I had an occasion to pen some poetry of our own not too long ago when the Toronto office held a limerick contest at its annual Christmas, er, holiday party. I bet Wassim thinks I'll never know where he came up with so many creative entries... Here's one of the ones I submitted:

There once were two men from Big Blue
Who wondered what next they would do.
Along came a suitor,
Kevork the recruiter,
And now they are working with you!

Suffice it to say that neither Wassim nor I won the contest... I guess we'll have to keep our day jobs.

On Monday at EclipseCon...

2008-01-23T17:56:00.000-08:00

This sucks. There are so many interesting talks scheduled at the same time for EclipseCon 2008 that it's going to be really hard to choose which ones to attend. I guess that's a good problem to have, though. ;)

Since it's not possible to create customized tracks on the EclipseCon site this year (at least I couldn't find a way), I decided I'd take the time to make some tough decisions and post the list of talks that I plan to attend on my POB. Originally I thought I'd be able to make my selections in one sitting, but I'm afraid this really is going to take some careful consideration... so I'll have to spread it out over several blog entries.

Here, then, is the list of talks I've selected for Monday (and why):

Data Applications in Eclipse: The Eclipse Data Tools Platform

Right off the bat I'm stuck with choosing between talks I'd really like to attend and ones I feel I should attend. For example, the tutorials on getting started with RAP development and building server-side Eclipse-based Web applications look really promising (not to mention that Ed's recent blog entry has already piqued my interest)... but I work for a data tools company, so how can I not attend the DTP tutorial?

From RCP to RCP/RAP – Conversion and Single-Sourcing Techniques

OK, so it looks like I can get my RAP fix at this tutorial, although it might have been nice to catch the second half of Building Server-Side Eclipse based web applications. It might have also been nice to provide moral support to my brother in poetry from Embarcadero (I've heard he can be "humorous/hilarious" at times)... oh well, I'll have to put this one on my bucket list.

Integrating Reporting into your Application

This was the toughest choice so far (probably because no external influence has made me feel compelled in one direction or another on this one). I also considered catching up with my Modeling brethren in the tutorial on M2T/TMF, or finding out why Spring-OSGi was renamed "Spring DM". I wonder how Bernd is planning to be in two places at once...

How to get the most of the BPMN modeler

Given that the vote to create a new BPMN2 component in the MDT sub-project concluded successfully today, I should probably get the low-down on the state of the art in BPMN tooling at Eclipse. I hope to be working quite closely with these guys in the near future.

Eclipse Community Awards Reception

Finally, an easy (non-)decision.

On The Cost of Free...

2008-01-22T08:18:00.000-08:00

Is there such a thing as a free lunch after all? I've been thinking about this a lot since Ed posted his tongue-in-cheek blog entry on the difficulties of valuating the cost of software components in the face of commoditization.

Yes, even entire solutions are sometimes "free". Just today, for example, Embarcadero announced the release of a community edition of EA/Studio, an Eclipse-based business process modeling tool. Similarly, Sybase announced "free use" of their Eclipse-based database development tool in 2008. What are the odds that two vendors of Eclipse-based data tools would make such announcements on the same day? Coincidence? I think not! Clearly it is a sign of the times...

When is free really free? It's a matter of perspective, isn't it? Users don't have to pay money for these tools, but it obviously costs somebody (commercial vendors) something to build them... They say that "the best things in life are free". I'd argue that "best" is the more important word in that expression. It's the quality of these tools that will differentiate them... and ultimately, the marketplace will be the judge!

On The Annual Pilgrimage...

2008-01-22T07:34:00.000-08:00

How are you getting to EclipseCon 2008 and where are you staying? Apparently, if you don't make travel arrangements soon (assuming you're going... and you are going), you could be walking there and sleeping on the street, because flights and hotel rooms are filling up fast. Luckily, I reserved my flight and hotel room a couple of weeks ago (but even back then, flight selection out of Ottawa was somewhat limited). Even if the NetBeans Girls (this one's for you, Wassim!) were coming this year, we'd have no place to put them; maybe it's time to consider moving EclipseCon to a larger venue in a more accessible city...

On POBs...

2008-01-21T14:19:00.000-08:00

Obviously I'm not nearly as clever as I would like to think I am (but I don't think anyone is, so that's OK). Rather than trying to make a portmanteau (I love that word!) from "Plain Old Blog", I should have made an acronym from it: POB, which is more consistent with the term that inspired it (POJO, an acronym for "Plain Old Java Object"). Is it too late to re-brand my blog as a POB? I wonder if Victoria Beckham would approve...

On Vanillogging...

2008-01-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

To blog or not to blog? Is that really the question? Apparently it is... assuming you've already answered the question of whether to sign up with Facebook (yeah, I recently got sucked into that vortex, too). So, with the dawn of a New Year, I've finally decided to take the plunge (welcome to the ohties, Kenn!).

Given my bias toward metamodeling, it seemed appropriate for me to start my new endeavor by metablogging - blogging about blogging. First of all, what is a blog (other than a portmanteau of web log)? Upon diligently searching for the term "blog" on Wikipedia, I became aware of several aspects of blogging which I hadn't previously considered.

For one, I hadn't realized that there were so many types of blogs. Who knew blogs were categorized by media type, device, genre, and legal status of their publishers? I suppose if I'm going to have a blog, I should probably decide what type it will be. Initially it seemed that my blog would be a photoblog, seeing as I'd like to start posting pictures to my blog at some point... but apparently a photoblog is supposed to place more emphasis on photos than text. Looking through the other listed types, I couldn't find one that felt quite right, so I've decided that mine will be a plain old blog (at least for now). I thought I'd be clever and coin a new portmanteau for blogs like mine, but it turns out that the term "poblog" has already been claimed by podcasters, poets, and poker players, to mention a few... so I've settled on vanillog - welcome to my vanilla blog!

The second thing I discovered about blogging is how the popularity of blogs is measured - by citation or by affiliation. Seeing as I haven't started blogging for the sake of increased (nor decreased!) popularity, neither of these measures concerns me, although I suppose I should consider adding a blogroll page element to my blog. One step at a time...

Finally, I had no idea what a reckless bunch bloggers are. I hadn't given much forethought to the consequences of blogging, but apparently I'm now at risk of becoming a slanderous, unemployed felon. I considered adding a disclaimer ("the opinions expressed here are mine, yada yada yada") to my blog's header, but then I thought, "Wait a minute! This is my personal blog... shouldn't that be implicit?" I guess not. Oh well... nothing risked, nothing gained, right?

So, for better or worse, here I am, willing to play my part in contributing to the dotsam and netsam of the Web!