November is over now and last week I attended the last DemoCamp for the year. In this year’s November DemoCamp series I spoke at three events and with this post I’d like to present you with some impressions.

Bonn, November 16th: The beginning…

It was the first DemoCamp that was located in Bonn ever. So, as a result of this the audience was not very big, although at least 40 people found their way to the demos. I was already familiar with most of the talks.  I’d seen both Marcel Bruch’s talk on the Code Recommenders project and Mathias Sohn’s talk about EGit before, but they are still interesting. Besides these talks, one highlight was the talk about Xtext from Karsten Thoms which I hadn’t seen before in this form. He demonstrated how easy it is to create a DSL with Xtext. It’s fantastic what people can do with Eclipse technology.

Afterwards we all met at the Stammtisch. The bad thing was that Ralph Müller had to leave the talks early because he wasn’t feeling well. (Just a note here that he left before the RAP talk, so it wasn’t the talk that made him sick)

München, November 23rd: Party time…

For me it was the first time speaking at the annual DemoCamp in Munich. The organizers are well known Eclipse folks: Jonas Helming, Maximilian Koegel and Ekke. The cool thing was that these guys were so good at publicizing the camp that 100 people decided to spend an evening watching the demos. One thing that I missed was the talk by Marcel Bruch. Marcel where were you? Despite Marcel being missing, there were some really good talks. Two examples are the e4 talk by Tom Schindl and the Mylyn talk by Benjamin Muskalla. Of course both talks have been given before but I still recommend listening to them. They’re great speakers. Of course the RAP talk was another highlight

To put it all in a nutshell Munich was one of the best DemoCamps ever.  It had a very friendly atmosphere with beer service during the talks (thanks Jonas) and a great Stammtisch afterwards. But once more Ralph missed it so I had to pay for my own.

Karlsruhe, December 9th: The return of Ralph…

The last DemoCamp I visited in this series was the Karlsruhe DemoCamp last week. And guess what?  Marcel Bruch was speaking there. Why was I not surprised ? In addition to his talk, there was a world premiere in the form of Markus Tiede from Bredex presenting Jubula, one of the most recently created Eclipse projects. It was really fun to watch the IDE program by itself. Some other good talks were given by Benjamin Muskalla and Karsten Thoms. I saw Karsten in Bonn and the good thing was, that he presented two different talks. Its really nice to see that some people invest the time to provide fresh talks to the audience. I think I need to create a new talk too

The same as with the other camps, there was a Stammtisch afterwards. And surprisingly Ralph Müller was there too. So, the first round was on the Eclipse Foundation. Thanks Eclipse Foundation! I’m sure he came because he wanted to give his 6 democamps tour a nice finish. Hope to see you on more Stammtisch’s next year, Ralph.

To sum up, it was a great month with a lot of traveling. I met a lot of nice people that are all involved in Eclipse in their own way:  some as IDE users, some as contributors, some Foundation folks and a few committers – the ecosystem in its pure form. So, I hope to see some of you again at EclipseCon next year where I hope I’ll also be able to show you Eclipse RTP.

Tags: democamp, e4, eclipse, jubula, rap, redview, tycho, xtext

One thing I like about November is the DemoCamps, and this year I spoke at two of them, Bonn and Munich. Both were great events where I had the chance to talk  about RAP. The DemoCamps are all about spreading the word about technology and both events did a great job. November is nearly over, but you will have a second chance on December 9th to see some great speakers like Ralph Müller, Marcel Bruch, Benjamin Muskalla, Karsten Thoms, Klaus Krogmann, Markus Tiede, Stefan Schuerle and David Burkhart. Of course you’ll also hear me speaking about RAP again.

If you are in or around Karlsruhe feel free to stop by. All you need to do is sign up for each of the events: the democamp (sign up on eventbrite) and for the Stammtisch afterwards (sign up on doodle). But you have to be fast because there are only a few seats left. Here is the complete agenda for the Karlsruhe DemoCamp on December 9th.  Looking forward to meeting you there.

• 17:30 – 17:40 Intro – Ralph Mueller
• 17:40 – 18:00 From Stack Trace to Scrum: Agile development with Mylyn, Benjamin Muskalla, Tasktop
• 18:00 – 18:20 Balanced Software Design, Klaus Krogmann, FZI
• 18:20 – 18:40 Agile Development with Eclipse, Stefan Schuerle and David Burkhart, andrena
• 18:40 – 19:00 Eclipse Code Recommenders, Marcel Bruch, TU Darmstadt
• 19:00 – 19:30 break
• 19:30 – 19:50 Jubula- take a sneak peak, Markus Tiede, Bredex
• 19:50 – 20:10 A look ahead at RAP: what’s new now and will be noteworthy in the future, Holger Staudacher, EclipseSource
• 20:10 – 20:30 Building Xtext based projects with Maven, Karsten Thoms, itemis AG

Tags: Agile, Code recommenders, democamp, eclipse, jubula, karlsruhe, mylyn, rap, xtext

Thanks to everybody who attended or presented at the Portland Eclipse DemoCamp last Monday. This time the theme was “Eclipse for mobile developers”. We had about 50 attending, which is a strong uptick from past events.

Below some pictures and slides from the event:

1. Michael Galpin (@michaelg) from eBay opened the night with a presentation on ‘Android Development with Eclipse’. He introduced the Android platform and demoed the Eclipse-based Android Development Tools (ADT). Interesting fact: eBay’s mobile applications on Android are enjoyed by more than 3 million users. If you want to learn more about Android, Michael’s upcoming Android book should be a good place to start.

2. John Thomas from RIM continued with ‘BlackBerry Application Development Options‘. BlackBerry developers have a variety of language choices for developing apps, such as Java, HTML5/Javascript and Adobe AIR. All development tools are integrated nicely in Eclipse and Adobe’s FlashBuilder (also Eclipse based). Visit this page for details on BlackBerry app development.

3. Elias Volanakis (@evolanakis) talked about ‘iPad Development with Eclipse RAP‘. After introducing the project I demoed how to write a calculator web-app for the iPad using Java. We are optimizing RAP for mobile devices for the 1.4 release next summer. You can download the slides here.

Thanks for joining us,
Elias.

Tags: android, blackberry, democamp, eclipse, IPad, rap, slides

If you want to learn more about Android / Blackberry / iPad development while enjoying some free pizza and beer, I would be glad to see you next Monday. Will have three presentations:

• Android Development with Eclipse
• BlackBerry Application Development Options
• iPad development with Eclipse

The event is scheduled for this Monday, Nov 8th at 6pm at the Lucky Labrador Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby (map).

Please RSVP on the wiki (or sent me an email). Space is limited, so sign up now.

http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_DemoCamps_November_2010/Portland

Looking forward to see you there,
Elias.

Tags: android, blackberry, democamp, eclipse, IPad, rap

I had a great Eclipse Summit this year – and I heard similar things from other people.  I had a chance to meet and talk with friends, colleagues and new acquaintances, and to see a lot of really good presentations.  Of the presentations I saw, these were my personal top three.

Number 3 on my list was Chris Frost’s talk about using Snaps with Virgo. It was really interesting to see what they’re doing with this OSGi server. Here is Chris’s description of the talk:

A quick overview of the Virgo Runtime server. Then a look at Snaps, a new prototype to break up your web application front end into multiple bundles.

My personal number 2 was the talk by Marcel Bruch about IDE 2.0. I attended the talk back in July of this year, but its still really fun to watch Marcel presenting the “Code Amazon” aka code-recommenders. Here is Marcel’s description of the talk.

Application frameworks have become an integral part of today’s software development. This is hardly surprising given their promised benefits such as reduced costs, higher quality, and shorter time to market. But using an application framework is not free of cost. Before frameworks can be used efficiently, software developers have to learn their correct usage which often results in high initial training costs.

However, framework usages frequently follow typical patterns that manifest themselves in source code of applications that use these frameworks and thus can be extracted from code and directly reused to guide novice developers when learning these frameworks. The code recommenders project facilitates this reuse of collective knowledge by automatically collecting such information from code and brings back this knowledge into the IDE by means of intelligent code completion, extended (usage-driven) javadocs, smart api-misuse detectors, or personalized code search engines.

This talk introduces the ideas and concepts of Eclipse Code Recommenders, a new (upcoming) Eclipse project proposal under the umbrella of the Eclipse Technology top-level project.

The absolute number 1 was Jeff Norris’s keynote. It was pure fun to watch him. He captivated the audience for a whole hour – that felt like only 10 minutes. It was absolutely amazing to see his slides. I talked to Mike Milinkovich the next day and he estimated that Jeff must have invested more than 80 hours in preparing the keynote.  He really is a world-class presenter. Here is Jeff’s description of the keynote:

Whether it is controlling interplanetary spacecraft, managing medical records, or “merely” staying employed, it seems like more of us are facing the pressure of developing mission-critical software. It’s tempting to think that reliability is all that matters, but we’re also forced to adapt to constantly advancing technologies, shifting priorities, and relentless competitive pressures. Is it wise to embrace innovation and take risks when so much is at stake? Can you afford to be agile when failure is not an option? Can you afford not to?

Of course it’s too bad that ESE was over so quickly, but there is good news. It’s November and the November DemoCamps start.  Some of the talks from ESE will be presented again at the  DemoCamps, including Marcel Bruch right here in Karlsruhe. So, if you missed this year’s ESE you will have a second chance to see the speakers. Here is a full schedule of the program:

November 8-14

• Portland, OR, USA – November 8, 18:00; Location: Lucky Labrador Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby
• Leipzig – University of Leipzig, Germany – November 10; Location: University of Leipzig, Topic Maps Lab, Johannisgasse 26
• Research Triangle Park (RTP), NC, USA – November 10; Location: Trali Irish Pub & Restaurant
• Beijing – Beijing Institute of Technology, China – November 12, 09:00; Location: Beijing Institute of Technology, 404 Computer Centre
• Hamburg, Germany – November 12, 19:00; Location: Lehmanns Bookstore
• Silchar – National Institute of Technology Silchar, India – November 13, 09:00; Location: NIT Silchar campus

November 15-21

• Bonn, Germany – November 16; Location: Collegium Leoninum, Noeggerathstraße 34
• Ottawa, ON, Canada – November 17, 19:00-21:00; Location: Clocktower Brew Pub, 575 Bank St.
• Bay Area, CA, USA – November 18, 18:00-21:00; Location: Replay Solutions, 2100 Seaport Blvd., Top Floor, Redwood City
• Bangalore, India – November 19; Location: SAP Labs India Pvt. Ltd., Whitefield – Google Map
• Budapest, Hungary – November 19, 19:00; Location: Miniat?r, 1024 Budapest, II.district, Rózsahegy street 1/A
• Pune, India – November 19; Location: Saba Software India Pvt. Ltd., 5th Floor, Mutha Tower, Don Bosco Marg, Yerwada
• Kampala – Makerere University, Uganda – November 20, 10:00; Location: Makerere University, Faculty of Computing and Informatics Technology, Block B
• Krakow, Poland – November 20; Location: TBD

November 22-28

• Munich, Germany – November 23, 17:30; Location: Technische Universität München, Arcisstr. 21
• Stuttgart – November 23, 10:00; Location: STEP Engineering Park, Gropiusplatz 10
• Dresden, Germany – November 25, 17:00-21:00; Location: Technical University of Dresden, Fritz-Förster-Platz 4, Room POT/112/H
• Ottawa – Carleton University, ON, Canada – November 25, 18:30-20:30; Location: Carleton University
• Kassel, Germany – November 26, 17:00; Location: University of Kassel, Wilhelmshöher Allee 73
• Pécs – University of Pécs, Hungary – November 26, 18:00; Location: F?tér, 7625 Pécs
• Poznan, Poland – November 27; Location: Johnny Rocker PUB, ul.Wielka 9
• Jakarta, Indonesia – November 27; Location: Microsoft Indonesia

November 29-December 5

• Antwerp, Belgium – November 30; Location: Cronos, Business Park King Square, Veldkant nr. 35 D
• Dortmund, Germany – November 30, 18:00; Location: FZW
• Vienna, Austria – December 1; Location: Mooslackengasse 17, 1190 Wien (U4 Heiligenstadt)

December 6-12

• Berlin, Germany – December 7; Location: Fraunhofer FOKUS, Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31
• Florence, Italy – December 10, 15:00-18:00; Location: House of Creativity, Florence
• Karlsruhe, Germany – December 9, 17:30- 20:30; Location: FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik, Haid-und-Neu-Straße 10-14

Tags: democamp, eclipse, eclipsecon, summit, talks

Here are the slides from my “Eclipse RAP – What’s new in Helios?“ talk, which I gave at the Bay Area Demo Camp in June. They capture the most interesting novelties of the RAP 1.3 release. You can find even more details in the full release notes.

I want to thank Oracle and AvantSoft for hosting and organizing the event.

If you are interested in future Eclipse events in the Bay Area, please take a moment to join the Bay Area Eclipse User Group on Meetup.com

Tags: democamp, events, rap, slides, talks

Two days ago was the Helios DemoCamp in Darmstadt at Deutsche Telekom.  I think it was a very successful evening with a whole bunch of good talks. Two of them are very noteworthy.

The first one was presented by Marcel Bruch. He talked about the Eclipse Code Recommenders project which he’s working on at TU Darmstadt. The basic idea behind this project is to provide a way to recommend code. He used the analogy of the Amazon online store. When you buy a book you always get a recommendation along the lines of, “People who bought this book also found this one interesting…”. The Code Recommenders does exactly the same just with code.  Watch the great screencast the Code Recommenders Team provides if you don’t want to take my word for it.

Another especially noteworthy demo for me was presented by Stefan Lay. He demo’d the Eclipse Git Team provider called EGit.  In addition to the tooling he presented Gerrit. Gerrit is an automated review tool for Git. The scenario he presented was to push some changes to a remote repository. The changes were caught by gerrit to be reviewed.   With those changes however, an automated build failed and gerrit sent an automated message that the changes couldn’t be applied because they broke the build. I think this will make the workflow much easier for code review and keeping the repository stable. The EGit project already uses Gerrit for their productive work.

To put it all in a nutshell it was a very cool DemoCamp with 120 attendees and nice buffet afterwards. At this point I want to thank Ralph Müller and the Foundation who organized a spontanous Eclipse Stammtisch after the DemoCamp. It was great to talk to all the guys individually. The bad thing about this is that the evening went by too fast. But there also a good thing. Most of those people will also attend the Eclipse Summit Europe in November and we can meet again.

Tags: democamp, eclipseRT, egit, equinox, helios, rap, rcp, swt, talks

Did you ever wanted to know how features find their way into Eclipse and became a part of a huge release like Eclipse Helios? What role do committers play? What is the part of the community? How do different projects collaborate with each other?

For all of you Benjamin Muskalla and I will give the answer on the Eclipse Helios DemoCamp in Darmstadt on July the 14th. If you are around feel free to step by.

Tags: democamp, eclipse, emf, helios, rap

Ever been to Mannheim? If not – this is your chance to visit this lovely city. For the Helios release, the guys behind the majug² (Mannheimer Java user Group) invite everybody to the Helios Democamp in June. And as Ian already found out: Yes, we love our DemoCamps! It’s always great to have technical discussions over a frosty beverage!

Watertower by flamouroux

At the moment, the attendee list is still pretty empty but save yourself a seat while it’s not booked out – they only have 100 seats available. Topics this year include EGit, EclipseRT, Android and Roo. Do you think a cool topic is missing? Step up and give a demo about what you’re doing! I’m really looking forward to see more demos of how people use Eclipse as IDE or runtime.

Hope to see you there for another great DemoCamp and ad-hoc Stammtisch!

Tags: android, democamp, eclipseRT, egit, equinox, git, helios, roo, talks

Last week, Jeff McAffer and I had the honor to attend the Eclipse Vienna DemoCamp hosted at the beautiful TU Vienna campus.

There were about 80 people that showed up and many interesting talks were given. Instead of going through all of them, I’ll highlight some of the ones I personally enjoyed. The day started with Werner Keil giving a talk about the Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler (STEM) project at Eclipse. STEM is a tool designed to help scientists and public health officials create and use spatial and temporal models of emerging infectious diseases. These models can aid in understanding and potentially preventing the spread of such diseases. The STEM project should serve as a reminder that Eclipse is entering new verticals and isn’t just an IDE.

The next talk I found fascinating was e4 by Tom Schindl.

Tom did a great job explaining why e4 exists, why EMF and how people can get involved. In his demo, Tom was self-hosting the workbench using CDO. Since the workbench model is now based on EMF, there’s a lot of interesting technologies to take advantage of in the Eclipse Modeling space. Another talk that intrigued me was by Christoph Mayerhofer who spoke about ReviewClipse.

ReviewClipse is an integrated code review tool, that helps developers to review the source code continuously. From my point of view, this project is awesome and direly needed at Eclipse. If we had first class code review support at Eclipse and had it integrated with Mylyn… my life would be much simpler. At the moment, ReviewClipse only integrates with SVN, but future connectors are planned. The authors of the tool are looking for an open source license and I highly recommend they choose the Eclipse Public License (EPL) and move the code to Eclipse where more people would be exposed to the terrific tool. If you think this is a good idea too, please email the project.

After that, I enjoyed more talks from the Viennese Eclipse community.

Jeff McAffer and I also gave a talk introducing people to EclipseRT and Toast. It seems people are understanding what EclipseRT is really about now that we have a great example of the power of the technology via Toast. A decent example can speak volumes to potential adopters of your technology.

In the end, I’m amazed to see how strong the Austrian Eclipse community is and only see great things in terms of community growth. And finally, special thanks to Michael Clay and Peter Kofler for organizing the event and allowing us to speak.

Tags: democamp, eclipseRT