Another EclipseCon has come and gone.  As an Eclipse user, community member, contributor and committer, EclipseCon is a chance for me to make new contacts, renew old friendships and help payoff my beer debt.  There are many people who helped make EclipseCon a great event.  The program chair (Chris Anz… no wait… Aniz.. Aniszczyk!), the program committee, conference chair (Donald Smith), the foundation staff (See bug 300500) and the wonderful people at MeetGreen.  However, one of the most important groups at EclipseCon are the sponsors. They’re the ones who give us all that free beer at 7:00pm.

EclipseSource was a sponsor as well this year, and instead of sponsoring something boring like beer at 7:00pm we sponsored running at 7:00am. I’m sure this seemed like a great idea to the suits (that would be Jeff and Jochen)

In all seriousness, thanks to everyone who came out for the early morning runs.  We had between 15-20 most mornings (except for Wednesday when it was pouring… we only had 6).  For those of you who think that buying a beer is the only way to get a committer to agree to fix  your bug, you should try running instead.  Committers will agree to almost anything to get you to stop asking question when they are completely out of breath .

I hope to see you all next year!

Tags: eclipsecon

Today I did a talk at the EclipseCon 2011 which was entitled “Eclipse Runtime out-of-the-box“. With this talk I introduced the EclipseRTP project. So, if you missed it here are the slides

Tags: eclipse, eclipsecon, eclipseRT, rtp

Big thanks to all  runners who keep showing up for the EclipseCon run each morning. Particularly the brave bunch running in the rain today!

Join us tomorrow at 7am in the Hyatt Lobby (rain or shine) for the last run of the conference.

We will also having a little contest with the chance to win Eclipse.org goodies: (thank you!)

• two black Eclipse.org long-sleeve shirts
• two women’s Eclipse.org polo shirts
• Eclipse.org insulating coffee mugs — battle-tested in arctic Ottawa

Tags: eclipsecon

My highlights on the EclipseCon today were the EMF GWT presentation by Ed Merks, the p2 talk by Ian Bull and Pascal Rapicault and the keynote on Watson by David Gondek:

Ed Merks showed how to use EMF with the Google Web Toolkit. In about a click or two, he had an EMF-based GWT application (or an GWT-based EMF application) up and running. The famous library model application was not only available locally on his demo laptop but also hosted on Google Appspot. It is still available here. Unfortunately Ed did not refresh his running browser instance during the tutorial, although many model updates had been waiting on the server…;)

Ian Bull and Pascal Rapicault presented a bunch of donts concerning p2 in a very entertaining way. I hereby promise, I will no longer unzip features and plugins directly into an Eclipse instance, I will never release with the same version twice or try to edit the p2 metadata . Also throwing in 1000+ plugins into the dropin folder seems to be a discouraged practice, at least if you would like to have a speedy Eclipse startup. Seriously, this was a very informative presentation and it showed how to avoid “trouble” with p2, which is in many cases trouble that we caused ourselves.

In his keynote David Gondek explained the mission of Watson and how it works. Today keyword search is widely used, but it comes with the disadvantage of putting the burden of selecting “good” keywords on the user. In general adding more keywords to a search will decrease the quality of the results. Among many interesting statistics, I found the statistics on the top 10 “What is …?” searches in Google particularly interesting. On the first place is the question “What is love?”. Consequently the question “What is autism?” is on the 7th place . In contrast to keyword search, Watson uses a comprehensive analysis and reasoning to answer natural language questions. For example Watson has a geographic reasoner which can relate words in terms of the geographic distance. Thereby Watson can even find answers to tricky questions in Jeopardy. The many examples in the keynote provided a lively picture of the problems building the next generation search engine.

Tags: eclipsecon, emf, modeling, p2

This is my first blog post under the EclipseSource roof. Thanks for all the greetings and congrats!

I shortly want to summarize my impressions from the EclipseCon yesterday (Monday):

Tutorial: What every developer needs to know about EMF. Since I was one of the authors I am not going to comment on the quality of the tutorial . About 80 people joint the tutorial and the number of participants did not decrease during the 3h tutorial. That should be a good sign. Jonas has blogged the contents of the tutorial here so no need to go into detail.

Efficient, Scalable Notification Handling for EMF. Listening to the changes of huge object graphs in EMF can be tricky, especially if you add adapters to many objects by many different listeners, which only trigger under certain conditions. Currently in EMF you can only register an adapter in general and you cannot specify conditions when the adapter should be notified. This can be a performance issue. The talk showed an event manager for EMF notifications which allows to register listeners including conditions when to notify the listeners. It is really cool that this component exists now, we have already partially developed custom solutions for this problem, now we can use this sophisticated implementation.

Tired of CVS? The talk presented how a streamlined work flow with Git, Gerrit, Mylyn and Hudson could look like. In the work flow a developer uses Mylyn to track requirements and tasks, EGit automatically manages change sets and committing to EGit automatically creates a code review in Gerrit and triggers a Hudson build. Looks like a beautiful new world to me!

Workshop: Tycho Build Conversion I tried to get the EMFStore build running with Tycho and Maven and it worked out pretty good. I did not get the build completed, but I had to leave after 1h. Overall I had the impression that building with Tycho could really be an option and I will definitely go and investigate this further. A good cheat sheet for converting an existing build to Tycho is available here.

Finally I went to the committer reception…meeting people and drinking beer .

Tags: eclipsecon, emf

Have you used p2?  Have you tried to replace plug-in with an updated version, only to find p2  doesn’t find it?  Have you removed an unused plug-in and suddenly Eclipse stopped working?

You’ve probably not only hit these issues, but as a responsible member of the Eclipse community you even filed a  bug about it, thanks.  Why then, did the p2 team close your bug as INVALID?

Join Pascal and I on Tuesday and learn about the 10  most common pitfalls Eclipse developers face when using p2; and more importantly, learn how to avoid them!

Tags: eclipsecon

Over the last few days I’ve read many blogs from folks who are speaking at EclipseCon next week in Santa Clara. Everytime I find it really interesting to hear about the ideas behind the talks. So, with this post I want to show you what you can expect from the EclipseSource folks at EclipseCon.

First we’ll have a chance to meet every morning. EclipseSource is the activity sponsor again this year. What does this mean? This means that the first 50 people will get a cool running shirt and everyone will get the opportunity to meet Eclipse committers away from the conference stress. After the jogging you won’t have to wait long to hear from us again.

The first event is on Tuesday at 2:00 pm. You can meet Ian Bull and listen to him speaking about growing an open source project. He will show you how easy it is to get in touch with your favorite open source project by contributing to it.  He will demo how to overcome the major hurdles to becoming a first class contributor.

If you can’t get enough of Ian you will have a second chance to listen to him after a short break. On Tuesday at 4:00 pm he will show you everything you need to know about p2 together with Kim Moir and Pascal Rapicault. They will show you how to get around the biggest pain points in p2 and pointers for best practices.

If p2 is not your favorite topic and you want to go deep into some hardcore stuff, then I recommend attending Johannes Eickhold’s talk. It’s in the same slot as the p2 talk and is entitled, “Sovereign: Migrating Java Threads to Improve Availability of Web Applications“.  Johannes will describe two technical strategies on how to improve availability in RAP, a very interesting problem with big implications for RAP.

Because EclipseCon is full of good talks, you don’t have to wait long for the next one. Take a look ahead at RAP together with Ralf Sternberg at 4:30 pm. He will take you on a tour inside our plans with RAP and show some really cool demos. This talk also marks the end of this packed Tuesday for us.

But luckily the Wednesday is not far away.  Meet Ian again at 5:30 pm . He will show you some really cool demos on the hot new products showcase reception. This is a great opportunity to go into detail together with Ian.

After meeting Ian again you can take a break from us. But, only until 7:30 pm. Ralf will moderate the RAP BoF and right after this you can join me on the RTP BoF.  The BoFs will give us a full hour to propose ideas and discuss concepts or internals. So, don’t miss them.

Because RTP is a hot new Eclipse Project , in addition to the BoF, you will also have the chance to attend a presentation by me on Thursday 2:30 pm.  As you might already know,  we created the RTP project to enable more developers to use EclipseRT. In my talk,  “Eclipse Runtimes out of the Box“, you can hearing everything there is to know about RTP in 20 minutes.

In addition to this schedule there is more. Of course, you will find all of us at the Hyatt every evening .  I’m really looking forward to meeting you there…

Tags: eclipsecon, p2, rap, rtp, sovereign, yoxos

38 days left until EclipseCon — Sure, you’ve registered, booked the flight and hotel, checked your passport. Next: pack your running shoes!

Continuing the annual tradition started by Darin, we are organizing another edition of the EclipseCon Exercise:  an easy 3-mile run, starting in the Hyatt Lobby at 7:00 am each morning, Monday to Thursday. The trail is flat and paved and follows the stream / bike path behind the Hyatt.

Some reasons to run with us:

• have fun and enjoy the fabulous Californian weather
• burn off  last night’s food and beverages
• network in an informal setting
• get an EclipseCon 2011 runner’s shirt courtesy of EclipseSource

If you plan to join us, please RSVP on wiki.

Here’s a picture from last year’s group. I hope to have as many join in this year.

See you in Santa Clara,
Elias.

Tags: eclipsecon, events

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

Some of you might remember the Mars challenge back at the last EclipseCon? – well; it’s back.
Now that the Eclipse 4.0 SDK released, we ‘d like to introduce to you the revival of this challenge –  on RAP.

We re-implemented the e4 Mars Rover client, single sourced it using RAP and are now presenting the RAP Rover Challenge. We use our own server now and since we don’t have the original EclipseCon rover and arena we simply simulate those on client side using the data we get from the server. However old clients should be able to adopt to the new server using this URL: http://rap.eclipsesource.com:8081/server/ – with the slight difference that there is no picture sent by the server.

For those of you who have not heard of it, here’s how you use it:

You should simply visit the challenge site (or click on the screen shot below) and sign up for control. When you gain control, hit the targets and score points. Check out after if you were able to beat the current high score.

If you are interested in the e4 client code you can find that here.

Have fun – we hope you’ll enjoy our e4 + RAP showcase.

The original rover at the EclipseCon

The e4 mars rover client on the web

Tags: e4, eclipsecon, mars, rap, rover