Eclipse Series updated. Make your suggestions

Today we formalized some changes in the Eclipse Series of books. Some time ago Lee Nackman left IBM and his various roles related to Eclipse. Many of you may not know Lee but he was instrumental in the early days of Eclipse and IBM’s ongoing contribution and commitment to Eclipse. Lee, Erich Gamma and John Weigand envisioned and created the Eclipse Series of more then 20 books that today conveys so much vital information to the Eclipse community.

I’m pleased to report that I am taking over Lee’s place on the Eclipse Series editorial board. One of my first tasks has been to help in the redesign of the series look. The result of that effort can be seen in the OSGi and Equinox book going to press this week.

The original series had a sequence of Eclipse photos. This was fitting and attractive. Unfortunately, many of the photos looked similar and as a result is was hard to distinguish one book from another. For the new look we have standardized on a new color scheme and layout. Different books will have distinct images largely at the discretion of the authors but the overall look will be consistent.

We have also introduced a subtle branding differentiation through the use of the Eclipse or EclipseRT logos (see the top left corner) depending on their focus (tooling vs. runtime).

In this new role I will be looking for new ways to drive the content that the community needs. Writing a book is a huge investment and while many teams have made very significant technical contributions, they are not big enough or well-funded enough to write books. There are a few ideas kicking around for how to lower the barrier and what topics are in most need of coverage. While we have  great wealth of new projects at Eclipse, the book pipeline is surprisingly sparse.

As with everything at Eclipse, the community can help. Your suggestions for formats, topics and indeed, content are more than welcome. Feel free to contact me directly or post comments on this blog.