OSGi & Servlets: A Happy Marriage
In this post, I'll show you how to create a simple OSGI-based servlet. Later, we will deploy this servlet to an Amazon EC 2 instance - this should be fun!
iPhones on Mars
EclipseCon 2010 is over and as always has been a great chance to meet up with fellow committers and users of the software we build. Xtext has received a tremendous amount of attention: not only did we deliver several talks and tutorials on Xtext, but also did Xtext get mentioned in a number of talks we were not involved in. Xtext even received the Eclipse Community Award in the category "Most Innovative New Feature of Eclipse Project".
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Getting started with Code Generation with Xpand
Have you heard about model driven software development (MDD / MDSD) and are thinking "what's all this fuzz about models"? "Why should models help me to be more productive," might be another thought you have.
People have been asking how to leverage models on and off on the web and in meetings I attended, so I thought I might share this little tutorial with you. In this tutorial, we will develop a little code generator that helps you to create (HTML) forms from models.
A short Overview
Xpand is a template engine, similar to FreeMarker, Velocity, JET and JSP. However, it features some very unique properties that makes using Xpand very well suited for generating code from models, such as type safety and polymorphic dispatch. If you haven't heard those terms before, fear not! I'll show you how to use Xpand by way of an easy-to-follow example.
Running AppleScript from Java
In my current project, I need to launch an external application and maybe execute some additional commands on this external application. Due to the very nature of the project, the whole system will always be run on Mac OS X. So I thought, "why not use AppleScript"? Read more
Eclipse DemoCamp Hamburg 11/2009
The Eclipse DemoCamp in Hamburg was a huge success - more than 110 people signed up and most of them actually showed up at the event:
The program was packed with interesting talks and we were lucky to be able to present some very well known speakers:
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Xtext Tricks #1: Enhancing Completion Proposals
Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed I am working on an Xtext based DSL for Behaviour Driven Development. Part of the DSL allows the DSL user to define actors and the verbs these actors can execute. Actors can have a hierarchy (much like a class hierarchy), meaning an actor will inherit all verbs of it's super actors. As the list of verbs can grow quite a bit, the content assist drop down menu becomes a bit overwhelming.
To alleviate this situation, I decided to display the "owner" of a verb along with the name of the verb in the content assist drop down box. Here is my first try:
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Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Modeling (But Were Afraid To Ask)
- Does Model Driven Software Development actually work?
- Are some developers more productive than others?
- What happens during code generation?
- Do diagrams and text go together well?
- What happens during model transformation?
- What are DSLs? And can I create them with Eclipse?
- Does modeling scale in the enterprise?
You guessed it, these are not the questions from a well-know Woody Allen movie, but questions that will be answered at the Eclipse Modeling Days which will be held in New York and Toronto in November.
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Fun with Regular Expressions: ANT-style variable replacing in strings
I recently felt the need to write a piece of code that resolves ANT-style variables in a string. Suppose you have a property file similar to this one:
propertyA=SomeValue
propertyB=${propertyA}.SomeOtherValue
listofThings=${propertyA}, ${propertyB}, constantValue
Let's further assume you want to read property listofThings, and resolve the variables. Isn't that a perfect job for regular expressions?
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Xtext @ Google
Last week I had the chance to speak at the EclipseDay at the GooglePlex in Mountain View, CA, an event organized by the Eclipse Foundation and hosted by Google's Open Source Programs Office. Google is a truly amazing company and the GooglePlex is a very exciting place to be at. As I was one day early and needed a creative place to put finishing touches on my slides, I took the chance to visit Robert Konigsberg who was kind enough to host me for that day. The organizers put together a great agenda with lots of interesting talks. Looking at the agenda, you will see that there actually are three major topics, Eclipse in the Enterprise, Modeling and Runtime: The talks
- Eclipse in the Enterprise: Lessons from Google
- Distributed OSGi
- Deploying Successful Enterprise Tools
- Build and Provision
all dealt with how Eclipse can be used in the Enterprise or which challenges you will face if you start using Eclipse in large-scale scenarios.
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Eclipse Modeling Day in North America
We (i.e. the Eclipse Foundation, itemis and Cloudsmith) are looking into arranging one more Eclipse Modeling Day in North America this fall and would like to gather feedback from folks interested in attending. Please use this poll to help us tailor a location and program to suit your particular interests:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dF ZQcGh3RDhrUUdyNTAtMXlVU2pKQ1E6MA..
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