Slides from Xtext Workshop at Code Generation 2009

Code Generation 2009 has been a lot of fun. Yesterday, Moritz, Sebastian and me gave a hands-on workshop on Xtext. Participants seemed to like it and we could even convince Steven Kelly from Metacase to give it a try. I've uploaded the slides to slideshare, so if you wish to learn something about Xtext, you can have a look at it here.

Back to Kiel, we are now sweating to give Xtext the last polish before it is released with Galileo.

CodeGeneration 2009

I am back at Cambridge (UK) for this year's Code Generation conference.

The itemis-Kiel team already arrived yesterday, and after a nice walk through the town and some fish and chips, I finished a showcase with a GMF editor on an Xtext model. So be prepared for another converging editors screencast soon :-)

The conference started this morning. Up to now, I have heard two talks: First, Kathleen Dollard from AppVenture talked about Template Specialization. Kathleen referred to the .NET code generation languages and their specific problems, e.g. with respect to modularity and extensibility. To me it looked like we've got more comfortable solutions in the Eclipse/Java world. Then, Sven and Sebastian talked about Challenges in DSL Design. They elaborated that todays external DSLs usually stop at modeling behavior because of the lack of an embeddable expression language. Looks like that's going to be one of the goals in the next version of Xtext. Right now I am guarding the itemis booth for a while, just to join the case study by Karsten and Heiko on their MDSD projects at Deutsche Börse AG.

Despite all prejudice against British food, catering is excellent. Thanks to the perfect organisation by Mark Dalgarno and Andy Moorley, we're going on a traditional punting trip along the river Cam tonight. Should I have brought my wetsuit?

JAX is over, now head for Code Generation

The JAX 2009 conference in Mainz (Germany) was once again big fun: A good opportunity to meet lots of intriguing people and listen to entertaining and informative talks in a beautiful location at the river Rhine. I've just uploaded the slides of the talks I gave, so if you're interested, have a look at EMF - Beyond the Basic or Eclipse Modeling Overview.

If you're keen on modelling with double 'l' :-), I recommend to join the upcoming CodeGeneration 2009 in Cambridge (UK), 16th-18th June 2009. Next to a bunch of well known speakers from industry and research, my colleagues from itemis and me are also going to have our share on the programme, e.g. Challenges in DSL Design, Mastering differentiated MDSD requirements at Deutsche Boerse AG, MDD: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, MDD: The Best, The Worst and The Ugliest, Language Definition, Extension and Composition with MPS and an Xtext Workshop.