EclipseCon Tutorial Registration Numbers

We are in the final 3 weeks of EclipseCon registration. As of last week we had over 900 people registered. This year on Monday, we have 36 tutorials covering a wide variety of topics being offered. I thought it would be interesting to share with you the number of people that have registered for each tutorial.

With the execption of the ”Rich Client Application Development”, all the tutorials still have room, so it is still not too late to register. btw, if you are interested in RCP, there are a couple of other tutorials that you can still attend.

Activity	Total
	Active
(10) Rich Client Application Development	79
(11) Data Tools Platform Project Tutorial	10
(12) Plug-in Development 101: Anatomy of a Plug-in	38
(13) Graphical Editing Framework Tutorial	37
(14) Foundations of UI Development with Eclipse	25
(15) Introduction to the Eclipse Modeling Framework	27
(16) Extending the Web Tools Platform, Part 1	16
(17) Tutorial: Text Editor Recipes	24
(20) Just Enough Intellectual Property Law to Manage an Open Source Project	13
(21) Adding a New Language to the CDT	11
(22) Problem Determination of J2EE Web Applications Using the Eclipse Test and Performance Tools Platform (TPTP)	17
(23) Assist your users with Eclipse User Assistance	16
(30) Profile your Java application using the Eclipse Test and Performance Tools Platform (TPTP)	34
(31) Aspect-Oriented Programming with AspectJ	14
(32) The Eclipse Debug Framework	19
(70) Designing Eclipse APIs	20
(S1) Agile Application Development with Eclipse and Pragmatic MDA	27
(S2) BEA Workshop for JSF 3.0 Tutorial	18
(S3) An Introduction to the C/C++ Development Tools (CDT)	17
(S4) Crystal Reports for Eclipse	9
(S5) Constructing Web Services using the IBM’s Eclipse-based Software Development Platform	28
(40) Java Web Application Development with Eclipse WTP	21
(41) Advanced UI Development with Eclipse	39
(42) Eclipse Communications Framework	14
(43) BIRT In Depth: Extending and Using the BIRT Framework	28
(44) Building Commercial-Quality Eclipse Plug-Ins	33
(45) Developing Eclipse Rich-Client Applications	42
(46) Extending the Web Tools Platform, part 2	8
(47) Extending the Structured Source Editors from WTP	7
(50) Automated Build Processes for Plugins, Fragments and Rich Client Applications	27
(51) Creating your own Domain Specific Modeler using GMF	45
(52) Advanced Features of the Eclipse Modeling Framework	25
(53) Component Programming with OSGi	26
(60) Eclipse Forms: Rich UI for rich clients	33
(61) Achieving Continuous Integration with the Eclipse Test and Performance Tools Platform	32
(62) Integrating Custom Debuggers into the Eclipse Platform	33

Medical Banking on Eclipse

The Medical Banking Project just announced they have selected Eclipse as the platform for their reference implementation. I think it is great to see vertical oriented organizations adopting Eclipse. In my mind vertical frameworks is an important part of the future of open source software and Eclipse.

Business Objects at EclipseCon

I have the lucky task of being the sales guy for EclipseCon. This means I get to talk to all the companies that want to exhibit at EclipseCon. This year one company in particular, Business Objects (BO), is being a huge sponsor of EclipseCon. Business Objects is new to the Eclipse community and from my experience of working with them, they really want to contribute back to our community.

Besides being a Gold Sponsor, BO has also made a significant contribution to the sponsorship of the Open Source Pavillion. There contribution has allowed us to invite some of our friends in the larger open source community to participate at EclipseCon. Not only are we providing exhibit space, we also provided a scholarship to help cover the cost of travel and living for the open source developers. Donald has already mentioned the details of the Open Source Pavillion.

BO is also sponsoring a tutorial at EclipseCon. This year we have some ’sponsored tutorials’ which means it is free to attend, unlike the other tutorials that cost money. Their tutorial is called ‘Crystal Reports for Eclipse‘.

BO is also sponsoring the Exhibit Hall reception on Tuesday night and hosting their own reception later Tuesday night, so you can also thank them for the beer and food on Tuesday.

So, thank you Business Objects for your gracious support at EclipseCon.

btw, if you want to know more about what BO is doing with Eclipse, check out their Crystal Reports for Eclipse blog. Seems like an great resource.

Harvard Business Case Study on Eclipse

Siobhan O’Mahoney at the Harvard Business School has written a case study on IBM’s strategy and process for creating Eclipse. If any of you are interested in the history of Eclipse, this makes for an interesting read. Also, kind of cool that Harvard is using Eclipse as an example for their business cases.

Unfortunately, you have to pay $6.50 for access to the case study, sorry.

800 people registered for EclipseCon

Yesterday was the deadline for the early bird registration price for EclispeCon. We now have 800 people registered. A great number since we still have over 4 weeks to go! Last year we sold out at 1000 attendees, so I can see us easily going pass that mark. I am hoping for 1200-1500 attendees.

Of course you can still register; you just have to pay a bit more :-).

The Runup to EclipseCon

EclipseCon is rapidly approaching, less than six week away! I have my hotel booked but still need to get airline tickets.

We are putting a big push on this week to have people register before February 14. After this date the registration prices start to go up. So if you haven’t registered, here is a pertfect time to do it.

One thing I am really please with, is the amount of content around RCP. This year we have the virtual tracks, to help group related sessions, and the RCP virtual track is looking pretty packed.

We also have an embedded track for developers creating software for contrained devices and mobile devices. Not as much content as RCP but still enough to keep someone busy for the week.

I hope lots of you plan on making it to the conference.

The Six Pillars of Eclipse

In 2005, we spent a lot of time talking about Eclipse as being more than just a Java IDE. However I don’t think we did a very good job saying what Eclipse really is. EclipseCon is quickly approaching, so I would like to try to take the opportunity to start educating people on what Eclipse is about.

The biggest challenge I see is that Eclipse is many things to many different people. It is relevent to PHP developers, RTOS developers, mobile phone developers, Java developers, end user software developers, report developers, testers, architects, etc, etc. Therefore, I am hoping some type of categorization/ topology might help people understand Eclipse. Some of us have been brainstorming a categorization that we are calling ‘The Six Pillars of Eclipse’.

Here is a quick summary. You feedback and comments would be appreciated.

Pillar 1 - Tools for Enterprise Developers

Most people know Eclipse for this pillar. These are the Java tools, web tools, testing and reporting tools, etc. The technology in this pillar are focused on frameworks and exemplary tools that are used by companies building tools for developers that are building enteprise applications. Some of the projects that fit into this pillar would be JDT, Web Tools, BIRT, TPTP, CDT, PHP IDE, etc.

Pillar 2 - Tools for Embedded and Device Developers

Eclipse has quickly become the dominant platform for vendors suppling tools to embedded and device developers. The technology in this pillar considers issues like target management, device debugging, large scale C/C++ development, J2ME, etc. Some of the projects that fit into this pillar would be DSDP and CDT.

Pillar 3 - Tools for Web 2.0

This is very much an emerging pillar. The new AJAX Tools Framework is a great example of technology in this pillar. I hope we will also see more projects focused on Web 2.0 and mashups.

Pillar 4 - SOA and Application Lifecycle

Another emerging pillar are the projects that are focused on service oriented architecture and application lifecycle management. This projects are dealing with a lot of the issues that are important to architects and IT strategists. Projects in this pillar would be STP, ALF, Corona

Pillar 5 - Rich Client Platform / Deployment Platforms

I am tempted to call this the RxP Pillar, since I can easily see the Equinox OSGI runtime being used on clients, servers (RSP), contrained devices (eRCP), etc. RCP is focused on issues like component models, making it easy to deploy and manage applications, multi-platform support, version compatibility, etc.

Pillar 6 - Application Frameworks

There are a number of Eclipse projects that are developing technology to help developers embedded certain functionality into an application. Look at Eclipse Communitcation Framework (ECF), BIRT reporting engine, EMF, GEF, etc. They aren’t really focused on tools but on functionality that you embedded into an application. I see this as being a big area of growth for Eclipse. We will see projects that focus on horizontal and vertical frameworks that will help people to build applications. Each project will focus on the issues (ex. open standards) in their specific domain.

So what do you think? Does this make sense? Am I missing something or is this just too much detail?

Building communities

I am giving a presentation next week at the Evans Data Developer Relations conference. The intent of my presentation is to talk about the successes Eclipse has had in building a strong vibrant community. To do so, I have detail some of the ‘best practices’ that I have observed in the Eclipse communities. Some of this is based on a blog entry that I did last last year.

I have uploaded a copy of my presentation. Please feel free to leave some comments or suggestions on the presentation or what you think are best practices.

btw, I am also giving a similar presentation at EclipseCon, as part of the Business Track.

Nominations are in for the Eclipse Awards

I finally have had time to update the web site with all of the nominations for the Eclipse Awards. The deadline was last Friday and once again it is a proven fact that everyone (including myself) waits until the deadline before doing anything On Thursday and Friday I had close to 40 nominations sent in. It is great to see the response and thanks to everyone for taking the time to enter a nomination.

The really cool thing is that we received nominations from organizations that I was not aware of. I have not had a chance to read them all but there looks like some really cool products up for the awards. I don’t envy the job the judges have selecting a winner.

The one thing that did surprise me is that we only received 3 nominations in the category of ‘open source developer tools’. I think next year I need to spend more time trying to get the word out to these folks. Any suggestions on how to make that happen? We also only received 3 nominations for ‘best deployment’ but this is to be expected since it is a difficult category to convince enterprises to submit the information.

Thanks again to everyone that submited an award. The judges will now start determining a short list and selecting the winner. The winners will be announced at EclipseCon.

We also received a lot of nominations for the individual awards. Bjorn is taking care of setting up the voting process for those awards. Voting will commence around February 10.