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Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

Said by Rich Cook.

I can’t ressist to attend on a new Eclipse Stammtisch on Modelling which will take place in Berlin on the 19th August as mentioned by Ed. If you are interested in Modelling or not – it will be a happening and you are welcome to mark your attendance (preferably “Yes”) and get a eclipse-foundation driven beer (or other drinks as you like) for free as promised by Ralph. See you there…

The rumors are true. I have married Sabine.

It happened on Wednesday and it was a lovely day because it wasn’t too warm and small clouds where all over the sky which was perfect for taking some outdoor pictures after the ceremony. For lunch we went to a local restaurant. Our parents had organized a champagne reception and Sabines sisters an ice cream bomb as dessert.

In the evening Sabine and I went to a local cinema for viewing the new film about Harry Potter. All in all a very happy day.

On Saturday we will also have a churchly ceremony and a “small” (eve-of-)wedding party.

The DemoCamp which has been organized by b+m (my self) in cooperation with FOKUS (Tom Ritter) was a full success. We had seven talks – each about 20 minutes:

1. Ralph Mueller gave us some infos about the Eclpse Foundation and the Eclipse eco system in Europe (PDF)
2. Alex Koderman talked about the verinice project, an open source solution for Information Security Management (PDF)
   Break
3. Tom Ritter spoke about Model Sharing in a Distributed Model-Driven Development (PDF)
4. Martin Flügge showed us Dawn, a web-based collaborative extension for GMF editors (PDF)
5. Eike Stepper gave us a talk about the Net4j signalling platform (PDF)
   Break
6. My talk was about how to COPE with long term metamodel evolution (PDF) and
7. Max Bureck spoke about a graphical QVT/R-Editor (PDF)

There was some kind of running gag due to the unawareness of the speakers to actually show a demo because of miscellaneous technical reasons.

In the beginning and during the breaks we had the opportunity to have nice chat and the advantage of a delicious buffet. Thanks to the sponsors.

After the camp some of us moved into a timeless restaurant for celebrating an Eclipse Stammtisch which was also very nice.

All together it was a long but very nice day.

Please note: There will be a second Eclipse Stammtisch on the 16th June where you will have the possibility to meet some members of the Eclipse Board of Directors. Please have a look at Eikes post announcing the Stammtisch. If you want to participate please enter your name into the Doodle poll.

Like in the previos year I am one of the two organizers of the Eclipse DemoCamp Galileo 2009 in Berlin. It will take place on the 9th June here. I will give a talk about COPE and how to use it to evolute a meta model and migrate the corresponding instance models (as I have done it for GenGMF). If you don’t have the time to visit the Berlin DemoCamp you will get a second chance to hear my voice in Leipzig on the 23rd June. Sorry, I can’t be in Leipzig on this day because I will be in Kiel… But if you would like to chat with me and some members of the Eclipse Board of Directors at an Eclipse Stammtisch have a look at Eikes Post. See you there!

Some days ago I went to my dentist for the regular check up. They wanted me to sign a form about the transferability of claims to the mediserv GmbH and about inquiries about my credit score to rating agents. I declined my signature and put the blank form on the counter commenting that I will sign it on demand. They looked at me like I am the only one who cares about the wording in a contract. Maybe John Doe will sign it but that’s not my name…

As of today I have finished my study of applied informatics at the FHTW Berlin (University of Applied Sciences). The last exam I had to pass was the oral presentation of my diploma thesis. After an hour with a high level of adrenalin I must say that the effort I have invested into the thesis and the presentation payed off. Thanks to all thesis readers and presentation listeners ho have not been named – I’ve got full marks for both.

During the last days I have prepared a paper about the thesis for the MDSE 2008 workshop in Berlin. After my two MetamodelDoc presentations this would be my third public talk but the first in English. I look forward to see you there.

Update: The thesis is now available for download in the Publications section.

While preparing our relocation which will take place in October I am currently tidying the shelves in my flat from outdated computer magazines. I found some loose pages from the (in the mean time abandoned) magazine “PC-Heimwerker”, issue 3-96. They contain a lot of transcribed paper mailings from users to other users – helping each other…

< < < swooooosh > > >

I am back in the year 2008 – asking my self: “Why did I have kept the pages?” … Probably because of an article about Bresenham’s line algorithm in 16-bit-assembler(!).

Using search engines, news groups, forums or mailling lists  on a daily basis – life has become so easy…

I am happy to announce that I have finished the writing part of my diploma thesis and that everything has been bundled and filed to the university.

The thesis was written about the creation of a graphical editor for a model driven software development process. The abstract follows below:

„base“ is a model-driven software development environment for internal use by „b+m Informatik GmbH Berlin“. For editing models in „base“ a tree-based editor has been used in the past, which builds on the Eclipse Modelling Framework (EMF). A tree representation in particular is difficult to manage for the dataflow model, because conceptionally the model represents a graph in the mathematical sense of the word. The objective of this thesis was essentially optimizing the developmental process in „base“. To this end, a graphic editor for dataflow models was developed on the basis of the Graphical Modelling Framework (GMF). The meta-model, on which the dataflow models are based, contains 20 element types, which can be placed directly in the editor’s drawing area. The complexity of the models used in GMF increases over proportionally though with the number of element types and is consequently difficult to administrate. This was the reason for developing „GenGMF“ instead of implementing a graphic editor with GMF itself. „GenGMF“ is a Domain Specific Language with an appropriate generic model-to-model transformation for the automatic construction of GMF models. The dataflow editor was modeled using this new development for the construction of graphic editors. Using „GenGMF“ for development of the dataflow editor allowed construction of a „GenGMF“ model requiring 72% less model elements than generated GMF models. In addition, it did not have to be manually adjusted. The result is ease of use for presentation in the graphic dataflow editor.

If you have any questions regarding the thesis, „GenGMF“ or „base“ just send me a note.

I’ve got a letter from my university stating the title of my diploma theses “Entwicklung eines graphischen Editors zur Unterstützung eines modellgetriebenen Entwicklungsprozesses” (Development of a graphical editor to support a model driven software development process) and that I should finish my work before the 28^th July (which is 127 days ahead).