Time to Write a Book
It seems the time has arrived for me to write a book on the Modeling project. More specifically, now that things have settled down on GMF and the QVT contribution is available in CVS, it's time to write a book on using the Modeling project as a DSL Toolkit.
Designed to complement the "EMF book" (version 2.0 is out soon!) in the same Addison-Wesley series, the book is scheduled to be completed at the end of March, 2008 and be some 500 pages long. So far, I have just about 100 pages written in draft form, so hopefully it will be a long cold winter indoors.
The book will utilize a series of DSL projects to cover in detail the development of graphical concrete syntaxes (using GMF), model-to-model transformations (using QVT Operational Mapping Language), and model-to-text transformations (using Xpand). In the future, perhaps be extended to cover concrete textual syntaxes, if and when the proposed Textual Modeling Framework project becomes a reality.
At this point, I'd be interested in the community's feedback on this book and its scope. To me, a DSL Toolkit should include all aspects of model-driven software development as they relate to a domain (semantic) model. And since the world already has an excellent book on EMF itself, it's about time we had one to cover these other important capabilities in the Modeling project.
For those attending Eclipse Summit Europe this year, Ed and I will be demoing part of the book's sample projects. In November, I'll be delivering a similar presentation at EclipseWorld. Hope to see you there!
Designed to complement the "EMF book" (version 2.0 is out soon!) in the same Addison-Wesley series, the book is scheduled to be completed at the end of March, 2008 and be some 500 pages long. So far, I have just about 100 pages written in draft form, so hopefully it will be a long cold winter indoors.
The book will utilize a series of DSL projects to cover in detail the development of graphical concrete syntaxes (using GMF), model-to-model transformations (using QVT Operational Mapping Language), and model-to-text transformations (using Xpand). In the future, perhaps be extended to cover concrete textual syntaxes, if and when the proposed Textual Modeling Framework project becomes a reality.
At this point, I'd be interested in the community's feedback on this book and its scope. To me, a DSL Toolkit should include all aspects of model-driven software development as they relate to a domain (semantic) model. And since the world already has an excellent book on EMF itself, it's about time we had one to cover these other important capabilities in the Modeling project.
For those attending Eclipse Summit Europe this year, Ed and I will be demoing part of the book's sample projects. In November, I'll be delivering a similar presentation at EclipseWorld. Hope to see you there!
posted by Richard C. Gronback at 9:21 AM
10 Comments:
Good luck, writing a book takes forever :)
Cool! Good luck. Where can I pre-order a copy :)
Thumbs up! I'll definetely will purchase one :-) Don't hesitate to discuss any question regarding openArchitectureWare (Xpand, Xtend, Xtext,...) in our forum. We'll be pleased to give you any information you need.
I look forward to!
Hi,
I would like you to see this blog:
http://gmfdoc.blogspot.com/
I am trying to populate all the documents regarding GMF in an properly organized manner. Please give your suggestion.
While using GMF I faced difficulty in finding exact book or good documentation like EMF has.
Actually, I am on mid-way. Blog will be enhanced and refined progressively.
I know the post to write the book is from 2007. Just wanted to check if you or anyone you know of, is closer to releasing the GMF book which possibly consolidates all the disparate knowledge that has been blogged and 'tutorialed '?
I sent the manuscript to the publisher several weeks ago, so I'm just waiting for the processing of it into a Safari "rough cut" at the moment. Sorry for the delay.
Thanks Richard.
For a newbie, it is becoming quite cumbersome (if not impossible) to read the news groups in order to figure out "how do i do X in GMF?"
Will be following your blog to purchase a copy of rough cut....(I really want to use GMF but is becoming increasingly difficult to figure out stuff on my own...need well documents book :) ).
I have been reading the book in my attempt to put many of the tools provided together in Eclipse into perspective. I like the approach you used in the book but it is, unfortunately, now out of date in some respects.
One of the problems I have with the contents is the use of 'Amalgam' which is not available as a plugin for Kepler (which I am using). In trying to follow along you made the comment in chapter 3 that "You can create an equivalent project by starting with a plug-in project and adding the required dependencies, natures, and builders" without ever specifying what those required 'dependencies, natures, and builders' are.
This makes it difficult (read 'impossible' for me) to follow when later in that chapter (dealing with OCL), you say to 'copy the templates provided in the solution' when I don't *have* any templates.
Is there somewhere that lists what needs to be done to set up a project to be able to follow along with the book?
Mark
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