EMF: Eclipse Modelling Framework (Your Chance to Win a Copy)

I've used EMF in combination with GMF to create graphical knowledge base editor for my bachelor's work. Since only thing I've had to done was to create some few models I had fully functional editor in about a month.

I will start to work with model driven development and think this book will help a lot.

I have been looking to start an EMF project for an application that can be used to manage records. Hopefully, understanding EMF better will be a good approach to come up with a project/product that can be easy to maintain.

I don't get all this model buzz. Is it something with storing data in XML? Or maybe painting nice looking UML diagrams that nobody cares afterall? I can live without models but reading EMF book could be interesting anyway.

I am using EMF for one year now in my (private) project and I am still learning. It is a very exciting technology with many possibilities (both core and UI). The concept of an editing domain and the adapter factory + item providers is just great.

Looking at the source code of EMF, it is so well written with very powerful design patterns. I am sure that nearly everyone will benefit from reading some parts of the source to become a better software developer/architect.

Currently I am developing a data model on top of an EMF model which can be (heavily) extended by other EMF models and will be sticked toghether with the OSGi services technology with the help of Spring DM.

We are using EMF for about two years to model and generate evolutionary prototypes of our applications. We use EMF to model both client model and domain model. We implement generator templates in OAW framework. Both EMF and OAW are great frameworks and I am a big fan of their authors.

First we tried to create models with GMF, but after some time we have realized that the real essence of modeling lies in model driven development itself. Today we create models in EMF editor and we use GMF only to visualize EMF (read-only diagrams).

Today we are able to generate hibernate, spring and wicket (really live applications not just layout), but the most important thing is we have learned to abstract solutions and to store knowledge in a solid platform (models and OAW templates). Never more I look in past projects to reinvent the wheel (how i solved the problem in previous projects?), i simply generate do best solution.

I am developing a dsl for dependability analysis of a power system

after a power system is designed in gmf, a transformation is done between two ecores resulting

in a dependability model which can be further exported into another tool using m2t

apart from gef, textual concrete syntax is also defined for xtext editor in which ocl expressions are used for input model validation 

what i really like in emf is ability to regenerate a whole app on the basis of a few configuration files

 

I am using EMF since about 5 years. EMF provides a standardized way to access objects in a reflective way and to listen to changes of the objects. The big strength of EMF is all the tools and projects around EMF. The core concepts of EMF relatively simple. If you digg into the details it can be very complex. I spend days on debugging EMF and stepping into the EMF code is a nightmare. But despite of its internal complexity, EMF is a great tool for managing complex data structures.

(as an aside, i hate these "free book for the best post." i think in practice this translates into "if i say really nice things about the subject, i might win a free book" in posters' mind, which surely doesn't result in many objective posts. just to be clear even if there was a chance -- i don't want the free book)

I own the 1st edition to this book, and it's very good, very clear. i think i'll probably buy the 2nd edition at any rate just because I use EMF a lot through the UML project.

Just some brief comments about EMF the software framework first:

1. superb quality. very, very nice.

2. three way synch: model, code, xml schema

3. very customisable generation through jet templates

A few -ves (I may be wrong, perhaps these are just me or have been fixed)

1. too tied to eclipse for editors, too tied to eclipse versions
--> I hate the fact that I have to start up eclipse3.1.2 to edit the UML2 model that I use in my implementation

2. underlying architecture is difficult to work with outside of eclipse
--> I run EMF/UML2 as the data model for a Swing-based case tool. Took me a few weeks to get it running outside of the Eclipse environment

3. difficult to change the storage model to use an object database

Ok, (3) is my own problem, but it was tough to get working with JDO. EMF sort of assumes everything is in memory, and unidirectional references must be searched for the source of the reference when the target is deleted. For large models backed onto a database, this isn't the case.

However, (3) certainly is possible with EMF, which sort of goes back to the fact that it's a superbly pliable framework.

The 1st edition of the book was very good, although again a bit eclipse centric. I know, it's called the eclipse modeling framework for a reason. Here's the thing though -- EMF is much more than that. It's a general modeling framework/data system for anything in java. Doesn't have to have anything to do with eclipse...

The 1st edition of the book contains an excellent intro into how you do the modeling, what advantages you get and how to model common patterns. The system is really very nice (haven't i said that before ;-) and oh so much nicer than the horrible MOF (meta-object format) and meta-rubbish that is so prevalent in so many tools based on the OMG specs. EMF as a simpler MOF works really really well.

Andrew

I am using EMF for an open source NLP (Natural Language Processing) RCP application in the biomedical field. EMF allows me as a core technology to use CDO to share the same model with many RCP clients in a very easy and straightforward way. EMF also gives me some other nice features as bonus, like the possibility to quite easy implement undo/redo functionality and bidirectional databinding.

I've used EMF to create a simple ECore model and persist to a XML file. I've been wanting to learn more about EMF and teneo and use it to build a database backed RCP application. Maybe winning a free book will help me get started more easily.

Where is the winner ? :)

Did anybody win the prize?

It would be great! We all are looking forward to it)

I really wonder if at last the winners were announced.