Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Xcore: Coolness Reborn

The quest to Kiel has proven enlightening beyond expectation. Last week, as I approached the sanctuary of the Xtext team, sun glinting from the facade, I knew deep down that I was headed for the right place.

Xtext is the coolest of the cool projects at Eclipse today, and that's tough competition! Three of its four custodians, Sven, Sebastian, and Moritz, were there that Monday morning. We discussed the coolest things we could collectively conceive: Xcore, progeny of Ecore and Xbase. We decided to begin this new endeavor using a repository at github so we could immediately begin working as a team. (Of course we'll host this at Eclipse after we migrate EMF itself to Git.) Time flew yet much progress was made before the sun set on a great week.


We found time to write a proposal for a session at EclipseCon Europe 2011. If ever there was a Really Cool Thing,™ this definitely is it! Before I knew, I was back on a speeding plane, admiring the majesty that is Super Natural British Columbia.


I got home just in time for the final display of Vancouver's Celebration of Light. I was definitely in the mood to celebrate!


I'm extremely happy to have embarked on this cool quest. I look forward to excellent progress in the weeks to come. That vast desert of uncool is already fading from memory. To whet your appetite, here's how the Xcore model for the standard Library example looks:



This isn't just a pretty picture, we have a great deal that is working already! Don't just take my word for it, open source is a glass house; stay tuned. Of course all design decisions are subject to change. We look forward to feedback from the community.