What's All This Fuss About Modeling?

I've been incredibly busy these past few weeks. After getting home from Berlin last month I headed for California two days later to present at the Googleplex. My presentation was about build and provision of all things! Speaking of which, did you see the b3 proposal? Clearly models are good for everything, including builds. While in California I met up with Peter who presented an introduction to DSLs. It was an excellent talk and overall the Google folks hosted a great event. Afterward, Peter came back to my place for a visit, and the next day Frank, Eike, and Rene arrived as well. It was kind of a German invasion of my home but my killer guard dogs lost their killer instinct long ago.

Peter only stayed for a few days, but the rest stayed until just this past weekend. While I went to Boston last week for the Eclipse Board meeting---yet more travel---the guys took a trip to Ottawa to visit Kenn and Lynn. The girls are always concerned whenever anyone left the house with suit cases.


Given that I have several events to attend in Europe in the coming weeks, I decided to head back to Berlin along with my guests. Frank and I arrived Monday after a flight in which nearly everything that can go wrong did go wrong. How exactly does a confirmed flight segment disappear from the system? No really, I do want to end up in Berlin, not Frankfurt! And no, I don't want just one of us to be upgraded to business, thanks for the kind offer. It made me a little prickly, but all is well that ends well.


On Monday I got a chance to spend time with Wolfgang Neuhaus who made a special trip out to Berlin so we could discuss itemis business in person. We spent a sunny day at a lovely cafe a short walk from Frank's place and decided to avoid sitting under the chestnut trees which were dropping spiked chestnut bombs with frightening regularity. It was very enjoyable. This area of Berlin is incredibly beautiful, especially the botanical garden!


Yesterday I headed to Nantes to spend time with my friends at Obeo. Today I'll talk again about the unbearable stupidity of modeling. I'll be presenting in French; just kidding! Jean Bezivin invited me to present and I'm just a boy who can't say no. It's simply beautiful here in Nantes, and the people I'm staying with are all so nice. Too bad I forgot my camera!

In an upcoming week I'll be helping Eike with the Eclipse Code Camp. I'll be presenting in German; just kidding! It will be four action packed days of fun and learning so don't miss the opportunity if you're able to find your way to Munich the week of October 12, or is that Oktober. I feel a bit dazzled these days.


For Eclipse Summit Europe I'm going to clone myself so I can attend both the Modeling Symposium and the B3 Symposium. Speaking of which, for the modeling symposium we want to give people a chance to present short 10-15 minute presentations about the modeling technology they're working on or to propose discussion topics. If you're interested, please send a short abstract for a talk or a proposal for a discussion topic to ed.merks@gmail.com and bernd.kolb@sap.com; please use a subject line of the form [ese2009]...

And finally, in November, there are going to be some Eclipse Modeling Days, but that's a secret, so I can't tell you about it, especially not about their secret locations in Toronto and New York. We're still gathering abstracts. Interested?