Foreword

Just like a pearl, the Eclipse Modeling Project has grown organically as layers around a central core. From the humble beginnings of the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) (initially part of the Eclipse Tools Project) along with the Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF) and the Generative Modeling Tools (GMT) (both initially part of the Eclipse Technology Project), the Modeling Project coalesced to become one of Eclipse’s most exciting and diverse projects. The depth and breadth of its technology is vast and even its rate of growth continues to increase. The Eclipse Modeling Project has truly become a Swiss Army knife for state-of-the-art model-driven software development.

The sheer volume of useful modeling technologies that the Eclipse Modeling Project includes makes mastering a significant portion of it a daunting task. Even determining which specific available technologies are useful for solving any particular problem is a challenge exacerbated by the fact that, as a rule, the documentation tends to lag far behind the development work. As such, this book fills a fundamentally important need in the modeling community: a coherent vision of how all this powerful technology can be best exploited to build domain specific languages (DSLs). In other words, the focus of this book is on pragmatic applications illustrated by way of concrete examples rather than on abstract modeling concepts and theories. This pragmatic focus reflects that of the Modeling Project overall—that is, a focus on building powerful frameworks that real programmers use every day. I’m sure this influential book—with its interesting examples and its excellent reference material—will become a key part of every toolsmith’s technical arsenal.

EMF provides a sound basis for abstract syntax development and even includes a crude but effective XML-based concrete syntax. But, that is only the start of the journey, and the second edition of the Eclipse Modeling Framework book covers this basic material well. This book effectively picks up where EMF leaves off with an in-depth exploration of alternative forms of concrete syntax, particularly graphical syntax, model-to-model transformation (such as Query View Transformation Operational Mapping Language), and model-to-text transformation (such as Xpand). It rounds out the DSL picture with a holistic view of everything it takes to build a complete model-based product line.

It has been my great pleasure and honor to work closely with Richard C. Gronback as the Modeling Project coleader for the past few years. He has a keen mind and a sharp wit. This book reflects it well. I’ve learned a great deal from him, and I’m sure readers of this book will as well.

—Ed Merks, Ph.D.
President, Macro Modeling