Eclipse 3.5 Galileo: Xtext with many new functions
Abstract
This week the time has finally come: On Wednesday, June 24th, the Eclipse Foundation will present the new version of Eclipse under the name of “Galileo”. With this release Xtext, to a large extend developed by employees of itemis Agin the Textual Modeling Framework (TMF), will become a component of the Eclipse Modeling Projects. The Open-Source-Framework makes the creation of one’s own so-called domain-specific languages (DSLs) very simple and even allows creation of entire programming languages. Xtext, which is available from Wednesday for free download under www.eclipse.org/Xtext, offers extensive enhancements and extensions compared to the previous version, which was only availably as part of openArchitectureWare (oAW) 4.3.
Download: Long version (PDF, 47 KB)
Final burst for the developers of itemisAG before the release of Xtext: One and a half years after the start of the planning phase, the team, under the guidance of Sven Efftinge, has for the past couple of days been working hard on the final documentation for the re-developed oAW-Xtext. “Many new ideas and a growing number of committers have ensured that this project has developed rapidly in the last twelve months, ”, says Sven Efftinge.
»Xtext is the coolest new thing«
The popularity of Xtext, that is used in more and more industrial scenarios, has been growing rapidly since its beginnings. This development will continue, so much is already clear from the first presentations of the new version. Both at international conferences such as the “EclipseCon” in California as well as numerous client workshops, the response to Xtext has been very positive. “Xtext is the coolest new thing”, Ed Merks, Project-Lead of the Eclipse Modeling Projects sums up the reactions of the worldwide developer communtiy.
With Xtext you can not only develop just domain-specific languages, but also programming languages. It is thanks to good standard templates, so-called defaults, that the development effort has been minimized. “Xtext integrates perfectly into the landscape of EMF. The framework allows different combinations, even with graphical models, and thanks to Google Guice is also very extendable, ” Sven Efftinge identifies some of the prominent features.
Webinar: DSL-development with Xtext
For more information and updates on Xtext visit the new website www.xtext.org. The upcoming release may can also be discussed on Twitter (http://twitter.com/xtext).
On 15th July Sven Efftinge and Heiko Behrens will offer a Webinar (http://live.eclipse.org/node/705) on the topic of deeloping domain specific languages with Xtext. “In this Web seminar, we show, among other things, the benefits of the use of DSLs in software development projects,” explains Heiko Behrens.
Contact
Sven Efftinge, Branch Manager itemis Kiel
Sven Efftinge manages the itemis branch in Kiel and engages himself there with domain specific languages, generator development and eclipse technologies. He is an eclipse committer and is responsible for the Xtext-framework and architect of the Xpand-language family (also known as openArchitectureWare).
Sven Efftinge regularly speaks at software conferences, writes professional articles and is co-author of the book “Modellgetriebene Softwareentwicklung”, (Model-Driven Software Development) (published at dpunkt-Verlag).