EMF: Eclipse Modeling Framework

(2nd Edition)
By: 
Dave Steinberg, et al.
Published: 
2008
Pages: 
744
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Book Description

The Eclipse Modeling Framework enables developers to rapidly construct robust applications based on surprisingly simple models. Now, in this thoroughly revised Second Edition, the project’s developers offer expert guidance, insight, and examples for solving real-world problems with EMF, accelerating development processes, and improving software quality.

This edition contains more than 40% new material, plus updates throughout to make it even more useful and practical. The authors illuminate the key concepts and techniques of EMF modeling, analyze EMF's most important framework classes and generator patterns, guide you through choosing optimal designs, and introduce powerful framework customizations and programming techniques.

Coverage includes:

  • Defining models with Java, UML, XML Schema, and Ecore
  • NEW: Using extended Ecore modeling to fully unify XML with UML and Java
  • Generating high-quality code to implement models and editors
  • Understanding and customizing generated code
  • Complete documentation of @model Javadoc tags, generator model properties, and resource save and load options
  • NEW: Leveraging the latest EMF features, including extended metadata, feature maps, EStore, cross-reference adapters, copiers, and content types
  • NEW: Chapters on change recording, validation, and utilizing EMF in stand-alone and Eclipse RCP applications
  • NEW: Modeling generics with Ecore and generating Java 5 code

Member Reviews: 

Review By: Robert Jahrling 08/21/2009
If you have any interest at all in modeling and using the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF), then this volume is a must-have. Also, the authors are uniquely situated to write an expert guide to this framework. One of them is a coinventor of EMF, another is the current EMF project lead, and two are long-time committers to EMF as well as software modeling experts. Yet this book is much more than an expert’s guide. It is a well-written, patient, detailed introduction to software modeling and the thought process behind EMF itself. 

The authors do assume a certain level of knowledge from the reader. This is not an introduction to Java programming, nor is it an introduction to Eclipse itself. The first chapter serves as a brief introduction to some of its features, but by no means is it a tutorial on using the IDE. There is an overview of UML in one of the appendices, but it understandably covers only the subset of the features of UML which EMF itself uses. The authors also cover the benefits of modeling as well as the benefits of modeling with EMF. In the early chapters, they provide interesting insights into the development process.

The one drawback to this volume is the inevitable gap between when the book was written and how long it took to go to press, a gap which measure eons in software development time. The book was written and prepared using EMF 2.2, but since then versions 2.3 and 2.4 have been released, with 2.5 coming soon. EMF 2.3 contained quite a few significant changes that could impact the usefulness of the book. The authors include a detailed chapter on the differences between 2.2 and the later versions, which mitigates the problem well, but it's still unfortunate, albeit reasonable and unavoidable, that the volume wasn't revised specifically for 2.3.

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