{dev.tools} Eclipse SDK

Being in a competitive environment helps you stay competitive. I hate to say this, but I observe the job market as a horrible gigantic monster that eliminates all who don't stay as dark and competitive as the monster wants you to be (is it why the job searching agency is called monster.com?). That's why I endure the cold spring in Edmonton.

I have minimal and rather linear understanding of software engineering and software architecture. For unknown reasons (I am still blaming super powers that govern our destiny for this), I have enrolled in a graduate course related to software architecture and formal methods. Not that I regret it, no! The course is very challenging for me (with a vivid lack of computing science knowledge), and at times, very difficult to follow. The bright side is that it serves a fast forward review and hands-on-experience of the concerns of softwer engineering researchers and developers without knowing what actually they have been through during the few past decades.

As the first part of this course, we dealt with model checking, which is a well-known concept in softer engineering. We used a new symbolic model verifier (SMV) called nuSMV. Then, we moved on to model extraction and in particular we used Agile Framework for model checking and extraction. This latter is developed by the course instructor, Jim Hoover. You can read more about agile framework.

As the second part of the course, we are now dealing with another problem that software engineers face: respecting design intent. If you are not in the field of software engineering, the terminology I am using may sound alien to you. It did sound alien to me, but to some extent, I am getting more comfortable using them. Perhaps, a knowledgable person (such as Jim himself) would recognize that I do not sound correct in some occasions. Like I have mentioned previously, I use this blog to self-organize my unstable state of mind and state of knowledge. Mind you, I don't fancy sharing my personal life with anonymous readers (like I've got many!). Anyways.

To capture and confirm aspect of design intent, they have developed the Structural Constraint Language (SCL). It seems that Daqing Hou has contributed to this approach the most. He gave lectures in class and it seems that he has been spreading out the word here and there. He has developed his SCL in Java, which gives me a chance to work with Eclipse SDK. It is an open source dev tool. Ken and Bruce helped me install Eclipse and SCL. Okay. My mind is straightened. I have to get back to do my homework. Before I go, I just found this piece of news:

Google Considers Joining Eclipse

There is a bright future for what I have just installed on my machine.

aShademan is out.