Emacs Magik Debugger key binding

My latest favorite tool in Magik is the Magik Debugger. The Magik Debugger has been around for quite some time, but it was always inconvenient to load it. Starting at 4.1, the Emacs that ships with SW has a key binding (F4-d) that automagikally launches the Magik Debugger for the method in which your cursor is active. It makes it very easy to launch and using the debugger can often be quicker to use than scattering debug write/show statements throughout your code.

Igor has a nice demo video of this feature here.

Not happy with Magik in Emacs? See the MDT Webinar.

I've written a few posts related to Astec's MDT Eclipse plugin over the years. I have gotten used to using Emacs but I realize that is not for everyone (especially people coming to Magik from other development environments). So I was happy to read that Astec would be hosting a MDT webinar at the beginning of December. The timing of it is aimed at participants in the western hemisphere.

(Maybe Astec can set up a YouTube channel with additional demo videos for those who cannot attend the webinar).

Here's the announcement...

We would like to invite all Magik developers to an online live demo presentation of MDT (Magik Development Tools): the new and modern IDE for Magik.

Session is planned to be held on December, the 2nd, 1 p.m. Washington D.C. time.

MDT live demo presents main MDT features from simple basics to most advanced stuff. Topics included in this demo are as follows:
- creating project, runtime, session;
- importing and exporting (preferences, sessions, products etc.);
- working with code;
- browsing through code;
- managing project dependencies;
- search;
- version control systems;
- debugging

duration: approx. 60 min.

Due to limited number of seats please confirm your interest on mdt@astec.net. If needed, we will hold another session 90 minutes after the first one. Joining details and link will be posted one week prior to the presentation.

Cheers,
MDT Team

FME Workbench Design Patterns

You could consider the FME Workbench to be a graphical IDE (integrated development environment). Therefore it makes sense to employ the concept of Design Patterns to FME Workspaces. For anyone that has worked in an object-oriented language (like Magik) Design Patterns are not a foreign concept.

There is a presentation on FMEpedia called Introduction to Design Patterns that is worth reading by anyone wanting to make more efficient use of their FME Workspaces. The included PowerPoint presentation has a number of design patterns. Note that this presentation was inspired by a discussion the FME people had with someone from the Smallworld community and the examples in the presentation are all Smallworld-FME ones.

Magik plugin for Eclipse

If you are a Magik developer that prefers to use Eclipse over Emacs you should know that ASTEC today released version 0.5.1 of their free Magik Development Tools (MDT). To read more, visit http://www.mdt-project.com. There is also a white paper that gives a good overview of what MDT together with Eclipse can do for you.