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

MDT on Smallworld 4.2

In recent MDT news from ASTEC, I noticed an article that stated that "MDT will be included in new Smallworld CST 4.2". Basically, during the Smallworld installation process you will be able to choose whether you want to use Emacs or MDT. As far as I can tell, you will initially be able to evaluate MDT for 30 days and then have to purchase a licensed version to continue using it.

For those of you who don't know, MDT (Magik Development Tools) is a visual Integrated Development Environment for Smallworld developers that is based on the Eclipse framework. You can read more about the details here.

I think that it promises faster familiarization with Magik particularly for those developers just getting started. I have to admit that it took me quite a while to get comfortable with Emacs.

I haven't used the tool much myself, but would love to hear from users that have made the switch from Emacs to MDT to learn about their experiences.

Check out MDT (Eclipse Plugin for Smallworld)

On Thursday, 12 May from 14:40-16:10 in the Doppler Hall, Astec will be presenting MDT (Magik Development Toolkit) in a session where they show a full end-to-end project workflow.

I have to admit that I haven't tried MDT for quite a few years. I tend to think of myself as someone that is quite content with Emacs. But some of the stuff I briefly saw at the Astec booth tonight at the SW EMEAI Users Conference piqued my interest and I plan to be a the workshop. I really like how they have integrated Mylyn context management, SVN and bugzilla to provide and easy way to manage development tasks within the IDE. I also heard that they will be demonstrating how to use the Eclipse UML modelling tools to generate Magik code. I can't wait to see that!

I wonder if the UML modelling can be extended to help visualize complex hierarchies like the configuration XML files in Smallworld?

See you at the demonstration on Thursday afternoon.

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.

@MDTnet #swgis webinar on 23 October

ASTEC will be hosting a webinar for their Magik Development Tools (MDT) on 23 October.

I have been an Emacs traditionalist when it comes to Magik development.  Recently, however, I have been working on other projects that use the Eclipse IDE for Java work.  I can tell you that based on the cool refactoring, debugging and code assist functionality available to Java in the IDE, I have reconsidered my Emacs traditionalism and would recommend that you learn more about MDT and how it can help you become more efficient in your Magik development.

You can find more details about the webinar here.