Kevin, David, Boris, et al.
This is a really good conversation to be having. I hope this doesn't upset anyone, but a positioning statement with six points is not a positioning statement. They need to short, visionary and 100% "customer" focused. The points below could be a really good project summary, but that's a different thing. I've cc'd Ian on this to see if he can help. He's pretty good at this kind of stuff. Mike Milinkovich Office: +1.613.224.9461 x228 Mobile: +1.613.220.3223 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kevin McGuire Sent: January-27-09 6:50 PM To: E4 Project developer mailing list Subject: Re: [e4-dev] What *are* we doing here??? <g> Hi David, It's great that you're thinking of this. Boris, McQ and I were discussing something similar just the other day and to be honest we were really struggling. With respect to what you have below, this is the first we've used the word "Cloud". It's pretty trendy today so maybe we should, not sure. I will note that at first you're saying how we're extending the reach of the platform (good), the second is a discussion about adoption of technologies. The problem with the latter is that they are only as useful as the advantages they provide, so saying we'll evolve the architecture and adopt technologies ... to what aim? My belief is that we need to speak in terms of practical advantages so that a company will see real benefit in e4, either in terms of reduced application development cost, integration with a new breed of applications, or ability to reach new audiences by targetting the web without having to completely abandon their Eclipse investement. If they see benefit, they may be will be willing to spend some developer resources contributing. Thus that value must be clear. Things we said we'd do, and how I think they'll provide value: 0) Be more open as an organization: That's important for Eclipse, and for people to know they can get involved, but I think is only interesting with respect to perceptions of the past which hopefully we're changing (hence #0). 1) Make it easier to write applications, make it easier to maintain applications: This is a big win for anybody choosing Eclipse as an application platform. In fact, arguably that's the whole point of an application platform, that you have to write less stuff because of all the hardened libraries at your disposal. Modelled UI, declarative UI all come into play here. 2) Make it easier to contribute to the platform: based on the notion that by cleaning up the code base and picking known popular technologies like EMF, people can step in to contribute where they could not before. Maybe more of an organizational item, but also a benefit to consumers in the sense that they believe that if they find a platform bug they can fix it, and if they find missing features they can add them. 3) Enable new kinds of UIs: This touches on both the "shape" of the application, so RCP on steriods through modelled UI (which, by the way, I think we should start calling "Flexible UI", because the model aspect is a technical choice only and does not on its own ascribe goodness) [sorry Ed! :>]. It also touches on the CSS work in making it easier to create new looks for your applications. Presumably this has appeal to application developers because they can modernize their apps, they are less restricted in look, they have more opportunity for product branding, etc. 4) Something about flexible resources.... sorry haven't been keeping up here <sheepish look>. 5) Extending the reach of the platform: web to desktop, desktop to web. Reuse through deployment in the web or the desktop. This is where the Javascript integration, plugins in Javascript, better support for web widgets in the desktop all come in. The carrot here is reduced development cost through reuse, and parity of application look and feel for applications with both a web and desktop component (increasingly popular). I'm sure I've missed some stuff. Kevin David Orme <[email protected]> Sent by: [email protected] 01/27/2009 05:24 PM Please respond to E4 Project developer mailing list <[email protected]> To E4 Project developer mailing list <[email protected]> cc Subject Re: [e4-dev] What *are* we doing here??? <g> Yes, what I wrote was weak in that respect. Take 2. <smack/> Beyond the Enterprise, into the Cloud Tomorrow's applications will require integration of hand-held devices, desktops, enterprise server applications, and applications that are hosted "in the cloud" and are accessible from anywhere. E4 makes Eclipse the best platform for delivering integrated applications that scale into all of these environments. With E4, you can now target tiny devices, all the way up to cloud services like Amazon's EC2, all from a single code base. Take Eclipse's Architecture to the Next Level In order to accomplish the above objective, Eclipse will fully adopt technologies--such as Eclipse RAP--that have been in incubation for some time, and evolve its core workbench architecture so that it can fully participate in distributed and web 2.0-enabled applications. Better? Regards, Dave 2009/1/27 Boris Bokowski <[email protected]> What I meant was a position statement as defined by: <http://www.ericsink.com/Positioning.html> http://www.ericsink.com/Positioning.html (and probably many other marketing text books...) "The basic idea of positioning is that your product occupies a place in the mind of the people in your target market. You are defined by their perceptions of you. ... ask in which market segment you want to be known as number one. You want to be known as the best of your breed, even if you need several qualifiers to constrain the scope of your claim. Don't think about being fifth place in a large market. Instead, be number one in a smaller market. ... Identify the three parts of a position: superlative (why choose this product), label (what is this product), and qualifiers (who should choose this product)." I.e. something like: "Equinox is the number one componentization solution for Java applications in the embedded, desktop, and server context." or "RCP is the best platform for rich client applications that need native L&F across all major desktop OSs" or "The Eclipse IDE is the most popular IDE for Java programmers". Except we need something about e4... ;-) Boris Dave Orme wrote on 01/27/2009 04:36:12 PM: > OK, cool. How about: > > E4 will emphasize two primary themes: > > 1) Beyond the Enterprise, into the Cloud > > Eclipse has its roots as an enterprise software framework, capably > delivering software from embedded devices through the server. > > E4 will extend Eclipse with the capabilities needed to deliver > applications that live in the network cloud, whether on services > like EC2 or on your own cluster. > > 2) Take Eclipse's Architecture to the Next Level > > In order to accomplish the above objective, Eclipse will fully adopt > technologies--such as Eclipse RAP--that have been in incubation for > some time, and evolve its core workbench architecture so that it can > fully participate in distributed and web 2.0-enabled applications. > > > Thoughts? > > > Regards, > > Dave > 2009/1/27 Boris Bokowski < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> > Hi Dave, > > I agree with you that it is very important to think about e4 from a > marketing point of view. Especially since we have explored a good > number of areas and should be thinking about what we want to deliver > (both short term and long term). > > It's kind of funny that you are mentioning marketing now. Just > yesterday, I came across a blog posting about "marketing for geeks" > which I found interesting as someone who had a small software > company in the past. After enjoying all the parallels with what I > experienced a couple of years ago, it occurred to me that many of > the issues apply to the e4 project as well, in particular this one: > <http://www.ericsink.com/Positioning.html> http://www.ericsink.com/Positioning.html > > Ideally, we'd come up with a position statement about e4, maybe > something like your (1) below but shorter. Any suggestions? > > About (2), I don't think the phrase "architecture clean-up" is > something you can use for marketing purposes. :-P It's not about the > intrinsic properties, it's about what you can do with it. > > Boris > > > Dave Orme wrote on 01/27/2009 03:22:56 PM: > > > > Awhile back we put together a few paragraphs describing what E4 is > > about from a (dirty) marketing point of view. Beware: if you read > > onward, you might need to take a bath. ;-) > > > > Seriously though, what occurred to me last night is that E4 is > > really about two themes: > > > > 1) Eclipse has always been about providing great infrastructure. > > SWT gives us great infrastructure horizontally across operating > > system platforms. eSWT, eRCP, however, broaden Eclipse vertically > > down into the embedded space. E4 is about moving Eclipse up in the > > vertical space so that it can also be a platform for cloud-based > applications. > > After E4, we will cover all major desktop and server operating > > systems horizontally and the embedded through cloud space > > vertically. The enabling technologies here are Equinox, RAP, and > > [[the second E4 theme]] which is: > > > > 2) Code and architecture clean-up. Singletons are (nearly) always > > evil, but especially so in a multi-user environment like RAP. > > Resources can be anywhere. Declarative UIs are nice. Etc... I > > won't re-hash any more of this here as we're all well-versed in it by now. > > > > My Question: > > > > Does this sound like a good way to describe and position E4? > > > > OK, maybe that's a silly question to ask a bunch of engineers. ;-) > > > > But does anyone think I'm missing anything important or glossing > > over something that I shouldn't be. > > > > > > Regards, > > > > Dave Orme > > _______________________________________________ > > e4-dev mailing list > > <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] > > <https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev > > _______________________________________________ > e4-dev mailing list > <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] > <https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev > _______________________________________________ > e4-dev mailing list > <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] > <https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev _______________________________________________ e4-dev mailing list [email protected] https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev _______________________________________________ e4-dev mailing list [email protected] https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/e4-dev
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