Duration: 27:46

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Alexander Nyssen - itemis AG

Dead wood needs to be cut out. And GEF definitely has some: an organically evolved API, a no longer adequate modularization (partly because of e4), a tight corset of API compatibility restrictions.

To modernize GEF, an initiative - GEF4 - has been brought into being about a year ago (see http://wiki.eclipse.org/GEF/GEF4). Plans were to develop a new geometry API as a nucleus in the Juno release timeframe, and to port the remaining parts of Draw2d and GEF 3.x as well as Zest 2.x to it afterwards. Well Juno has flown by, and the beginning has been made as intended: a first milestone of the new geometry API is there, and the porting of the remaining code base also has been started.

I want to take this opportunity to sketch what our plans and ideas for GEF4 are, to give an impression on what is already there (the bits and pieces of the new geometry API: http://wiki.eclipse.org/GEF/GEF4/Geometry), and to further outline what we are currently working on and what may be expected in the near future.