I have been working with several Eclipse projects throughout my PhD. I spend most days working with GEF, EMF, Mylar and SWT, but I have also spend a considerable amount of time working with RCP, GMT, GMF, EMFT and of course JDT and the PDE. Each of these communities have some remarkable people, able and willing to answer all my stupid questions.
The other day I posted a question to the EMF newsgroup, and to kill some time I started browsing previous posts. I quickly noticed something: Almost every post on the newsgroup had a response. Of course the responses may be "This is an inappropriate place to ask that question", or "That question has been answered several times before", but someone (mostly Ed Merks) took the time to answer each an every question (baring a few exceptions < 20). I mean no disrespect to any of the other projects. I understand how hard it is to answer everyones request (especially when people show little respect in their post). Also, many new users tend to ask the same question repeatedly. But for the EMF team to take the time to address every user, some recognition should be thrown their way.
A while back, I listened to an EclipseZone podcast; an interview with EMF's Ed Merks. The interview kept returning to the same point, the lack of understanding people have of EMF. I don't think very many people understand the true power of this great technology. For anyone developing data centric applications (that is any application with a data model), you really should consider EMF. Between EMF's documentation, tutorials, and of course their newsgroup, anyone should be able to come up to speed rather quickly.
