Now that I get to one of these things, i.e. Eclipse Summit Europe, I really get why I need to be here. I’ve met a number of people that were interested in the CDT who were very glad to meet me. I got some really good questions from many of them who are extending the CDT for their own build and debug tool chains. CDT in Europe is very much alive and thriving and it was a great opportunity for me to see what all was going on and to help where I could.

The day got started very late as my talk wasn’t until 5 p.m. It was great to see around 30 or 40 people attend, more than last year. We then followed it up with a BOF late in the evening where we had a great discussion from a number of different people using the CDT on areas where it could improve and where thing are working better than expected.

I really got a feel for the diversity of the people interested in the CDT as well. I had a number of silicon vendors ask me questions on how to integrate their specialized toolchains with the CDT. This is definitely a hot spot with the CDT and something I didn’t really anticipate. I’m much more used to RTOS vendors working with the CDT, but these bare metal guys are doing some pretty cool stuff.

I also learned that there not one, but two groups looking at C/C++ refactoring for the CDT. It’s a very tough area and our current AST implementation presents a lot of challenges for them, but give the number of people who showed interested in having that functionality at the summit, it could be the next great step for the CDT. I hope things work out there.

The day closed off with a nice social closing with a number of the Eclipse Foundation staff. They are a very cool bunch of folk that have a lot of passion for what they do and in growing the Eclipse community in all directions. As Mike presented in his opening, he wants the Foundation to be around for 50 years doing something interesting. If they pass on their passion down the line, I’m sure this can be achieved. As long as they don’t get too many German bartenders mad for bringing in Burger King even though the restaurant was closed. Oops, I guess what happens in Germany should stay in Germany, oh well…