It's been a pretty busy year at the EMC Developer Network, laying the groundwork for things to come. In 2007 you'll see new services to help us all "Get Connected" as a development community. We're involving more people, more technologies and more ways to communicate.

The Profile Service, and a bribe

Our network is growing daily with new members from around the world. To service the community, it's important for us to know who you are, where you're located and what you're interested in. So we're going to make it worth your while:

If you complete your profile by January 24, 2007 you will be eligible to win one of ten $50.00 gift certificates valid at hundreds of retailers and specialty services. Visit your profile and make sure there are no "Please Update" entries in the data. If your profile doesn't require changes, simply press the Submit button to confirm the data.

A new year, a new TLA

I don’t know how many times I’ve typed “EMC Developer Network” over the past year, but in my role as Editor, it certainly comes up quite a lot.

After careful consideration, and consultation with the various Acronym Standards Organizations (ASO), it has been determined that the EMC Developer Network deserves its very own TLA (three letter acronym): EDN. It’s easy to read, easy to say… and saves wear and tear on the keyboard!

So my email address has changed to EDN_Editor AT emc.com, and anyone who wants to (hint, hint) contribute an article or topic suggestion should now use EDN_Submission AT emc.com.

SDC ‘06: looking back

One of the special services our group provides is organizing the Software Developer Conference (SDC). Approximately 500 people participated in the great SDC '06 event in San Francisco. Customers, partners and EMC employees all gathered to share information about EMC software products.

For the first time, the products and technologies covered went beyond Content Management. There was particular interest in the Resource Management, Information Management, and Security sessions, and were all well attended.

There were lots of presentations ranging from overview lectures to detailed hands-on labs. Plenty of time was set aside for one-on-one conversations and social events, including a trip to the Exploratorium. The feedback we heard from the attendees was that they got a lot out of this conference and looking forward to next year.

My participation at the conference had me doing three special things:

• I gave a presentation to all the attendees, introducing them to the EDN, and giving a sneak peek of things to come (for example, some cool new code search enhancements, and expanding the use of discussion forums)
• Josh Taub of the Blue Fish Development Group and I co-hosted a “Developer Challenge”. This (often very funny) dinner event covered a range of trivia from the most obvious to the pretty obscure. We gave away a boatload of prizes (big and small), learned a few things, and laughed a LOT.
• I moved from session to session, making photos of the event, resulting in a video slide show presented during the closing lunch.

SDC ‘07: looking forward

The next SDC will be hosted at EMC World 2007 (May 21-24, Orlando Florida).

For the first time EMC World will be a ‘conference of conferences’. Registration entitles attendees to go to sessions across all three of the events running concurrently (SDC, Momentum, and EMC Technology Summit), so there should be something for everyone involved with EMC products.

By having the SDC at EMC World, we’re able to bring more people together and cover a wider range of topics… and at the same time, reduced the registration fee from $2,495 to $1,595.

A couple of special notes:

• If you register right away: Attendees who register on or before February 28, 2007 at 5:00 p.m. EST and pay the conference fee of $1,595 on or before May 7, 2007 will be eligible to choose either an Apple iPod Nano, Maui Jim Sunglasses, or Shure E3c Sound Isolating Earphones.
• If you attended SDC '06: When you register, you will automatically be enrolled in the Summit Leaders Club and receive the following perks at EMC World 2007:
  • Priority registration counters at the Convention Center
  • A limited edition EMC World gift received upon check-in
  • Access to the exclusive Summit Leaders Club Lounge for networking
  • A 15 percent discount at the onsite EMC World store

The Service Station

There is an entire industry built up around providing services for EMC software. Services range from basic system installation and configuration, to large scale custom-built enterprise solutions.

I spent time during the recent SDC talking with several people about the need for discussions that are not necessarily product specific, but instead about the process of producing successful projects. It’s less about “How do I do this?”, and more about “What should I be doing?”

This month we introduce the Service Station column, a series of articles about providing professional services around EMC software products. Featured guest columnists express their thoughts about a wide range of topics relating to designing, developing, and delivering solutions.

Jeff Rosler (of Flatirons Solutions) kicks off the new series with an article is based on the EMC Documentum platform. It quickly becomes obvious that the issues are common to any software development project, and touches everyone involved.

If you (and your company or department) provide such services and are interested in being a guest columnist, please send your contact information, a brief bio and topic outline to EDN_Submission AT EMC.com.

Featured EDN contributors: Flatirons Solutions

In addition to the Service Station article, we've recently received several other fine contributions from the folk at Flatirons Solutions. Let's highlight (and applaud) their continued committment to sharing with EDN developers.

• Fabian Lee has submitted a series of detailed technical articles about designing and consuming web services around EMC Documentum. These are ‘how to’ articles, complete with sample code for a variety of development environments, and lists many resources that are useful to anyone interested in Web Services. His article about The EMC Documentum Web Services Framework is a great place to start.
• Scott Roth, who wrote the book ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Developing Documentum Desktop Applications’ and the Documentum Command Line Shell (DOCS) recently open sourced the DOCS tool. This tool had been hosted on the Component Exchange and has been quite a popular download. With the open sourcing of this tool, more people from the community can get involved in developing and providing feedback on this tool.
• Harjit Singh contacted us a couple of months back to contribute to the Repository Interrogation Utility, whose source is there on Sourceforge.net. In spite of all the priorities he had with his work he managed to write an extension for the tool that prepares a DQL statement for a documentum type by looking at the object’s schema.

A Public Service

Flatirons Solutions is just one of the many companies whose developers contribute to EDN. How about your team?

There's a lot of talent out there, and many people have very definate ideas about how to develop solutions. We really do want to hear from you. Articles, tips, sample code... they are the traditional ways of making your voice heard, so step up and share.

We want all members to be able to comment on all areas of EDN content. If you're logged into EDN, you can generally click on a "Comment" link at the bottom of a page, but stay tuned, we've got more ways for you to share with the community coming soon.

Don't be shy, 2007 is a new year and time for you to speak up and contribute. Consider it a "Public Service" to your fellow developers.

Alan Z.

Click here for an index of all "From The Editor" columns