Message from your Emperor - PLEASE READ - ACTION REQUIRED

Well guys, it's been a long fun strange trip. I've had a great time over the years with SWT and Eclipse, but it's time for this Sith Lord to be invading new galaxies.



Over the years working on Eclipse, there have been many high points and a few low ones. Making everyone laugh at JavaOne during the height of the "Swing vs SWT wars" was really fun and helped ease the tension. Around that time, there was a full time blogger or two, FUD'ing and crapping on the toolkit and me personally (it seemed) for daring to make a few operating system calls. Who would have believed that?

The best part of the job was working with everyone at OTI and IBM and meeting all sorts of different people from all over, either in person or through the bug system. Eclipse is a place where (almost) everybody plays and thanks to the Foundation and others in the community, this creates a lot of opportunity. Great work guys!

It's never a good time to leave, but right now is a clean point. We are about to ship Eclipse 3.5 and this is the best time for me to untangle myself from my commitments. Silenio Quarti will be taking over as SWT team lead at IBM and he is one of the greatest engineers I know.

June 12th will be my last day with IBM. I've accepted a position at Bedarra Research Labs. The exact details have yet to be nailed down, but after a short break, I'm looking forward to new engineering challenges.

Best wishes to everyone and thanks,

Steve

P.S. I can be reached as steve_northover confuse a spam bot somewhere near "mail that is hot" should there be an attack on the death star from the rebel base.