Meet This Year's Top Contributor Nominees

Dave Carver

DZone: Congratulations on the nomination Dave. Could you tell us more about yourself?

Dave: I'm a "Jack of All Trades" by profession, meaning I'm comfortable on any type of programming project or platform. For the last four years I have been specializing in XML technologies. I'm currently employed at STAR - Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail a B2B data standards organization focusing on the automotive retail, heavy duty truck, power sports, and marine industries. I have presented at the XML 2006 conference on how to apply agile development methodologies like XP and SCRUM to the development of data standards. I'm a Certified Scrum Master, as well as a member of the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance.

Outside of work, I'm a USSF State Level soccer referee. Which means much of my time is spent managing 22 players and ball on a soccer field on the weekends from March though December. I also work on several other open source projects, and help maintain the Mylyn-Mantis connector for the eclipse Mylyn plugin. Other hobbies and activities include Water Gardening, and drawing.

DZone: What are the main things that you do within the community?

Dave: I'm primarily focused within the Eclipse community on helping improve and promote the use of XML, as well as an advocate for Agile development practices and Clean Code practices. I'm a member of the eclipse Architecture Council, and maintain a blog called Intellectual Cramps where I share most of my thoughts about the state of XML and it's use with in eclipse. I'm also a member of the Eclipse Web Tools incubator, where I'm helping with XSL Tools, XML Security, and the Visual Editor for XML. Last summer I mentored a student during the Google Summer of Code project as he worked on an XQuery Editor using the eclipse Web Tools Platform. I also help out on the eclipse IRC channel and can be seen in the newsgroups answering questions, particularly in the web tools newsgroup. I also mentor the BPMN Modeling project at eclipse.

DZone: How long have you been involved with Eclipse?

Dave: I've been using eclipse for about 4 years. I introduced eclipse to our organization, and we use it as our primary XML IDE. I started contributing code to eclipse about two years ago, to provide patches for several XML related bugs within web tools. I also helped design and created the XML file format that is used for the eclipse project plan, by designing the XML Schema used for validation, and the XSL Stylesheets that are use to display the plan as HTML.

DZone: Do you have a favourite project within the Eclipse ecosystem?

Dave: Anything XML related. Currently I am focused on the XSL Tools project, but also am looking forward to devoting more time to the Visual Editor for XML which will provide a What you see is what you get editor for a variety of XML file formats. It already supports DocBook, DITA, and XHTML. It was a project that was originally hosted on sourceforge, that I managed to help bring over this last year as an eclipse web tools incubator project.

DZone: In the Eclipse world, what were your highlights of 2008, and what are you looking forward to in 2009?

Dave: In 2008, I would say it was helping to make the XSL Tools project a reality. It is one of the few projects that was started solely by individual committers and not an eclipse strategic member. The project only has 4 committers, two of which are currently active. Its the type of project that shows if there is a will, there is a way.

In 2009, I look forward to the graduation of XSL Tools, and to helping to further foster other XML related projects with in eclipse. Eclipse is an ideal platform for new projects to grow and incubate. I see a bright future in the coming year as XML gets more attention, and I'm hoping to help educate people on how and when to use XML correctly. Sometimes it's used when it should not be used. The correct tooling and frameworks can make XML easier to use correctly instead of being a burden that some view it today.

DZone: What is your full time job?

Dave: I'm a XML Data Architect for STAR. STAR is a non-profit organization working on data standards to help benefit the dealerships. My primary job is working as one of the leads on the DATA workgroup constructing XML Data models to help exchange information like Parts Orders, Repair Orders and other common business processes. My co-worker and I also work directly with other standard organizations like OAGi, AIAG, JAMA, JAPIA, HR-XML and I have participated on some UNCEFACT groups. I also maintain most of our in house applications, which are all open source based.

DZone: What do you like most about contibuting to Eclipse?

Dave: The diversity and the passion that many of the community members have. Particularly the individual committers. In many cases these people are doing this not because they are getting paid by their company to work on eclipse, but because they see the overall benefit to the community. It can be difficult at times working through the amount of process, and it is still too difficult for most non-members to become committers within an eclipse project. However, I enjoy interacting with the community as a whole, and working with them on trying new ways of working. I dislike hearing, "because that is the way it's always been done." That just motivates me to try and show that there is another way it could be done, that might be better.

DZone: Is it difficult for you to find the time to contribute to the Eclipse community?

Dave: I personally do not view it as a matter of time, but more at what is the current priority. There is a balancing act that has to be maintained between work, family, and hobby. If something is important enough to you, you find the time.

DZone: Why do you think you should be chosen as Top Contributor?

Dave: The other nominees are just as deserving of the award. Several have been at this longer and focused more on particular projects. I do not particularly think I'm more deserving. If I had to pick a reason I would fall back to the Jack of All Trades aspect of what I do. I do not focus just on web tools, but I try to focus on how I can contribute to making eclipse better over all. As the person that nominated me said, I "burst onto the scene" and could be found everywhere. I hope I have been able to help improve the overall quality and focus of the XML related tools, and hopefully have brought some attention for the need for applying Clean Code principles to open source projects overall. Everyone of the nominees is deserving of the award, it's too bad that it just has to be one that wins it.

James is a DZone Zone Leader and has posted 231 posts at DZone. You can read more from them at their website.