PDE Does Zürich

Next stop in our recent PDE tri-continent tour was the beautiful city of Zürich, home of Erich Gamma and the JDT team. Consistently ranked as the most livable city in the world, it is worth mentioning that it is also one of the most expensive cities in the world. You know there is no messing around in Zürich when you see that the ATM does not dispense less than 100 CHF (~$87 CAD).

Zürich - now with 20% less bustle
The IBM lab has been fabled in story and song as "an office overlooking charming old-town Zürich, with the bustle of medieval commerce outside and the thump of techno from the record store downstairs."

This description may have been true in the '90s, but it is evident in the pictures below that the hustle and bustle levels have been degrading steadily over the past few years, a fact that Al Gore would probably attribute to global warming.

A Conversation with Erich
I met with Erich to discuss the state of Jazz, but that's all top-secret stuff, so I can't give any details ;)

We also discussed the PDE 3.3 features, and Erich expressed his fondness of the new cheat sheet editor and the command composer.

Seeing how easy it has become to author cheat sheets, I think it should be a requirement for all EclipseCon tutorial exericses next year to be in the form of cheat sheets. No more MS Word docs please.

Note that the "We love the new PDE cheat sheet authoring tools" club already has an Austin chapter. If you would like to start a PDE club in your home town, let us know ;)

The Pink House
While in Zürich, we stayed in the lap of luxury at the house of JDT/UI's Martin Aeschlimann, a contemporary and a good friend. Here is a picture of us outside of what is rumored to be the only pink residence in all of continental Europe.

Next Stop: Africa

After two days in Zürich, we took the train back to Frankfurt where Chris and I parted ways. He headed back to the United States and I flew to Africa for the "PDE Does Cairo" adventure.