An audience member asked about use of Eclipse technology in modeling. But Compuware's Kern was not sold. "The MOF (MetaObject Facility) is more powerful and allows you to do more things than the Eclipse generator," he said.

"Eclipse is no silver bullet," Kern said.

An audience member said current modeling tools are difficult because they usually do not consider what a model is. "Not a single tool that I have ever used adequately supports the entire process," the audience member said.

Ambler said the industry needs to recognize that not everyone thinks visually. "We have no clue how many people here are visual thinkers," Ambler said.

During a session about Web application development, which focused exclusively on AJAX, one SD West attendee asked the presenter, author Christian Gross, about whether JavaScript would in the future be the sole language for client-side development.