Erkki, I recently gave a talk about the engine behind Glimmer and how to
extend it with new functionality: http://chirb.org/event/show/27
I can send you the slides by email. Please send a request to: andy{ at}
obtiva[ dot] com
To answer your question though, I did use meta-programming and reflection
to build Glimmer in Ruby. The Ruby language makes it super-easy to build
internal DSLs, and according to Neal Ford, a ThoughtWorks consultant who
gave a lecture on DSLs in the No Fluff Just Stuff Chicago conference last
December, Ruby provides more power than Groovy for building DSLs.
Due to popular mention of Scala though, I am exploring it right now as
another language for efficient development of Eclipse applications. The
idea of providing something similar to Glimmer in Scala is not that
remote, so if you would like to collaborate on it, let me know.
Are you attending EclipseCon 2008 by any chance? I'm there right now.