What I realized at EclipseCon: EMF is firstmost social software. Fundamentally, it's a better JavaBeans with a performant reflective API.

Oh–and unlike java.lang.reflect, they encourage you to use the reflective API.

Not surprisingly, the result is that EMF has become the seed out of which a whole lot of really cool meta programming tools have sprung:

• Graphical modeling tools
• External DSL creation tools
• Code templating engines and code generators
• Much more…

IMO, that is both the simplicity and genius of EMF.