Speaking of "software engineering at a highly significant level", another great thing is that I have permission to share slides outlining the reasons why Northrop Grumman decided to use the NetBeans Platform rather than Eclipse RCP. The company is the world’s largest military shipbuilder and the third-largest defense contractor, among many other things. Their application, Agile Client, is a NetBeans Platform application developed in partnership with the Defense Information System Agency (DISA). It brings the war fighter a 3-D common operational picture (COP) workstation designed for greater efficiency and mission effectiveness. This efficiency is empowered by its ability to be installed and upgraded on demand. Its mission effectiveness is permitted by the ability to tailor the user’s application with only the capabilities and data they need for their specific mission.
Download the slides in ODP format here or in PDF format here from edu.netbeans.org.
The slides are by Charlie Black, who was featured with his team in the netbeans.dzone.com article War Fighter on the NetBeans Platform a few months ago. Here's Agile Client, the application that they're working on, based on the NetBeans Platform (click to enlarge it):
...which, to me, seems like an extremely complex & mission critical application. Software engineering at a highly significant level, too.