EiffelStudio O-O Programming Suite for Mac OS X 42
name_already_in_use writes "Eiffel Software released their object-oriented programming environment for Mac OS X. It is a powerful language offering all the usual O-O wonders as well as few unique features of it's own (Design by Contract, generics). All compiled code can be run on multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, Solaris, and of course now Mac OS X, so there's no need to re-write code for different architectures."
Advantages? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Advantages? (Score:4, Funny)
That is a plus!
Re:Advantages? (Score:2)
Sheesh.
-fred
Re:Advantages? (Score:1)
As a matter of fact it started when some AC bought me a
Re:Advantages? (Score:5, Informative)
Eiffel is designed for large-scale programming. For that purpose it has strong typing, generics (roughly: C++ templates done right), a good module system, design by contract (rougly: assertions on class members). All in all it is a well-designed language with two big flaws: it has a quirky syntax (sometimes different for the sake of it), and it is not popular; the price of the official compiler doesn't help.
Python is in its own way also a well-designed language, but you don't want to write large programs in it, i.e. software that requires a team to implement. I don't know Ruby, but I suspect the same applies.
Eiffel is also interesting in that the designer has never released a really free version of the compiler. Usually that is deadly for an obscure language. After all who would be mad enough to pay for a compiler without knowing the language? Somehow Mr. Meyer has earned his living all these years selling Eiffel compilers. I don't know any other language designers that have managed this.
Re:Advantages? (Score:5, Informative)
It may have been intended for that, but a language that for years didn't even support type-safe separate compilation clearly wasn't designed for large-scale programming.
All in all it is a well-designed language
No, it is not a well-designed language and it never was. It is a language that sounds appealing to a software engineer because it seems to embody good software engineering practices (whether it does or does not is a separate debate). But in order to be a well-designed language, it first needs to get the basics right: the type system, separate compilation, a reasonable set of language constructs, etc., and Eiffel fell short there for years.
Re:Advantages? (Score:3, Informative)
well, i think there was/is a "personal" version for windows and linux that's free but limits the number of classes you can have in a program.
if you want a "free speech" compiler, don't overlook SmartEiffel [loria.fr], a pretty good GPL'ed implementation of the language.
Re:Advantages? (Score:5, Funny)
No, really.
Well, just kidding, actually. I happened to have to develop a 25000+ lines of code project for college. In three months (along with other subjects of course). In Eiffel. It helped a little that there were three of us to complete it.
The professor was the worst I have ever had in my long career. He basically told us: "you must complete this project with this zillion features to pass, it will be coded in a language called Eiffel, it is great, go get some documentation on how to code in it".
It was a coding nightmare, coding 12h *everyday* for the last month. There is simply no other way to code a 25000+ lines project in an unfamiliar lang in so short a time. The bastards gave us a 'C'.
Eiffel might be great and all, but please understand whenever I stand up and deface it.
There, I had to say it, now I feel better. =)
Re:Advantages? (Score:3, Insightful)
Spend your time getting Lazarus working instead! (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Free Edition license is for non-commercial use only. Pricing for the Windows, Linux, and Mac versions of EiffelStudio is US$ 4,799.00. Pricing for the Unix version of EiffelStudio is US$ 7,999.00."
Almost thirteen grand for a "cross-platform" setup. Nuts to that.
Eiffel is not bad, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Eiffel is not bad, but... (Score:5, Informative)
... and also from the fact that their site doesn't work in Safari. Their "contact us" link doesn't even work (it appears to attempt to open a dhtml panel). I don't think they'll be getting too many Mac orders just yet.
Re:Eiffel is not bad, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Eiffel is not bad, but... (Score:2)
I've run across a couple of Eiffel proponents who evangelized the wonders of all things Eiffel, but I've never seriously looked at the language. And if they can't make their site work for a target audience, they're not likely to get me to look at it either.
Re:Eiffel is not bad, but... (Score:2)
Re:Eiffel is not bad, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Not really. During its adoption phase, Eiffel was a complete mess: it lacked important features (e.g., method pointers), it lacked type-safe separate compilation, and the language definition had other serious bugs. The language failed because it was poorly designed.
The only reason people talked about Eiffel at all was because Meyer was also an advocate of what was considered sound software engineering
Re:Eiffel is not bad, but... (Score:2)
Safari. (Score:5, Funny)
They also want your address for the free edition. Right. I wish companies would just let us download their software and have fun with it, hassle free. I could barely download RealOne player the other day because accounts for jkl@jkl.com, asdf@asdf.com, etc. were all taken. Meh.
Re:Safari. (Score:1, Informative)
--
Thank you for your interest in EiffelStudio's Free Edition for Macintosh.
To ensure your success with your new Eiffel software, we highly recommend that
you read Dr. Bertrand Meyer's acclaimed classic, "Object Oriented Software
Construction, 2nd Edition," often referred to as the "bible of object-oriented
programming". Reading this book will DRAMATICALLY accelerate your learning
curve and satisfaction with Eiff
Re:Safari. (Score:3, Interesting)
If they didn't even test their website with the most common Mac browser, then I wonder how well QA-ed their Mac port is.
eiffel uses "design by contract", which is a very powerful concept to avoid bugs or at least find them quickly at runtime. my impression always has been that because of this, eiffel developers hardly perform any additional quality assurance measures.
one of the stories that destroyed eiffel's reputation for years (decades?) was how very early compilers treated hello world: it compiled f
Re:Safari. (Score:3, Insightful)
but the one thing that really won't change is the language. it still takes 20 lines to make a hello world in Eiffel.
Re:Safari. (Score:2)
This reminds me of a class that I had in which the teacher passed out a printed copy of a program and asked if it would work. I stated "No", while everyone else said "Yes."
The teacher stated that it had worked when he typed it in. I insisted that it shouldn't have. It turned out I was right. The VAX pascal compiler wasn't checking for ar
Re:Safari. (Score:2, Informative)
function validate(aForm)
{
if (cookies_enabled() == true)
{
checkForSelection (aForm);
}
else
{
alert ("You must have cookies enabled to proceed.");
}
}
Apparently, cookies_enabled() is unreliable under both Safari and OmniWeb. To fix this, either change the condition to true or use one of the direct download links someone has been kind enough to post below.
Safari and Mac IE (Score:2)
As for the email address thing, that's one of the niceties about owning your own domain - you get an infinite number of b.s. address ("blahblah@yourdomain.com, whatever@yourdomain.com, etc.). Then you can specify one rule on the server that routes them all into a junk folder.
direct download links (Score:5, Informative)
Re:direct download links (Score:1)
It looks like Slashdot got spammed too. (Score:1, Informative)
I guess Slashdot got spammed as well.
Unique Features? (Score:1)
Bob
Re:Unique Features? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unique Features? (Score:2)
In any case, between unit tests and the regular use of assertions, you pretty much get all the benefits of design-by-contract in just about any language. Explicit language support for design-by-contract is not needed, and design-by-contract is really just selling old ideas under a new name.
Re:Unique Features? (Score:2)
If you want pure objects though... (Score:3, Informative)
Both VisualWorks Smalltalk and Squeak have wicked cool environments, lots of neat stuff, public code repositories with lots of stuff, good friendly communities, run quickly, are objects thru-n-thru and of course do the xplatform thing at the binary level.
That language, Objective-C, which makes much of the cool stuff that is OSX possible, was after all inspired by Smalltalk.