Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Benjamin Franksen <[email protected]> · Tue, 21 Aug 2001 19:23:26 +0200

Jeff Hill wrote:
> 
> > I never cared how many people use the same tool as I do as long
> > as I get the work done. And of course this includes being able to
> > efficiently and easily re-use (i.e. interface to) the things I have
> > already done.
> 
> I will disagree that popularity of a particular tool _is_ by itself an
> issue because we must maintain "programmer portability". That is,
> we must be able to find programmers willing and able to move between
> projects and code bases.

Anyone who has mastered such a complex and flawed language like C++ will
easily learn to program in Eiffel and will soon prefer it. Although
Eiffel contains a lot of features that C++ is still missing (garbage
collection, contracts, constrained genericity, ...), it is much simpler
than C++. The syntactical differences should not be a problem for any
half-way experienced programmer, especially since Eiffel's keywords are
much more telling than C++'s kryptic syntax.

> The availability of advanced productivity enhancing IDE's and other
> debugging tools suitable for both traditional and embedded targets also
> rapidly narrows our practical choices.

True, C++ has better tool support. More compiler and IDE vendors; open
source tools (g++ and gmake) more advanced and complete. Still the
situation for Eiffel is not as bad as you may think.

There are at least a hand-full of compiler vendors who also sell
complete IDEs. The GNU Eifel compiler (SmallEiffel) is rapidly
appoaching industrial strength and now comes with a source level
debugger. To anyone interested, I recommend looking at the peronal
experiences with Eiffel listed at
http://www.elj.com/eiffel/my_eiffel_story of which some are actually
quite critical. Looks like a less prejudiced source of information
compared to compiler vendors (and language designers).

Ben
-- 
Berliner Elektronenspeicherring-Gesellschaft für Synchrotronstrahlung
(BESSY) GmbH, Control System Group
Albert-Einstein-Straße 15, 12489 Berlin, +4930 6392 8462, www.bessy.de

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System