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It appears that there were earlier releases of TeX in the 1982-1984 period, although few traces of them remain. It also appears that the 1986 release obsoleted most of the earlier work.

There is a little information on the licensing in 1986, though I couldn't find anything earlier that addresses the question. This source says: We are frequently asked if it is proper for the recipient of a Unix TeX tape to give Unix TeX to other sites. Since Donald Knuth has released the TeX programs as free public-domain software, it is quite proper...

This demonstrates that TeX in 1986 was free software, but leaves open the question about earlier distributions.

Tim

It appears that there were earlier releases of TeX in the 1982-1984 period, although few traces of them remain. It also appears that the 1986 release obsoleted most of the earlier work.

There is a little information on the licensing in 1986, though I couldn't find anything earlier that addresses the question. This source says: We are frequently asked if it is proper for the recipient of a Unix TeX tape to give Unix TeX to other sites. Since Donald Knuth has released the TeX programs as free public-domain software, it is quite proper...

This demonstrates that TeX in 1986 was free software, but leaves open the question about earlier distributions.

Tim

Look, folks, object orientation is just one tool of many in the big box of software tools. Use it when appropriate, use something else when it isn't. This guy rants rants about OOP basically on three grounds, all of which are straw-man agruments:

1. OOP doesn't live up to the hype of its most zealous proponents (What does?)
2. When you do stupid things with OOP, you get stupid results. (What did you expect?)
3. Contrived, obviously-false statements about OOP are not true. Examples taken from the document: "Myth: Only OOP has automatic garbage collection", "Myth: Only OO databases can store large, multimedia data", "Myth: Components can only be built with OOP", and so on. These aren't legitimate myths widely believed by folks who use OOP; these are straw men propped up so that he could knock them down.

The reality is that OOP is a good tool for solving a lot of common problems. It's also a lousy tool for solving a lot of other common problems. When OOP isn't the right tool, don't use it.

Just use the right tool to begin with. When it comes to programming paradigms, there are lots of tools in box:

• rule based
• procedural
• functional
• object oriented
• logic based
• contstraint based
• declarative (often in terms of w/ functional and logic based)

Use the right tool for the job. You'll be glad you did. (And you won't have to put up a web site just to rant about your bad experiences with using a hammer to place dry-wall screws.)

This one does that and lots of other stuff. It generates some great code.
--
Patrick Doyle

I get tired of hearing about the "fight" between C, C++, and Java (and now C#), as if those are the only three programming languages in existence.

I concur. I'm especially tired of hearing comparisons between C++ and Java, as though they were the only object oriented languages around. I'm actually quite surprised that Eiffel has not seen more widespread acceptance in the OO developer community (www.eiffel.com is the "official", Bertrand Meyer-endorsed home page of Eiffel, but I personally prefer SmallEiffel, because it's free). Eiffel is a superbly well-designed object oriented language, and there are compilers available for pretty much every platform under the sun. The "compilers" are really just Eiffel to C translators, which then pass the resulting C code to a C compiler. The result is very efficient programs (probably not as efficient as actual C code would be, but certainly more efficient than Java or C++).

An excellent book on the subject is Objects Unencapsulated, by Ian Joyner. It's the only book I've ever read that does a blow-by-blow comparison of C++, Java, and Eiffel. It's pretty dry reading though, unless you're heavily into the OO stuff (as I am).

Not to malign Java, there are some good ideas with that language, but for a pure OO language, I've yet to see anything more impressive than Eiffel.

--

(To quote myself)
You can in fact write (and compile) code for JVM in Eiffel, Fortran, LISP, Visual Basic, Ada 95, Python, PERL, C, any language that GCC supports, and a whole slew of other languages (170 or so).

See the comments to cid 135 and this page.

BS! You can in fact write (and compile) code for JVM in Eiffel, Fortran, LISP, Visual Basic, Ada 95, Python, PERL, C, any language that GCC supports, and a whole slew of other languages.

In the future, keep your uninformed ramblings to yourself.

See the comments to cid#135this page.

When was the last time you looked? Perhaps things have changed since then. The GNU Eiffel compiler, SmallEiffel, in particular, has a reputation for producing small, fast binaries.

Ada generics are completely type safe. Indeed, type safe generics are possible, if done right. Check out GNU Ada. By the way, GNU Ada can compile to Java byte code. It is also worth looking at GNU Eiffel which also provides type safe generics and the ability to compile to Java byte code.

Anyone who resorts to mucking-around in CVSROOT manually needs to read the FAQ.

http://www.loria.fr/projets/SmallEiffel

...richie

In fact there are three small vendors today who sell Eiffel compilers and there is a GNU Eiffel compiler called SmallEiffel.

It's not clear at the moment whether the GNU Eiffel compiler has come too late.

...richie

what language is all of this done in? Ada would be my guess, or is there something even better than that?

I doubt that it's in Ada; I think the software predates Ada.

As for something better: in a word, Eiffel.

Unfortunately, there's an old but true saying:

"Make something foolproof, and only a fool will want to use it."

obOSS: A GPL'ed Eiffel compiler is available at http://www.loria.fr/projets/SmallEiffel/.

Well, I can understand the choice of Java. But if you want to write a server in a language other than C++ or Java, you might consider Eiffel.

Eiffel definition is controlled by a user organization (NICE), there is GNU Eiffel compiler in addition to several commercial ones. Plus Eiffel is very portable.

The only problem with Eiffel that there aren't as many libraries as there are for Java.

...richie

GNU's implementation is called SmallEiffel and runs on Linux and many other operating systems. Bertrand Meyer's ISE Eiffel which offers the ease of Delphi development is available for Windows and Linux. It is a gem. A great resource for those interested in Eiffel is the online Eiffel Liberty Journal.

GNU's implementation is called SmallEiffel and runs on Linux and many other operating systems. Bertrand Meyer's ISE Eiffel which offers the ease of Delphi development is available for Windows and Linux. It is a gem. A great resource for those interested in Eiffel is the online Eiffel Liberty Journal. In my opinion there are very few languages which offer direct support for quality software engineering. Ada, Sather, and Eiffel would certainly be near the top of my list.

You will not find servers or fame, in part because these attract script kiddies and vandals. But it does use those wasted CPU cycles.

I've seen Eifel and it's a nice programing language. Well I've never written code for it because it's proprietery and it isn't cheap.

For a GPL'ed Eiffel implementation, go here. Precompiled versions are available for Windows, Mac (PowerMac & 68K), HP-UX, Amiga, OpenStep, and oh yes, Linux (RPM and glibc2).

So you would have us go back to ...shudder... COBOL? Excuse me while I go into spasms.

Seriously though, OOP doesn't mysteriously generate bugs. It's poor programming practice that does it. Go take a look at Eiffel, a OOPL that forces you to program well. It even has a GNU compiler.

- Mike

Yes, Byteheads, it's now time for GNU Eiffel.

Sigh. Too bad more aren't using a software engineering OO language since there is now such a rich choice available under the GNU license: Eiffel, Ada95, Sather (among the safest). Even Modula3, Smalltalk, and Java are worthy of consideration. Here's some URLs,
GNU Eiffel
GNU Ada95
GNU Sather

C++ is unbeatable where the criteria are upward compatibility from C and imposing absolutely zero cost for unused features.

Java shines at exporting executables across heterogeneous networks.

Perl raises the complexity of what may be reasonably done with ad hoc, quick and dirty solutions. And although I haven't used them, it's OO capabilities look like good steps in the right direction.

The same is true of other languages. Each can be useful. Each can be misused. Attacks and flaming don't accomplish much besides temporary emotional gratification to the writer.

All that said, I recommend taking a look at Eiffel. Compared to all other languages I know, Eiffel is the only commercial language that gets static typing exactly right, implements multiple inheritance powerfully and flexibly, provides generic and constrained generic classes without multiple copies of code, supports design by contract in the language itself, and has a coherent OO approch to exception handling. Here are some links:

SmallEiffel The GNU Eiffel Compiler compiles to C and JVM.

Eiffel Forum Eiffel Archive with free software and lots of links.

Eiffel Liberty Journel Lots more links to all sorts of good OO references

Interactive Software Engineering Home page of the company that introduced Eiffel, with hundreds of pages of scholarly OO papers and EiffelBase, the open source library with 140 classes and thousands of methods