Slashdot Mirror
EiffelStudio O-O Programming Suite for Mac OS X
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."
They shot themselves in the foot with licensing.
... 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.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Had to change the javascript to get passed the cookie check. Here's the mail I got with the links.
o sx/54/Eiffel54.dmgo ad/macosx/54/Eiffel54.dmg/ Eiffel54.dmgi ffel54.dmg/ download/macosx/54/Eiffel54.dmgs x/54/Eiffel54.dmga d/macosx/54/Eiffel54.dmg
(US) ftp://ftp.eiffel.com/pub/download/macosx/54/Eiffel 54.dmg
w nload/macosx/54/Eiffel54.dmgo sx/54/Eiffel54.dmgm acosx/54/Eiffel54.dmg/ 54/Eiffel54.dmge l54.dmg
--
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 Eiffel. If you don't have it, you can purchase
it from Eiffel Software now (http://www.informit.com/promo/eiffel), or from
Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com). This book is a sound investment in your
productivity.
Also, if you are part of a team of developers considering or choosing Eiffel,
we invite you to consider in-house training as the absolute best way to get
yourself or your team up to speed with Eiffel. Give us a call at 1-805-685-4395
(Pacific Time), or send us an inquiry at sales@eiffel.com, we will be happy to help.
The download file can be found at:
FTP:
(US) ftp://ftp.cs.rit.edu/pub/mirrors/ise/download/mac
(US) ftp://ftp.gmu.edu/eiffel/ftp.eiffel.com/pub/downl
(Europe) ftp://ftp.inf.ethz.ch/pub/mirror/eiffel/macosx/54
(Europe) ftp://ftp.um.es/mirror/ftp.eiffel.com/macosx/54/E
(Europe) ftp://apollon.cs.abo.fi/eiffel/ftp.eiffel.com/pub
(Europe) ftp://ftp.di.fct.unl.pt/pub/languages/eiffel/maco
(Europe) ftp://ftp.gd.tuwien.ac.at/languages/eiffel/downlo
(South America) ftp://ftp.pucpr.br/eiffel/macosx/54/Eiffel54.dmg
HTTP:
(Europe) http://www.cs.abo.fi/eiffel/ftp.eiffel.com/pub/do
(Europe) http://ftp.di.fct.unl.pt/pub/languages/eiffel/mac
(Europe) http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/languages/eiffel/download/
(Europe) http://www.um.es/ftp/mirror/ftp.eiffel.com/macosx
(US) http://ftp.eiffel.com/pub/download/macosx/54/Eiff
This file will be available for the next 24 hours. For installation follow
the instructions included on the disk image.
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.
"Contact Us" doesn't work in Camino either. Great work!
There is a bug in the following Javascript on the page:
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.
These guys have been spamming the Mac forums. Posts everywhere about this (and nobody cares).
I guess Slashdot got spammed as well.
The Eiffel model and syntax is actually much more logical (and some would say better) than C and Java.
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 principles--a vendor of silver bullets--and people thought they'd get a bit of that automatically if they used Eiffel. Without that gimmick, Eiffel wouldn't even be used to the limited extent that it is used today.
Eiffel is designed for large-scale programming.
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.
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, a pretty good GPL'ed implementation of the language.
I am Jack's writable stack pointer.
May I suggest you look at Smalltalk too, which has been running on MacOSX for, well, pretty much since it came out, and didn't seem to warrant an anouncement on slashdot.
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.
One man's pink plane is another man's blue plane.