RE: [gobo-eiffel-develop] Eiffel Class Struggle 2001

[Glenn M. <gle...@op...>]

Hello Eric,

I think it is to early to restrict the Eiffel Struggle contest to particular
environments such as GOBO. The Eiffel Struggle contest has been very
successful in increasing interest in Eiffel library development without
having to be portable across Eiffel compilers.

I haven't been following the NICE mailing lists for a while so I don't know
the complete history behind this suggestion.

I have found, as I believe you have, that developing libraries that are
compatible across compilers is extremely difficult. Libraries such as GOBO
help a great deal. However, the compiler compatible facilities tend to be
'mixin' classes that are not strictly object oriented. For example, I would
consider all of the classes in GOBO that end in '_ROUTINES' not to be object
oriented, rather they are "function libraries" and stop-gap measures that
provide an interface to different classes/routines in different compiler
libraries that should be replaced, in the future, with compatible classes.

I believe the long term solution to compiler independence is not 'mixin'
classes but rather compatible concrete interfaces. I have often wondered why
the porting of EiffelBase has not yet succeeded. Did the "porters"
concentrate on supporting the entire library or just the concrete
interfaces. All I need, as an application developer, are the concrete
interfaces. I don't care that FILE inherits from UNBOUNDED or SEQUENCE, just
that is supports all of the file operations with standard names and
signatures.

Java has the advantage that no matter what the interfaces are, the byte code
will be compatible across compilers. We, as Eiffel developers, do not have
that advantage -- to use a different compiler we must have compatible class
interfaces.

I have digressed a little. I think the suggestion for Eiffel Struggle
libraries to meet GOBO standards has merit but I also believe it is
premature. I, for one, have a library that I would submit to Eiffel Struggle
that is not GOBO compatible. I could not, at this time, make it fully GOBO
compatible because of its use of Agents and ISE specific interfaces that do
not exist in other compiler environments.

I have, throughout the development of this library, attempted to make it
compiler independent, but it has proven impossible time and time again. Even
with GOBO, the different vendor environments do not support cross-compiler
development. I am continually implementing mixin function libraries that do
not comply with standard Eiffel object oriented design.

I'd would personally like to keep the Eiffel Struggle open. Any library
added to the Eiffel community improves its position even if it supports only
one of the vendor's compilers and doesn't conform to GOBO standards.

Perhaps I should have posted this (longish) comment to the NICE mailing
list. You are welcome to forward it if appropriate.

Best Regards.
Glenn.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gob...@li...
> [mailto:gob...@li...]On Behalf Of
> Eric Bezault
> Sent: Thursday, 26 July 2001 1:44 AM
> To: gob...@li...
> Subject: [gobo-eiffel-develop] Eiffel Class Struggle 2001
>
>
> Dear Gobo Project enthusiasts,
>
> Like every year since 1997, NICE will organize the Eiffel
> Class Struggle 2001. It was suggested in a recent discussion
> in the Board of NICE that a Gobo theme for the contest this
> year would be a good idea. Here is an excerpt:
>
> > Whats about the following:
> >
> > 1. Nice will organize the ECS 2001
> > 2. ECS 2001 will ask for Libraries or tools supporting or
> extending the new
> > Gobo library
> > 3. The detailled specifications will be set by the Gobo Group within the
> > next Month (End of August)
> > 4. The Gobo Group will be asked to decide who will get the prices
> > 5. Nice will donate 3 prices - 1000, 600 and 400 US$
> > 6. OT will sponsor the contest with licenses
> > 7. we will ask other companies  to sponsor also
> > 8. The Gobo goup will be asked to help to formalise this announcement
>
> I would like to know what's your opinion about this
> proposal. Apart from the following kind of answers:
> "Yeah, that's great!", what I'm really interested in
> is whether there are people in this group who will be
> ready to spend time as a judge in order to achieve
> point 4. when it will be time to do so. Although I
> appreciate NICE's suggestion, I'm indeed not willing
> (and won't have time) to do all the judging of the
> Eiffel Struggle alone. I think that the criteria used
> to judge the entries will be more or less the same
> as the previous years, but they will have a new
> category assessing whether the tool or library follows
> the Gobo developer guidelines and how easily it can
> be integrated into the overall Gobo package.
>
> PS: I'm sorry I still didn't have time to work on
> the Gobo developer guildelines document, but I promise
> I will do it as soon as time permits.
>
> --
> Eric Bezault
> mailto:er...@go...
> http://www.gobosoft.com
>
>
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