[gobo-eiffel-develop] Cross compiler compatibility of libraries (was Eiffel Class Struggle 2001)

[Hamish H. <ha...@ef...>]

RE: Eiffel Class Struggle 2001 (Glenn Maughan)

> 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

But if I have an application which makes use of polymorphism in these
classes, I do need the inheritance structure to be correct. In a strongly
typed language, the inheritance structure is surely an important part of
compatibility.

> that is supports all of the file operations with standard names and
> signatures.

And that it allows me to attach an instance of it to any variable that I can
do with another compiler.

Cheers,
Hamish