Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c++:4047 comp.lang.eiffel:325
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pacbell!osc!tma
From: tma@osc.COM (Tim Atkins)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.eiffel
Subject: Re: C++ pricing for AT&T Release 2.0, and 386 binaries
Message-ID: <420@osc.COM>
Date: 19 Jul 89 07:14:59 GMT
References: <1379@hcr.UUCP> <6590196@hplsla.HP.COM> <185@eiffel.UUCP>
Reply-To: tma@osc.UUCP (Tim Atkins)
Followup-To: comp.lang.c++
Organization: Object Sciences Corp., Menlo Park, CA
Lines: 26

In article <185@eiffel.UUCP> nosmo@eiffel.UUCP (Vince Kraemer) writes:
>only two reasons that one may want a source license:
>
>1. Port to a new platform.
>    We, like others, are in this business to make a profit.  This is not
>    to say that we are not receptive to others doing ports to
>    systems on which they have more experience.
>
>2. To fix bugs in the compiler or LIBRARY.
>

There is, of course, a third reason.  Namely that one has a love of languages,
a lack of patience with established vendors and very strong ideas on how the
existing languages should be extended and/or improved. 
From among Objective C, C++ and Eiffel, Eiffel comes the closest to having the
features I believe good OO programming demands.  My desires for Eiffel source
fall more in a fourth category of admiration of language features and curiosity
as to how they are implemented.  Interesting additions to Eiffel would include
constructs for shared and distributed objects including concurrency control
mechanisms.   Much of the existing library, in particular any Collection type
that includes the notion of a cursor, would have to change to support sharing.


My opinions, of course, are strictly my own.

- Tim Atkins