Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!elroy!orion.cf.uci.edu!oberon!randvax!florman
From: florman@randvax.UUCP (Bruce Florman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel
Subject: Re: Eiffel Usage and Critical Mass
Message-ID: <1933@randvax.UUCP>
Date: 5 Apr 89 00:25:51 GMT
References: <3813@nicmad.UUCP>
Reply-To: florman@rand-unix.UUCP (Bruce Florman)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Rand Corp., Santa Monica, Ca.
Lines: 29

In article <3813@nicmad.UUCP> lalonde@nicmad.UUCP (John Lalonde) writes:
>A plea to ISE from prospective new users: make Eiffel more affordable !!!

    HEAR, HEAR!!!!

    I agree 100 percent with Mr. Lalonde's sentiments.  Every day I hear that 
C++ is the wave of the future.  When I mention Eiffel, nobody's heard of it.  
If ISE want to make Eiffel popular, they have to find some way of making 
people aware of it and getting them to try it.  Reducing the price would be a 
big step in the right direction.  
    Even those of us who are already excited about Eiffel are having a very 
hard time trying to justify the price to our bosses, especially when C++ 
compilers can be obtained for free.  I too realize that ISE needs to recover 
their initial investment and make a profit, but trying to recover everything 
from their first 50 customers is nothing but a good way of making sure that 
the sales office doesn't get swamped.  
    At my own workplace, there are several of us who are interested in Eiffel, 
but none of us have project money at our disposal.  Nobody with money wants 
to start a project based on Eiffel without any in-house expertise, and nobody 
can get that expertise without access to a compiler.  We have been able to 
get an evaluation copy of the compiler which will expire at the end of this 
month, and I am trying to put together a small demonstration program in my 
spare time.  If all goes well, maybe I can convince somebody to part with a 
little more money.  But this is not the way that C and Pascal became popular 
(and profitable) languages, and it's not likely to foster much in the way of 
grass-roots support for Eiffel either.  

-Bruce Florman (florman@rand.org)
-The RAND Corporation