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From: shap@delrey.sgi.com (Jonathan Shapiro)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: problems/risks due to programming language
Message-ID: <4864@odin.SGI.COM>
Date: 5 Mar 90 14:44:44 GMT
References: <6960@internal.Apple.COM| <Ec.3251@cs.psu.edu| <259@eiffel.UUCP| <TOMBRE.90Mar1013132@weissenburger.crin.fr| <418@charyb.COM>
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In article <418@charyb.COM> dan@charyb.UUCP (Dan Mick) writes:
>|[... re Bertrand Meyers] He especially
>|tends to become "rabid" when speaking of C++. This leaves such a bad
>|"taste in my mouth" that it tends to give me unjustly biased views of
>|Mr. Meyer's product, i.e. Eiffel.
>
>I know nothing *at all* about Eiffel, and I'm much less encouraged to learn
>about it based on Bertrand's comments.

I know a little bit about Eiffel and have read quite a numbet of
Bertrand's technical "contributions" to the world.  I have known
Bertrand to be charming.  I have also known him to be rabid.
Consider, for a moment, how you would act after so many years of
uphill battles against languages like C++ that are deficient in some
important ways.

Having read many of his papers, however, and examined the design of
Eiffel in some detail, I am obliged to conclude that Eiffel is not
nearly as elegant as the marketing hype would have you believe, and
that Bertrand is in general not an effective communicator.

Whatever might be true about Bertrand himself, Bertrand's papers
convinced me long ago not to take Eiffel seriously.  Eiffel has a few
good ideas cribbed from some earlier languages.  It ain't the worlds
ultimate programming language. 

Jonathan Shapiro