paj@oasis.uucp (Paul Johnson) (02/02/90)
Here are a couple of things I would like to see in Eiffel 3.0. Both are implementation features rather than language design matters. - Dynamic library support. At present Eiffel executables are statically linked. It would be a useful option if the Eiffel libraries (both ISE and user supplied) could be linked in dynamically. This would make the binaries much smaller. - Transputer support. If Eiffel is going to become a concurrent language, then it would be wonderful if the output C could be compiled on transputers where it would take advantage of the parallel execution support. It is true that there is no standard set of extensions for C on transputers, but if the message transfer support was confined to one .c file in the run-time library, it would make the system very easy to port. It would be a considerable point in favour of Eiffel if programs written in it could be compiled unchanged for parallel and non-parallel machines. Of course, transputer support is not that simple: questions like object mobility and specifying the distribution spring to mind. Perhaps these could be managed by an extra kernel class. BTW we have not yet seen the first message from ISE on the plans for 3.0 here. If it was concerned with either of these matters then I am sorry for wasting your time. Paul Johnson.