tma@osc.COM (Tim Atkins) (07/19/89)
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