[comp.lang.eiffel] Eiffel on Sun-OS

mikael@sm.luth.se (Mikael Eriksson) (02/27/89)

We are planning to buy a license for eiffel and
use it on our SUN-3 computers. Our problem is that 
we are in a transition from Sun-OS 3.5 to Sun-OS 4.0.

Which of these versions does eiffel currently run on?
(The best would of course be if it could be run
on both versions since we might need to stay a while
on 3.5 due to our other compilers. But when they
work we would like to transit to 4.0 as fast as possible.)


   mikael
-- 
Mikael Eriksson (Email: mikael@sm.luth.se)
.........
You are in error. 2+2=5
Thank you for your cooperation. The Computer.

bertrand@eiffel.UUCP (Bertrand Meyer) (03/10/89)

From <228@my6.sm.luth.se>, mikael@sm.luth.se (Mikael Eriksson):

> We are planning to buy a license for eiffel and
> use it on our SUN-3 computers. Our problem is that 
> we are in a transition from Sun-OS 3.5 to Sun-OS 4.0.
> 
> Which of these versions does eiffel currently run on?
> (The best would of course be if it could be run
> on both versions since we might need to stay a while
> on 3.5 due to our other compilers. But when they
> work we would like to transit to 4.0 as fast as possible.)

On the Sun-3, Eiffel runs on both 3.x and 4.0 (or 4.0.1).
Unfortunately the deliveries are not the same in both cases,
because of some inconsistencies in the way signals are handled.
(The *source* of the compiler and tools is the same,
with the exception of one declaration for an external
signal handling routine, but the compiled versions
produced by Sun's C compiler are not quite compatible).

	On other Sun models (Sun-4 and 386i) only 4.0 is supported.
The 386i is a recent machine and I don't believe 3.5 was ever
available there. For the Sun-4 we ran into only one case in
which a user was still running 3.5.

	Continuing to support 3.5 on the Sun-3 does not raise any
significant technical problem, but it is a pain to maintain
two versions.  Since most Sun sites who have not yet adopted
4.0 seem to intend to do so soon, we are considering making
Eiffel 2.2 available on SunOS 4.0 only. If this is felt
unreasonable by readers of this newsgroup, I would appreciate
hearing the screams now.

	While I am at it, a similar problem applies to Apollo
users. At the moment we support only 9.7. From what we
understand the next version, SR-10, is gaining momentum.
This is a native implementation of Unix, not one that
runs on top of Apollo's own operating system (Aegis). Here
the situation is worse because it appears technically
difficult for us to provide both versions. I would be glad to
hear opinions from Apollo users on what they feel we should
support.

	Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

-- Bertrand Meyer
bertrand@eiffel.com

heuring@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Vincent Heuring) (03/11/89)

In article <113@eiffel.UUCP> bertrand@eiffel.UUCP (Bertrand Meyer) writes:

>  Since most Sun sites who have not yet adopted
>4.0 seem to intend to do so soon, we are considering making
>Eiffel 2.2 available on SunOS 4.0 only. If this is felt
>unreasonable by readers of this newsgroup, I would appreciate
>hearing the screams now.
>
Scream, scream.   Many of those who have 'upgraded' to 4.0 are
unhappy.  It is slower, and its compilers are buggy.  Lots of us
have decided to stick with our present version for the forseeable
future -- at least until 4.0 gets stable.


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| Vince Heuring     Dep't of Electrical & Computer Engineering	|
| University of Colorado - Boulder        heuring@colorado.EDU	|
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