day@grand.UUCP (Dave Yost) (12/22/88)
From: Bertrand Meyer <bertrand@eiffel.COM> Date: Tue, 8 Nov 88 21:02:03 PST This is the first of two messages that reproduce material to appear in the next issue (vol. 1, n. 4) of ``Champ-de-Mars'', the Eiffel newsletter. Champ-de-Mars is distributed with the Journal of Object-Oriented Programming; CDM 1.4 will be distributed with the last 1988 JOOP issue, in November. The following text is the editorial. The next message is an article describing ongoing developments. Perhaps the most striking feature of the communications at the Second International Eiffel User Group meeting (San Diego, September 25) was the diversity of backgrounds and application areas represented. Reports of applications designed with Eiffel covered software tool development (P. Dubois, Lawrence Lievermore Nat. Lab.); fourth-generation language implementation (I. Skerrett, Cognos); real-time graphical simulation (J. Rousselot and M. Larignon, French Navy); Visualization in Scientific Computing (ViSC) (D. Butler and M. Pendley, Sandia National Laboratories); design of radio devices (F. Sada, Thomson); form processing (W. Rohdewald, Algosoft). One paper (T. Korson, Clemson Univ.) addressed a use of Eiffel which has been growing by leaps and bounds in university environments: as a tool to teach modern software engineering concepts. This was complemented by a discussion (B. Swartz, Monmouth College) on teaching Eiffel in an industrial context. This is representative of the wide spectrum intended for the use of Eiffel. It is hard to see an area that could not benefit from the approach. In his presentation at the meeting, B. Meyer reiterated Interactive's commitment to make Eiffel one of the major programming languages and environments for the end of this century. This may appear overly ambitious but is based on a simple analysis: in a world which is increasingly recognizing object-oriented programming as the obligatory path to software progress, technical excellence will be the prevailing factor. Eiffel's position as both a CASE environment and a powerful object-oriented language, making no compromise with obsolete language concepts, is unique. This recipe is the basis for Eiffel's growth. Not that everything is perfect or complete. The major item in this issue (page 2) is a brief but candid look at what is being concocted for the forthcoming and not so distant versions, from reusable classes for object-oriented parsing to support for object-oriented concurrent programming. Another item (this page) deals with the improved communication facilities which have been set up to facilitate exchanges: between users, and between users and developers. We hope that you will use these facilities extensively; as much as ever before, those in charge of the environment need the feedback, criticism and guidance of the Eiffel user community.