General observations:
1. If the goal is to write Hello World there is no absolute need for
Eiffel.
2. The footprint of a small application with EiffelStudio can be reduced
if necessary (that hasnt been a major request from users so far,
although it is true that people who play with the environment complain
about this at the beginning). This would be an easier effort, by a
couple of orders of magnitude maybe, than writing a new compiler.
3. > But lets concentrate on our common goal to spread the use of
Eiffel.
Very nice. Then producing a new compiler is probably around number 216
on the list of helpful initiatives. Number 1 (and 2, and 3 and more) is
to produce libraries. What Eiffel needs at this point is reusable
components of high quality, hundreds of them, complementing the existing
libraries (EiffelBase, EiffelNet, EiffelVision, the Gobo libraries
etc.). If you really want to help , this is what you should be doing. It
has the advantage of being tractable: a single person can achieve effect
and visibility in a matter of months or even weeks, as opposed to the
person-decades that a compiler effort requires before producing anything
usable. Also, it will give you experience of programming in Eiffel.
Besides, it's fun. You might even come to appreciate EiffelStudio (once
you get past Hello World) and remedy its limitations by contributing to
it (
http://dev.eiffel.com).
4. This mailing list is for users of EiffelStudio to help each other
when encountering technical issues. Other discussions, however
interesting, should be conducted in one of the many other available
forums.
Thanks,
-- BM
From:
eiffel_software@...
[mailto:
eiffel_software@...] On Behalf Of Helmut Brandl
Sent: Sunday, 13 July, 2008 19:37
To:
eiffel_software@...
Subject: Re: [eiffel_software] The Eiffel Compiler
Eric Bezault wrote:
> Helmut Brandl wrote:
>
>> Then I tried EiffelStudio. But I was shocked by the 500 MByte
installed
>> size and by the size of a tiny project like "Hello world". Then you
will
>> encounter some problems in distributing your compiler. Either you
>> require that your users will have an installation of EiffelStudio or
you
>> distribute the binary (i.e. distribute different binaries for each
>> machine type and operating system ...) or you distribute the compiled
to
>> c version of your compiler together with the source code. All a
little
>> bit complicated if you want to attract new users. There is the
>> possibility that they say "Eiffel might be nice in theory, but too
>> complicated to make it run".
>>
>
> Or new users may think that Eiffel is not a so good programming
> language after all since you didn't choose to use it to write
> your compiler.
>
This might be possible. I considered that argument as well. But the
other reasons I gave pushed me into the other direction. I think the
only solution is to spread Eiffel such that it is standard to have a
(hopefully standard compliant) Eiffel compiler on development machines.
Once that is reached you can distribute source packages for programs
written in Eiffel as it is done currently for C/C++/Java/TCL/PERL.
Unfortunatly, this is not yet the case. So if you want to distribute a
source package for an Eiffel program you have to include also an Eiffel
compiler or the compiled binaries of your program. At least if you want
acceptance from users which do not yet have an installed Eiffel
compiler.
But lets concentrate on our common goal to spread the use of Eiffel.
Helmut Brandl
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/tecomphttp://tecomp.sourceforge.net
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