CS 4448 - Fall 1998
Object-Oriented Programming and Design
Talk 4.2
by
Miranda Walton

ISE Eiffel

by

ISE

What is it?

History:

• Designed at ISE in 1985. First released end of 1986.
• Used mostly as a primary teaching language.
• ISE Eiffel 4 now available, made entirely from earlier versions of Eiffel.
• Name comes from Eiffel Tower because of its strength and support.

Goals:

• To give a competitive edge - get software out fast.
• Lower maintenace and support costs (by being bug-free).
• React quickly to market demands (easy to change).
• Preserve your investment (reusability).

Not intended for any specific application area:

• anywhere from financial software to telecommunications systems.

Platforms:

• Windows (95/98/NT), Linux, Unix, VMS, etc.
• Very PORTABLE!

Best when used as a combination technology to reuse software components written in various languages such as C and C++.

RunTime efficiency similar to C and Fortran, som cases better.

Graphical Libraries:

• WEL (Windows Eiffel Library)
• PEL (Presentation-manager Eiffel Library)
• MEL (Motif Eiffel Library)

Database:

• ODBC
• Oracle
• Sybase
• Ingres

Inheritance:

• YES!
• Multiple
• Repeated

Statically Typed

Melting Ice Technology:

• combines compilation (for the generation of optimally efficient code) with bytecode interpretation (for fast turnaround after a change). The bulk of your software, including precompiled libraries, is "frozen", i.e. compiled; what you change gets "melted", i.e. the compiler will quickly generate some interpretable "bytecode" and stop there, making sure that the frozen part calls the melted part (and conversely) when appropriate.