The Eiffel Programming Language
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Significant Language Features |
Areas of Application |
Related Links |
Printed References |
The Eiffel programming language was created by Bertrand Meyer and developed by his company,
Interactive Software Engineering (ISE) of Goleta, CA in 1985.
Eiffel has evolved continually since its conception on September 14, 1985 and its first
introduction in 1986.
Eiffel is named after Gustave Eiffel, the engineer who designed the Eiffel Tower. The
developers of Eiffel like to compare themselves to the well-built structure of the Eiffel Tower.
The Eiffel Tower was completed on time and within budget, which should happen if you use Eiffel
for your software projects.
Significant Language Features
There are several significant language features of Eiffel:
- Portable - this language is available for major industry platforms,
such as Windows, OS/2, Linux, UNIX, VMS, etc...
- Open System - includes a C and C++ interface making it easily possible
to reuse code previously written.
- "Melting Ice Technology" - combines compilation, for the generation of
efficient code, with bytecode interpretation, for fast turnaround after a change.
- "Design by Contract" - enforced through assertions such as class
invariants, preconditions and postconditions.
- Automatic Documentation ("Short Form") - abstract yet precise
documentation produced by the environment at the click of a button.
- Multiple Inheritance - a class can inherit from as many parents as
- Repeated Inheritance - a class inherits from another through two or more
- Statically Typed - ensure that errors are caught at compile time, rather
than run time.
- Dynamically Bound - guarantees that the right version of an operation will
always be applied depending on the target object.
Areas of Application
Eiffel is used in many application areas, such as:
- Telecommunication Systems
- Teaching Purposes
- Rapid Prototyping
- Financial Applications
- Sebasta, Robert W. (1996). Concepts of Programming Languages.
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Menlo Park, CA.
The Hello world! program was written with the help of the
Hello, World Page!.
Last modified: 02:00PM on 11/26/1996
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