From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,d24e07f660698f1 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,d24e07f660698f1 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,d24e07f660698f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,d24e07f660698f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public From: paul.johnson@gecm.com (Paul Johnson) Subject: Re: Eiffel anyone? - Who uses it? Date: 1997/07/16 Message-ID: <5qi3oq$8ll$3@miranda.gmrc.gecm.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 257181026 References: <33C61545.167EB0E7@tower.com> Organization: GEC-Marconi Research Centre Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-07-16T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <33C61545.167EB0E7@tower.com>, ivory@tower.com says... > >My friend's son is looking at colleges, and was startled to see >that RIT appears to have a heavy focus on the language Eiffel for >the first 2-3 years. He's using this as a black mark against the >school. The thinking is that he'd rather be learning a 'real' >language that has real-life value on the job market. There is an important difference between learning to program, learning a particular programming language, and learning software engineering. The three are all different. C++ (the obvious choice) is a highly complex language, so it takes a long time to learn. This is time that will not be spent learning good, solid software engineering. OTOH once you have a grounding in software engineering, you can map the concepts onto C++ fairly easily. This will help you produce good software in any language, rather than being restricted to only one. Any competent software engineer should know a minimum of 3 languages simply to get the range of perspectives. The point about Eiffel is that it is a language for software engineering rather than merely programming, and so makes a good vehicle for putting over the concepts of software engineering. C++ does not. Paul. -- Paul Johnson | GEC-Marconi Ltd is not responsible for my opinions. | +44 1245 242244 +-----------+-----------------------------------------+ Work: | You are lost in a twisty maze of little Home: | standards, all different.