Re: Ada versus Eiffel

["Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org>]

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"Antonio Vargas" <antonio.vargas@clix.pt> wrote in message
news:981322791.127037@cachalote.ip.pt...
:
: Right now I have found a starting point for the study:
:
:
http://www.eiffel.com/doc/manuals/technology/contract/ariane/page.html
:         about  the ariane 5 problem :-) from the Eiffel advocates
:         and a contraposition at http://home.flash.net/~kennieg/ariane.html

Having some interest in the latter reference :), I urge you to read section
6 of this paper carefully. Specifically, I do not think the narrow subject
of this paper is useful for a broad Ada vs. Eiffel comparison. The paper
addresses a specific set of language features and their relevance to a
specific domain. Most of the paper is equally relevant to any language that
would make the claims in your first reference above.

I think doing such a study requires a careful definition of the criteria.
For example, the answer might be very different depending upon whether
reliability is considered more important than efficiency. There are several
frameworks around for the purpose of evaluating languages; I suggest you
start by identifying one(s) that you consider relevant for your purposes.

: I'm also trying some tipical Ada to Eiffel and Eiffel to Ada code.  I
: suspec that efficiency is a general advantage in Ada but I must test
across
: several Eiffel compiler implementations.  It looks like that Eiffel has
: some advantages beeing used earlier in the analysis and specification of a
: project (design by contract etc). But I can't make a good evaluation until
: I get some proficiency in that particular language. I can't make the same
: mistake of the Ada critics that, in general, dont have a deep
understanding
: of this wonderful language.
:
: Ant�nio F. Vargas