Re: Re: Gobo with EiffelStudio 5.4

On 10/08/2004, at 9:03 PM, Colin Paul Adams wrote:
>  Well, I for one never use EiffelStudio (the IDE) except for
>  interactive debugging.
>
>  I always create build.eant and system.xace files by hand (looking at
>  examples for clues when needed), then I just
>  use geant to run the compiles and test cases.
>
>  It's FAR simpler that way.
>  --
>  Colin Paul Adams
>  Preston Lancashire

I had the feeling that's what people were going to tell me :-)

So geant runs gexace to create what? An ace file?

And then geant runs the compiler, based on the ace file. Is that the 
basic approach?

If so, someone ought to write a simple, one page (or less) description 
of this and display it prominently on the Gobo web site. Because it 
took me days to figure out this simple process. Everything is described 
in terms of "it's like ant". Well, I've heard that ant is like 
makefiles all XML-ified, but I've never used it. I could never quite 
figure out why anyone would want to either: everything it does can be 
done either by a proper development environment or by shell scripts / 
batch files. And it's close to 10 years since I've had to write a 
makefile.

This is the 21st century! People use integrated development 
environments (well, everyone I know does). It's pretty difficult 
convincing people that Eiffel is the most advanced OO language when 
it's surrounded by such antiquated tools. I've heard of Java 
programmers who work like this too, so I guess Eiffel isn't alone here. 
But it's a very inefficient way of doing things. I know, because this 
is how I used to work until ten years ago, and I abandoned it because 
it is slow. Sure it can be quick when you become an expert, but 
becoming an expert at stuff like this takes a very long time.

Anyway, that's my newbie impression of geant. I can certainly see that 
gexace is useful. It just needs a decent GUI front end, to help 
visualise what the heck the it's doing. Ideally I guess it would be 
integrated into EiffelStudio. Maybe I should move this discussion over 
to the EiffelStudio mailing list.

Thanks again for giving me your perspective, Colin.

- Peter Gummer




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