Re: Tool for generating HTML from Eiffel code?

--- In [email protected], Neal Lester <neal@...> wrote:
> At 07:10 AM 6/15/2007, you wrote:
>> [...] Is it really so difficult to build projects with Eiffel
>> or are that just typical problems of a novice, according to
>> your experience?
> 
> In the case of Goanna, the problem is just our small community.

This makes it more difficult, of course. I'd like to point out right
from the beginning that I don't want to blame anyone for not
maintaining code. I respect the work of others who often created it in
their spare time. I just want to get a rough picture of how much work
I'll have to invest myself in case I'd turn to Eiffel.

After I realized that the maturity of libraries isn't much better with
the D programming language, I thought I could give Eiffel a chance
again as well. 
 
> [...] As the language and libraries upon which Goanna evolve,
> minor incompatibilities develop in to those parts of Goanna
> which aren't being used. They aren't detected until someone like
> you comes along to try it out.

Which leads me to another point why I was hesitating to use Eiffel for
my next project so far. As long as those incompatibilities remain
minor they won't cause a real problem. But I'm somewhat skeptical of
the type of error at hand, this UC_STRING problem. What might happen
to my own code switching compiler versions? It seems to me that the
author of edoc was able to compile the project with ISE 5.6. With ISE
5.7, Gobo 3.4 doesn't even bootstrap. This isn't only a build problem,
but the signatures of class STRING_8 in ISE 5.7 and UC_STRING in Gobo
3.4 are really different. Maybe I'm wrong, especially because I'm not
very proficient in Eiffel yet, but this for example doesn't look like
a minor incompatibility to me. I catched a first glimpse of Eiffel in
1995: how is it possible that after 12 years of development a basic
class like STRING still needs adjustment? And what does a change in
such a basic class means to existing code? How often do version
changes in compilers cause trouble and how complicated is it to
refactor code when this happens?

> Also, I don't think that any of the primary Goanna developers
> routinely work on Windows.  While windows compatibility is 
> a design goal of Goanna, it may be that windows problems creep in 
> since we don't routinely work on that platform.

Okay, that's something that can happen to the build process of other
languages, too.

> I maintain the Web Application Library and fastcgi connector within 
> Goanna.  Please feel free to contact me directly or on the Goanna 
> list if you would like help using them.

Thank you very much for the offer. In case I decide to give Eiffel a
try I'll come back to it once I need any web functionality. :-)

Have a nice day,
Marco