Re: SmartEiffel shortcomings?

Dominique Colnet wrote:

> Mike Meyer wrote:
>
>> In <1117126412.30533.28.camel@eden>, Roger Browne 
>> <[email protected]> typed:
>> This was what drove me to start developing a test suite for the SE
>> libraries.
>
> Yes, it is a good idea to have a test suite, even more when
> the test suite is made by someone outside of the main project
> team.
>
>>  The near-complete lack of response caused me to abandon
>> that.
>
> This also what I want to do at time beeing.
> Bye.

With all the brickbats being thrown at the moment, I think that some of 
the many positive aspects should be examined.  So here are some 
thoughts, in no particular order.

Bug reporting and resolution -- My experience has been that when bugs 
are reported on SmartZilla, their progress and resolution is reported to 
the interested parties by email.

Current Distribution -- Easy to install and use, Libraries are as well 
documented as the various short forms.  The short forms are presented in 
a very convenient manner.  A good tabbed browser gives very good 
access.  As with any other project, tutorial and explanatory documents 
lag behind the code base.

Backwards Compatibility -- This is, has been and will continue to be a 
perennial problem.  In fact, as long as thinking, hardware and software 
continue to develop.  Until the flaws in the Eiffel language itself are 
fully resolved, there is no way round this problem.  The nettle must be 
grasped.

Language Definition  -- It seems to me that the current model is better 
than that of version 1.1. But it is still imperfect and possibly 
theoretically flawed, but still better than other languages.  Possibly 
the pooling of all our experience and views can help make significant 
improvements here.

Effort  -- The effort being made by the SmartEiffel team can easily be 
seen by examining the Changelog.

It seems to me that the SmartEiffel team are being placed in an 
invidious position by the ECMA process.  But remember that it is a 
Manufacturers' Association and not an academic committee.  We need to 
help and be positive even when being critical.  I intend to keep 
pressing, hopefully by logical argument, for some changes to be made to 
the inheritance process.

/Nil illegitimi carborundum  -- Apologies for the Dog Latin/
Frank Salter