An Eiffel Eclipse IDE.

The Eclipse Platform is a generic, plug-in based framework for
developing Integrated Development Environments.  While Eclipse is
written in Java, and is primarily used for Java program development,
rich plug-ins have been written to support other programming
languages.  In particular, the CDT Project (C/C++ Development Tools)
has developed a powerful IDE for writing C and C++ programs in the
Eclipse Platform.

There are three main Eiffel compilers, one commercial and two free.
Eiffel Software's EiffelStudio is a rich commercial IDE which can be
used for research and teaching, but is relatively expensive for
commercial development.  The FLOSS alternatives are both released
under the GNU General Public License.  They are Object Tools'
VisualEiffel and INRIA/LORIA's SmartEiffel compiler.  VisualEiffel has
a graphical IDE for MS Windows and a command line compiler for Linux,
whereas the SmartEiffel compiler is a raw command line compiler, much
like gcc.

We (Dr. Joe Kiniry and Rory McCann) of UCD Dublin, Ireland are
collaborating with Dr. Jonathan Ostroff and David Makalsky of York
University in Canada on the development of an Eclipse plug-in for the
Eiffel language over the next few months.  To ensure that we focus on
the IDE features most critical to Eiffel developers, we would like to
get fedback from you, the Eiffel community, on this proposed plug-in.

There are 3 existing Eclipse Eiffel plug-ins:
 http://www.eclipse.audaly.com/
 http://sourceforge.net/projects/eedt
 http://sourceforge.net/projects/edt

All have only the bare minimum of functionality and some do not run in
a modern Eclipse at all.  None of them are as full featured or refined
as the Eclipse JDT or CDT.  We are currently evaluating whether to
reuse any of these plug-ins, leverage York Universities current work,
and/or start from scratch.

The existing IDEs for Eiffel (EiffelStudio and VisualEiffel on MS
Windows) have many Eiffel-specific features.  We would like to know
which of these features the Eiffel community values the most, or even
what features are missing from existing IDEs.

Some of the Eiffel specific features in the existing IDEs include:
(*) view to flat, contract and interface view of a class
(*) view the ancestors and descendents of a class
(*) tree-like view of clusters and classes
(*) View the callers and suppliers of a routine
(*) Standard IDE features like syntax highlighting, indentation, easy
   compilation, etc.

Which of these features does the Eiffel community find the most
useful? What have we left out of this list? Would you like to help us?

The best way to give us feedback is to fill out a structured survey we
have written available at:
 http://sort.ucd.ie/survey/?group_id=171

You may write also email us feedback and/or post to comp.lang.eiffel.

Contact details:

Dr. Joe Kiniry <joseph.kiniry *at* ucd *dot* ie>
Rory McCann <rory *at* netsoc *dot* ucd *dot* ie>
Dr. Jonathan Ostroff <jonathan *at* yorku *dot* ca>
Dave Makalsky <dm *at* cs *dot* yorku *dot* ca>

Provisional Webpage
http://sort.ucd.ie/projects/eiffelplugin/