Re: A serious question from naive beginner...

Roger Browne wrote:

> I don't think the current version
> of ECMA Eiffel will ever be fully-implemented. Already, on the ISE
> lists, Bertrand Meyer has mooted changes for the next ECMA revision.

I thought it was always the case that the Eiffel standard would be  
revised. Take C# at ECMA. It is now up to version 2.

As to whether ISE will fully implement the current Eiffel ECMA  
standard, I've seen only statements that this is what they intend to do.

A big difference between C# and Eiffel is that Microsoft had the  
resources to implement the two C# standards very quickly. Eiffel  
Software is moving much more slowly. This increases the likelihood  
that by the time they get around to implementing, say, Void-safety,  
someone may have thought up some improvements. So they may never get  
around to implementing Void-safety as currently specified. C'est la  
vie. It's no big deal, apart from the fact that it would be great to  
have these improvements today rather than in two years' time.

- Peter Gummer