GPL installers

[Enrico Nardelli]

Do I understand right that installers of the GPL version of Eiffel for the various platforms (Win, Mac, Unix, ...) are no more available?

I'm using Eiffel in my object oriented programming language course and I used to say to students to just go to the dev.eiffel.com site and download the GPL version for their machine.

They tell me that now at the dev.eiffel.com site there is only a commercial version available and that the GPL version is available only as source code on sourceforge/github.

Am I missing something?

Best, Enrico

[Enrico Nardelli]

Sorry, now I got it!

From SourceForge one has to click on "See All Activity" and then scroll scroll scroll down until the most recent GPL installers appear. Currently, they are the ones for Eiffel 19.12

Best, Enrico

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Eiffel Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com <mailto:eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/3afd3804-86d4-4f4d-8379-e012c49f95efn%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/3afd3804-86d4-4f4d-8379-e012c49f95efn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

-- EN

=====================================================================
Prof. Enrico Nardelli
Dipartimento di Matematica - Universita' di Roma "Tor Vergata"
Via della Ricerca Scientifica snc - 00133 Roma
tel: +39 06 7259.4204 fax: +39 06 7259.4699
mobile: +39 335 590.2331 e-mail: nard...@mat.uniroma2.it
home page: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli
blog: http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/blog/enardelli/
http://link-and-think.blogspot.it/
=====================================================================
--

[Richard]

Note:  there was recently a policy change by Eiffel Software. The released GPL version will be one year behind the production version.  You have found the current free version.

[Ulrich Windl]

>>> Richard <eiffel-...@rth10260.info> schrieb am 11.03.2021 um 17:34 in
Nachricht <3bd4afdf-ecb7-4473...@googlegroups.com>:

> Note: there was recently a policy change by Eiffel Software. The released
> GPL version will be one year behind the production version. You have found
> the current free version.

Hi!

I think the project needs both: money and ideas (or call it "code"). It's clear where the money comes from, but I'm not sure about the ideas:
Assuming that the rate GPL:commercial is probably at least 9:1, the commercial users must provide all the clever ideas as the GPL users are alwaays one year behind. So the ideas they provide might be implemented aready, or be in conflict with newer features.

Regards,
Ulrich

>> tel: +39 06 7259.4204 <+39%2006%207259%204204> fax: +39 06 7259.4699
>> <+39%2006%207259%204699>
>> mobile: +39 335 590.2331 <+39%20335%20590%202331> e-mail:

>> nard...@mat.uniroma2.it
>> home page: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli
>> blog: http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/blog/enardelli/
>> http://link-and-think.blogspot.it/
>> =====================================================================
>> --
>>
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Eiffel Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an

> email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/3bd4afdf-ecb7-4473-9dd3-5527f7
> f69803n%40googlegroups.com.

[stephen1...@gmail.com]

And it seems as of now (April 11/21), the 19.12 gpl edition is no longer available from Sourceforge. I could only download 19.05.

[Vivien Moreau]

Le 12/04/2021 à 02:02, stephen1...@gmail.com a écrit :
> And it seems as of now (April 11/21), the 19.12 gpl edition is no longer
> available from Sourceforge. I could only download 19.05.

19.12 was a beta version, accordingly you can find it in the beta folder:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/eiffelstudio/files/beta/

--
Vivien Moreau (jmiven)

[Ulrich Windl]

>>> Vivien Moreau <jmi...@algeb.re> schrieb am 12.04.2021 um 16:38 in
Nachricht
<87b34aa5-7542-e9e1...@algeb.re>:

I didn't follow closely, but is "beta" going to be the next commercial
version, or is it going to be the next GPL version.
And the GPL version will be the commercial version after some time, or what?
I think it's all a bit confusing.

Regards,
Ulrich


>
> --
> Vivien Moreau (jmiven)

>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Eiffel Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
>

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/87b34aa5-7542-e9e1-d497-7d24c2

> 95e7b4%40algeb.re.

[John S Wolter]

The "View How to..." [...install M$ 7.1 SDK + .NET 4.xxx] button in the 19.05 GPL 64-bit installer isn't working. 

I had installed those SDKs years ago   My next task is to install Eiffel 19.05 GPL and see if it finds the existing SDKs.  The environment variables may need to be adjusted so EiffelStudio GPL gets the correct filesystem locations.

Here's a link to that package's download.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8279

Install it if it's not yet installed.

More install-info for Installing EiffelStudio from the .7z archive

https://www.eiffel.org/doc/eiffelstudio/Windows#Installing_EiffelStudio_from_the_.7z_archive

...Why?  Eiffel's environment variables need to be checked.

More about these small nick issues soon along with Eiffel for IoT.  What????

BTW: this edit space cuts off the bottom row of edit buttons

[Hank Lenzi]

On Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 1:34:59 PM UTC-3 Richard wrote:

Note:  there was recently a policy change by Eiffel Software. The released GPL version will be one year behind the production version.  You have found the current free version.

This sucks. Eiffel will never win like this. Never...People will just move to Rust or something. A VERY bad policy.

At the very least, we have to be able to: 1) learn Eiffel in a version that's clean of bugs; 2) then decide if we want to buy a license or not. 

My 2 cents. Won't make any difference. But the incentives to use Eiffel seem ever more distant...Too bad...

Hank

 

[Louis M]

+1 on this.

Louis M

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Eiffel Users" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/98e8691c-8a57-413b-bf45-8b1e5d824611n%40googlegroups.com.

[Louis M]

Hi Eiffeller,

I am waiting for the 20.11 version of EiffelStudio to get to the public SVN repository: https://svn.eiffel.com/eiffelstudio-public/tags/ . My understanding was that the GPL version would be released a year behind the commercial version. When I look on Source Forge, I see that EiffelStudio 20.11 was released in 2021-12-21. So I presume that the 20.11 source code and GPL version should be released by now.

Good day,

Louis M

On 2021-07-11 6:38 p.m., Hank Lenzi wrote:

[Vivien Moreau]

Hello,

Le 27/12/2021 à 17:08, 'Louis M' via Eiffel Users a écrit :
> I am waiting for the 20.11 version of EiffelStudio to get to the public
> SVN repository: https://svn.eiffel.com/eiffelstudio-public/tags/ . My
> understanding was that the GPL version would be released a year behind
> the commercial version. When I look on Source Forge, I see that
> EiffelStudio 20.11 was released in 2021-12-21. So I presume that the
> 20.11 source code and GPL version should be released by now.

I was wondering what the situation is about this. Has the policy
changed, or is this a mere oversight?

Either way is OK, but it would be helpful to know what to expect in the
future. :)

--
Vivien Moreau (jmiven)

[Ian Joyner]

My 2 cents. Won't make any difference. But the incentives to use Eiffel seem ever more distant...Too bad…

I think this might be the point Ulrich is trying to make. I other words that EiffelSoft is always building the cathedral making the rest of the world wait for it, but the world moves on. C++ came to dominate, very wrongly, perhaps backed by some deep pockets at AT&T willing to fund it as a side project.

To teach Eiffel, it must be available for free and work without using a lot of support time. And it must work on all platforms well, so students aren’t bugging support for help on platform X. That means installation must be easy for beginning students to not waste time on so they can get on with learning programming.

Unlike C which leaves issues as burdens for all programmers (which it can get away with), issues must be handle by the small central group of people to make it easy for all others.

Money is then made by merchandise, selling ToC, OOSC, EtL, etc. People who know Eiffel can make a living being consultants and industry trainers.

But to create such an industry, the core must be free and work well.

C and C++ have become black holes this way. A whole industry has been created just for books, courses, etc explaining the arcane nature.

I don’t advocate any language becoming black holes (meaning once sucked in people don’t seem to be able to get out) like C and C++, since programming languages should be more honest and not become subjects of cults.

Niklaus Wirth moved away from external commercial compromise from Pascal to Modula and Oberon, but I think industry was shut out to too much of a degree. Perhaps people who know the story at ETH can correct that impression I have. But it means great developments that implement the true nature of computing are locked away due to purity concerns.

Meanwhile the industry is suffering and continuing on in the dark ages of what was wrong in the 1960s.

When I criticise C and C++, they use the tactic in response “Well, what language do you advocate”. I’m not wanting to be an advocate of any particular language. If pressed I say the exemplars of OO are Smalltalk for dynamic programming, and Eiffel for static checking for large complex projects. In FP, Haskell is rather arcane, but mostly what is available there.

Thus Eiffel needs to be finished. Eiffel is almost finished, and in a way that C++ will never be, trying to fix the weak and wrong base of C with a new version every four years introducing or fixing up things that Eiffel has had for nearly 40 years.

Ian

[Jocelyn Fiat]

Dear Louis,

The /tags was forgotten to be updated (my fault), I just fixed it, but it will appear right now.

However you can rely on the source from https://svn.eiffel.com/eiffelstudio-public/branches/ which is up to date.

Regards

-- Jocelyn

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Eiffel Users" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/ceeef6ac-e5cb-c23d-fa69-7ee3903b586b%40tioui.com.

--

Jocelyn
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eiffel Software
https://www.eiffel.com
Customer support: https://support.eiffel.com
User group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/eiffel-users
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Philippe K]

Without a doubt: Eiffel is a cathedral, craftsmanship, fine and elegant engineering.

However, some key elements are pending to disseminate this masterpiece more widely, just to name a few:
- a revised Eiffel ECMA standard including SCOOP,  the initial one dating from 2006 
- the third edition of "Standard Eiffel" ("Eiffel the language"), work in progress since 1999 (the previous edition : 1992)
- the long awaited book "Concurrent programming made easy"

In recent years, new elements have been added to Eiffel, notably concerning loop construction. These additions along the way are obviously very welcome, but I think it would be very useful to give a roadmap of the developments envisaged for the coming years. Visibility and overview could not hurt, but this does not mean going into fine detail and revealing what is still under discussion.

Ian, you say that there are still things to finish. Can you say a bit more, from your point of view ? Thanks.

Philippe.

[Ulrich Windl]

>>> Vivien Moreau <jmi...@algeb.re> schrieb am 15.06.2022 um 17:06 in
Nachricht
<3ede4a17-90f0-f610...@algeb.re>:

Actually I wonder if someone forks the GPL version, and that version will be
ahead of the commericial one ;-)

Regards,
Ulrich

>
> --
> Vivien Moreau (jmiven)
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Eiffel Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an

> email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit
>

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/3ede4a17-90f0-f610-7c9b-ad0bd6

> 39aa54%40algeb.re.

[Ulrich Windl]

>>> Philippe K <pka...@gmail.com> schrieb am 16.06.2022 um 21:13 in Nachricht
<cc5cb73b-95fb-44ad...@googlegroups.com>:

> Without a doubt: Eiffel is a cathedral, craftsmanship, fine and elegant
> engineering.
>
> However, some key elements are pending to disseminate this masterpiece more

> widely, just to name a few:
> - a revised Eiffel ECMA standard including SCOOP, the initial one dating
> from 2006
> - the third edition of "Standard Eiffel" ("Eiffel the language"), work in
> progress since 1999 (the previous edition : 1992)

+INFINITY ;-)

BTW: commercial interests put aside, that would be best if shipped with the
compiler in electronic format (PDF).

(I don't want to make any advertising here, but there exists a company where
they give out a professional program for free, together with a well-designed >
3600 page PDF reference manual, and the company also offers free training
material, and (last, but not least) free certifications for successfully
completing a questionnaire after having self-studied a training.
Of course you can buy the product, buy printed manuals, buy training, etc.
Sounds like "black magic", doesn't it?)

Regards,
Ulrich

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Eiffel Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an

> email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit
>

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/cc5cb73b-95fb-44ad-8d66-740bda

> be9fcen%40googlegroups.com.

[Ian Joyner]

> On 17 Jun 2022, at 16:51, Ulrich Windl <Ulrich...@rz.uni-regensburg.de> wrote:
>
>>>> Philippe K <pka...@gmail.com> schrieb am 16.06.2022 um 21:13 in Nachricht
> <cc5cb73b-95fb-44ad...@googlegroups.com>:
>> Without a doubt: Eiffel is a cathedral, craftsmanship, fine and elegant
>> engineering.
>>
>> However, some key elements are pending to disseminate this masterpiece more
>
>> widely, just to name a few:
>> - a revised Eiffel ECMA standard including SCOOP, the initial one dating
>> from 2006
>> - the third edition of "Standard Eiffel" ("Eiffel the language"), work in
>> progress since 1999 (the previous edition : 1992)
>
> +INFINITY ;-)
>
> BTW: commercial interests put aside, that would be best if shipped with the
> compiler in electronic format (PDF).
>
> (I don't want to make any advertising here, but there exists a company where
> they give out a professional program for free, together with a well-designed >
> 3600 page PDF reference manual, and the company also offers free training
> material, and (last, but not least) free certifications for successfully
> completing a questionnaire after having self-studied a training.
> Of course you can buy the product, buy printed manuals, buy training, etc.
> Sounds like "black magic", doesn't it?)

That gives us nothing to go on. What company? What product? 3,600 page PDF, sounds absolutely horrific.

[Ulrich Windl]

>>> Ian Joyner <joyne...@gmail.com> schrieb am 17.06.2022 um 11:30 in Nachricht
<8AD9F790-5C9E-45E8...@gmail.com>:

Add the pages of ETL, the ECMA language spec, the library documentation, and the IDE docs for eiffel. Not horrific?

Regards,
Ulrich

>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Eiffel Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/8AD9F790-5C9E-45E8-BCB3-96F08F
> 687358%40gmail.com.

[Ian Joyner]

> On 17 Jun 2022, at 21:19, Ulrich Windl <Ulrich...@rz.uni-regensburg.de> wrote:
>
>>>> Ian Joyner <joyne...@gmail.com> schrieb am 17.06.2022 um 11:30 in Nachricht
> <8AD9F790-5C9E-45E8...@gmail.com>:

> \

>>
>> That gives us nothing to go on. What company? What product? 3,600 page PDF,
>> sounds absolutely horrific.
>
> Add the pages of ETL, the ECMA language spec, the library documentation, and the IDE docs for eiffel. Not horrific?

Still nothing to compare to. That is still four documents compared to one.

[Ian Joyner]

Hi Philippe,

That is good news that some long-awaited items will finally be complete. But perhaps the fact that it has taken so long means it is building a cathedral, meanwhile the bazaar takes not much thought and peddles junk.

However, I think the cathedral/bazaar analogy breaks down with software. A more honest reading might be that the cathedral is the hardware, and the bazaar is a daily working and more akin to software.

That is what software is about — ease of adaptability, things are flexible and fluid, like the life in the bazaar. A language that is most formally designed with issues thought about can achieve that best. C and C++ have got away with rushing to market and then leaving the burden to programmers.

Unix was really because MULTICS was trying to get it right, and Bell wanted to expedite an OS for their use. B and C were just quick-and-dirty languages, rather like MS-DOS was based on QDOS. C++, just a hack on C with macros, but sold as the next version of C. Some like Linus Torvalds saw through the pretence. Not that the defence of C was justified either.

Alan Kay again:

“C++ was not something anyone took seriously because like MS-DOS, who would ever fall for a joke like that.”

While having completed documentation including SCOOP, other less abstract forms of concurrency, Void safety, new loop constructs, etc will be a good thing, solid and free implementations on all platforms are needed. A native Apple version, not something that looks like the Windows version ported.

All versions should be easy installs, not MacPorts hacks and scripts.

Perhaps also something that completes the vision in Seamless-Software Engineering.

For the future, I think we still should be liberated from so much dependence on text and compilers, giving programmers the option to roll-their-own syntactic representations. Thus those who have been sadly brainwashed for decades that C syntax is the only ’true’ form can see something more C-like, and those of us who realise that C is arcane syntax can look at something more pleasant.

Perhaps as Bjarne Stroustrup says “Inside of C++ there is a clean simple language trying to get out”, that language is Eiffel.

Anyway, there are some things to go on with.

Ian

[Philippe K]

Thanks Ian for sharing your point of view.

Philippe.

[Ian Joyner]

On 18 Jun 2022, at 01:43, Philippe K <pka...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Ian for sharing your point of view.

Philippe.

I’m sure most know or have a feeling of what needs to be done without me being a nuisance and weighing in. But I hope I can bring some focus and support for doing those things.

After all computing history is not over, but we are stuck in an industry where many people view poor programming technologies and practices as the ‘way things must be’ and that they are fixed.

Ian

[Karsten Heusser]

In this context, it is worth watching

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSHyzdxst8s .

Basically, Bertrand says the following:

To quantify which way of doing things is superior

requires (experimental) measurement --

which is difficult for several reasons.

Best,

Karsten

[Ulrich Windl]

>>> Ian Joyner <joyne...@gmail.com> schrieb am 17.06.2022 um 13:34 in Nachricht
<AE666EAF-3811-4E40...@gmail.com>:

Ian,

are you saying one big reference manual is more terrible that a set of information spread between several documents?

Regards,
Ulrich


>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Eiffel Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/AE666EAF-3811-4E40-ABEB-77D318
> 727914%40gmail.com.

[Ulrich Windl]

>>> Ian Joyner <joyne...@gmail.com> schrieb am 17.06.2022 um 14:05 in
Nachricht
<41A7D931-1D89-42B6...@gmail.com>:

Is there any successful representation of knowledge that is not text form and
usable by humans?
You may continue to bash on text and text-based languages, but where are the
_existing_ alternatives?

>
> Perhaps as Bjarne Stroustrup says “Inside of C++ there is a clean simple
> language trying to get out”, that language is Eiffel.

For the claims of Eiffel I'd agree, maybe, but not for the implementation.

Regards,
Ulrich

>
> Anyway, there are some things to go on with.
>
> Ian
>
>> On 17 Jun 2022, at 05:13, Philippe K <pka...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Without a doubt: Eiffel is a cathedral, craftsmanship, fine and elegant
> engineering.
>>
>> However, some key elements are pending to disseminate this masterpiece more

> widely, just to name a few:
>> - a revised Eiffel ECMA standard including SCOOP, the initial one dating
> from 2006
>> - the third edition of "Standard Eiffel" ("Eiffel the language"), work in
> progress since 1999 (the previous edition : 1992)
>> - the long awaited book "Concurrent programming made easy"
>>
>> In recent years, new elements have been added to Eiffel, notably concerning

> loop construction. These additions along the way are obviously very welcome,

> but I think it would be very useful to give a roadmap of the developments
> envisaged for the coming years. Visibility and overview could not hurt, but

> this does not mean going into fine detail and revealing what is still under

> discussion.
>>
>> Ian, you say that there are still things to finish. Can you say a bit more,

> from your point of view ? Thanks.
>>
>> Philippe.
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Eiffel Users" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an

> email to eiffel-users...@googlegroups.com.

> To view this discussion on the web visit
>

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/eiffel-users/41A7D931-1D89-42B6-907B-8A8092

> CDD918%40gmail.com.

[Ian Joyner]

On 20 Jun 2022, at 15:48, Ulrich Windl <Ulrich...@rz.uni-regensburg.de> wrote:

>> Still nothing to compare to. That is still four documents compared to one.
>
> Ian,
>
> are you saying one big reference manual is more terrible that a set of information spread between several documents?

Does it even remotely look like I’m saying that either way? You did not give the specific example, so there is nothing to compare to. The manual example was something you brought but was irrelevant to the discussion in the first place. Stop trying to catch people out. I’m not going to participate in that.

Ian

[Ian Joyner]

On 20 Jun 2022, at 16:05, Ulrich Windl <Ulrich...@rz.uni-regensburg.de> wrote:

Ian Joyner <joyne...@gmail.com> schrieb am 17.06.2022 um 14:05 in

For the future, I think we still should be liberated from so much dependence

on text and compilers, giving programmers the option to roll-their-own
syntactic representations. Thus those who have been sadly brainwashed for
decades that C syntax is the only ’true’ form can see something more C-like,

and those of us who realise that C is arcane syntax can look at something
more pleasant.

Is there any successful representation of knowledge that is not text form and
usable by humans?
You may continue to bash on text and text-based languages, but where are the
_existing_ alternatives?

I think what I am suggesting is perfectly clear. Nothing to do with bashing. There is plenty of knowledge in non-text form and other representations. Remember the majority of people could not read and write until reasonably recently.

A lot of the navigation framework of programs does not need to be linear text. That actually detracts from the meaning of the concise text that is needed in a program. That is why C/C++ is arcane. Eiffel has much clearer syntax, but the C people have a point that there are a lot of keywords and maybe a lot of the text just has to do with the structure and organisation of the program, rather than the program itself.

Vannevar Bush pointed out the power of non-linear thinking in ‘As We May Think’.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/

Ted Nelson later:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Lib/Dream_Machines

We don’t think linearly — we need to make computers work the way people do, not force people into a computer straightjacket.

We should think more in terms of concepts, not have to translate them to text. Text like e = mc^2 is only a very condensed expression of very deep thinking about the concepts. And most people can’t understand that text until the concepts are at least partially understood.

Perhaps as Bjarne Stroustrup says “Inside of C++ there is a clean simple
language trying to get out”, that language is Eiffel.

For the claims of Eiffel I'd agree, maybe, but not for the implementation.

Stroustrup’s utterance has nothing to do with implementation. However, I agree that implementations need to be solid, or people give up.

However, I can counter that by saying that people don’t give up when they are forced with using a technology and in that case will battle on. That is why people stick to C/C++ and other arcane technologies. C and C++ are bad technologies and bad technologies achieve lock in, both technically and by mentality.

Better languages are more free from lock in. Programmers are more likely to move on.

Eiffel still does not have the benefit of widespread use. Fundamentally, that is why I am saying needs to be addressed.

Ian

[Louis M]

OK. Thanks. I did not know that.

Good day,

Louis M