Product Description
Provides a clear introduction to the Eiffel programming language. Covers the language, logical assertions, and design of object-oriented systems, making it ideal for a new programmer or those unfamiliar with object-oriented programming. Paper. DLC: Object-oriented prog. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Impossible to read
This book is absolutely hopeless as a text for university students, its obvious target audience, given Rist's occupation as a lecturer. This is more suited to highly experienced individuals.

This book is a poor attempt at demystifying the Eiffel language... a language used rarely, if at all.

Not happy, Jan.

No No No
This book is WAY too technical for uni students as their first language, or even students with a couple of languages under their belt.

You're a nerd israel

Not as bad as Rist and Terwilliger though

Good clear book on a great language for programmers
This book offers a clear description of OOP concepts in the context of Eiffel and "design-by-contract".
There is a realistic case study that continues on throughout the book. This is the book to read if you want to really get your teeth into Eiffel.

It is true that this book is not for the total newbie to programming.
This book is best read by someone who has a couple of notches and a couple of languages in his programming repertoire

(...)

Rist is a senior lecturer in the dept of computer science at the University of Technology Sydney and his book has been "battle hardened" by being used in the Comp Sci course there.

You can find download part of the book from his home page, but the book is defintely worth buying if you are serious about Eiffel.

My only quibble with this book is that it is on Eiffel and not on one of the delightful functional languages like Ocaml , SML or Haskell.
But that is like complaining that a camel is not a daisy ...

step-by-step learning? NO
This is not an introductory book, definately not for students who are new to OO programming. It's for experienced programmers who wants to learn some object oriented concepts. It is more like a documentation or a handbook. Not a good choice if you want an easy to follow text. Might be useful for referencing purpose. ... Read more

Product Description
A guide to programming for Microsoft Windows using the uncomplicated Windows Eiffel Library, WEL, which provides all the data structure and support needed for most applications. The CD-ROM contains the complete example source code from the text, and the full ISE Eiffel compiler and IDE. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Made Easy is the Bottom Line
This book is exceptionally well written and presents both novice and expert topics using an example driven approach that stimulates and motivates the reader.Both authors stress the most important lessons to learn in each chapter clearly and the reader comes away with expert experiences that other books just do not capture.The examples are in Eiffel which is another bonus as not only do you learn Windows development principles, but you also gain an indepth understanding of object-oriented principles that are lacking in many other languages.Eiffel is not a prerequisite at all as I had not even heard of the language before reading the book,and I would definitely recommend the book to those wanting to discover an experts opinion on Windows programming with the added benefit of learning object-oriented principles at the same time.

Very good alternative to Petzold's books
A very well written book about Windows programming and object component technology. The authors are very concerned by making you grasp how things are supposed to work when doing Windows programming and the plan they chose to show all aspects of Windows programming is in my opinion very good.

With the book, you have a CD with all the examples they refer to. The examples are very well done and this definitely plays a major role in understanding all the aspect of Windows programming.

One thing which contribute a lot to the clarity of the book is the usage of the Eiffel language and its Windows Eiffel Library that make you concentrate on the useful part, ie Windows programming.

I definitely recommend the book to all newcomers to Windows programming or people who have some Eiffel experience that wants to do Windows programming. To finish, you don't need to know Eiffel to understand the book and this is definitely a plus. ... Read more

Product Description
Presents, Eiffel, an industrial-strength programming language that has won strong support from the Object Oriented Programming (OOP) community as an alternative to C++, Smalltalk & other OOP languages, providing a complete tutorial guide and updated information on new RADs & GUIs. Paper.DLC: Object-oriented programming (Computer science). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Intro To Eiffel
This is a very approachable book on software engineering in the language Eiffel.Every aspect of the language is covered in great detail, and there are plenty of exercises and illustrations throughout to help readers stayon course.

Some of the material here is quite hard to find in othercomputer texts.For instance, there are chapters that discuss the theorybehind Abstract Data Types, exception handling, the client/supplierrelationship, and polymorphism in much greater depth than one will find inabout 95% of the OO texts on the shelves.

No matter what the language inwhich you program, you owe it to yourself to read this book.And whileyou're at it, pick up a copy of Meyer's Object Oriented SoftwareConstruction 2nd ed.

the book is useless.
I regrear to buy this book don't spend any penny on it ... Read more

Product Description
Eiffel is user-friendly, consistent, and relatively easy to learn. In this book Eiffel is used to introduce the basic principles of computer science from an object-oriented perspective. The book details the object-oriented approach to problem solving; covers the construction of Eiffel classes; explains polymorphism as a design principle. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great introduction into Eiffel
This book serves as an introduction to object orientation and the languageEiffel.

As an introduction to OO, it does an okay job. There are betterbooks on this subject, but there are a lot more books that are worse.

Asan introduction to Eiffel, this book is great. I tried learning eiffel fromboth Eiffel: the language, which is a reference guide, and Object OrientedSoftware Construction, which is avery academic text. This book takes youthrough the basics of OO and after that takes you through the basics ofEiffel.

Once I finished this book, I had both a very good idea what thepower of Eiffel is, how to use it and I was able to write real programs. (Ido recommend Eiffel: The Language as a reference guide for programming realworld applications). ... Read more

Product Description
A comprehensive, up-to-date, and resource-filled guide to Eiffel--the only "pure" object-oriented programming language. In addition to describing Eiffel, the book contains descriptions and comparisons of compilers and libraries available on the market as well as other resources for Eiffel programmers, ina ddition to plenty of compiler-independent examples and case studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A good introduction to the Eiffel language and environments.
The author provides a good introduction to Eiffel from a real-world and academic-software-engineering point of view.

Eiffel is presented, from a simple "Hello, world!" example through advanced language elements like exception handling, repeated inheritance, typing issues, and (strangely) parallel implementations.The author also provides a general introduction to object-oriented concepts, for those new to objects.A discussion of the primary Eiffel environments and libraries is included, for those interested in an objective view of the competing products in the area.

To fulfill the software engineering aspect of the text, a discussion of object analysis and modeling with an Eiffel twist is included. This section is somewhat out-of-date, given that it does not even mention the Unified Modeling Language, choosing instead to focus on one of its precursors, OMT.

The author went the extra mile, to his credit, with a discussion ! of verification and validation in an Eiffel context and a full Eiffel case study, a parallel linear algebra library.

This is a fine overview book of the Eiffel language, environments, and libraries for a software designer or developer.In particular, those developers that use good software engineering practices (analysis, modeling, testing, etc.) will appreciate the coverage of said topics within these covers. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first "data structures" book for Eiffel, bringing to the study of that language the first comprehensive treatment of one of the most important topics in any programming language or paradigm. Readers will learn how to design and implement good resuable software components, a very hot topic for object-oriented programmers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent book
Before reading this book a few years ago, I had been programming in C++ and had yet to really realize reusable software.The excellent thing about this book is that from start to finish, the focus is consistently placed on creating a reusable library of data structures.As such, this is one of the only books I've ever purchased from which I've walked away not only better informed but with immediately useful code developed along the way.

Though the book uses the Eiffel language, it should be easy for folks used to other languages to approach.Much to his credit, Gore takes the time in the beginning of the book to basically hand hold the reader through the code and the exercises.As the book progresses, with each chapter building on the last, Gore gives the reader greater autonomy, until the text centers more on the theory of data structures than the source needed to represent them.I found this approach extremely effective, and wish that more computer books were written in the same fashion.

I've since read a number of books on data structures and OO for a variety of computer languages. If I had to pin down the text that was most useful to me in not only understanding the subject matter but also gaining deeper insights into reusability, it would definitely be this book.I can't recommend it highly enough! ... Read more

Product Description
The Eiffel language combines rigorous softwareengineering principles with advanced object-oriented techniques. Usedworldwide in a wide range of application areas, it has attractedconsiderable attention not just as an implementation language but alsoas a high-level notation for analysis and design. Written by theprincipal designer of Eiffel, this book covers the language in full,incorporating the most recent developments of version 3. Annotationcopyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Best available documenation on Eiffel
For those who don't already know, Eiffel is a 1990-era object oriented programming language. It is best known as the vehicle for Meyer's "design by contract" methodology, a relaxed version of formal, mathematical proofs of program correctness.

This book sets out to be two things: a user guide and also a specification of the Eiffel language, as it was defined at version 3. It's not quite rigorous enough to be a full spec, but adequate as a user guide. This is not a tutorial for beginning programmers, a very different kind of book, but it says at the outset that it was never meant for beginners. That's fair, since beginners and experienced programmers need quite different kinds of material for learning a language. The organization isn't all I could have asked for, but I could use it for wrting Eiffel programs if I had to.

The one thing that stands out in this book is its lengthy discussion of the typing system. That is well justified. Eiffel has the most complex type system I've seen, including parametric types (like C++ templates), multiple and repeated inheritance, and more than one scheme for creating aliases. Its repeated inheritance mechanism allows class B to claim class A as a superclass twice - like "diamond" inheritance in C++, but without the intermediate steps. That's where renaming comes in, creating ways to refer to the two different A superclasses unambiguously. Also, Eiffel allows a subclass to over-ride a function's return type - just to add flavor to the mix and complexity to the class-type rules. Once you combine parametric types, aliasing, and all the rest, type compatibility becomes a real hairball and is the subject of lengthy discussion. Despite its length, that discussion lacks clarity and examples, so I would expect a lot of ugly surprises if I tried doing serious work in this language.

The one serious omission here is lack of description of LACE - sort of a linker language for Eiffel, with a renaming facility of its own. Java and C# programmers won't even know what a linker is. Good. Since Eiffel requires LACE for just about any nontrivial application, however, something a bit more readable than appendix D would have been helpful. Another important idea is also weak or absent in this discussion: how name spaces are organized for projects so big that duplicate class names become likely. That may be a lack in Eiffel itself, though.

There's a lot to say about Eiffel, good, bad, and just puzzled. I'm not commenting on the language itself, here, except to say that I'm glad more recent languages are simpler, or at least put their complexity elsewhere.

I can't give this a ranking among other Eiffel books, because there are so very few others. It appears adequate as a reference for advanced programmers, but suffers from an inverted organization and thin discussion of some important topics.

//wiredweird

Exhaustive, Detailed Language Definition
Eiffel has been developed by the Non-profit International Consortium for Eiffel (NICE) for the last 17 years. This book is the language definition as proposed by that committee. It is exhaustive and of such high detail as to allow anyone to write a compiler for the language. My hat is off to the Eiffel consortium for their efforts to explicitly define the language in an open standard, making the developer's job easier.

I sympathize with the previous reviewer that was overwhelmed by the detail in this book. Please allow me to caution the would-be consumer. This book is not an object oriented tutorial. It is not an introduction to the language. If you would like either of these purchase Object Oriented Software Construction, 2e.

If you have more than a passing interest in Eiffel and would like a language reference, or if you are planning to implement your own compiler, this book is for you.While most of the information is still accurate, there have been many additions to the language that are not in the book.Minus one star for taking so long to provide an update.

Did not make me appreciate Eiffel at all
I found this book to be quite tedious and unreadable.It neither enrichedmy understanding of OO or helped me think of how to program better in anyway.Perhaps it was because I was not diligent enough to read through thisbook properly but compared to most other books I've encountered thatintroduce a computer language, "Eiffel: The Language" does a verypoor job of explaining exactly what it is that Eiffel has to offer orgenerating excitement and interest in the language.After trying out boththis and 'Object Oriented Software Construction' I've come to theconclusion that Eiffel is not a language worth learning despite all thehype.

An excellent source.
This is an excellent book for someone approaching Eiffel with zero prior knowledge of the language, and with zero knowledge of OOP.I am one of those rare people who still writes only in C and thinks (thought) that OOPis (was) for the birds.I strongly recommend this as an introduction bothtoEiffel and to OOP.It's clear, concise, complete, and very wellwritten/organized/presented. ... Read more

Product Description
There is a compelling alternative tothe C++ programming language for implementing object-oriented software systems the Eiffel programming language. This book presents the latest version of Eiffel, and details object-oriented analysis and design using the Booch 94 method with Eiffel implementation. Presents the major features of the Eiffel language from a programmers perspective. Offers case studies that, in addition to Eiffelimplementation, show the use of the Booch 94 method of analysis and design. ... Read more

Product Description
Presenting the complete EiffelMath library, this text explains the Eiffel method and how it can be used to develop and maintain scientific and financial software. Included on the CD-ROM is a version of ISE Eiffel for Windows, and all example routines. ... Read more

Product Description
Assuming prior programming knowledge, this book covers all the important parts of the Eiffel language--illustrated using fragments of Eiffel code--but focuses on the basic aspects of the language that are necessary to produce software with Eiffel and avoids features that are appropriate only to specialized implementations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good for starters
This book got me quickly up to speed with Eiffel. I had this book by my side for my first Eiffel programs. Eiffel, the language, doesn't help you much if you want to write your first programs, and you might find ObjectOriented Software Construction too heavy.

It's not a book you'll lookinto after you've mastered Eiffel, but it sure helps with the first steps.

It's a good book.
If you want to know eiffel and want to pick upit in short time, this is a good book for you. There are not much Eiffel books out in the market but most of them all focus on the OOP concept, like ADT stuff, and are veryacadmic. ... Read more

Product Description
Joyner, of the Microsoft Research Institute at MacquarieUniversity, compares the strengths and weaknesses of the threeobject-oriented languages C++, Java and Eiffel, and examines howvarious language features affect software productivity. Individualchapters address modules, class members, inheritance, generics,interfaces and access control, constructors and destructors, casts,compile time, and run time. -- Copyright2000 Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR All rights reserved ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Wordy, somewhat superfluous, but still informative
I bought this book to help designing a C like language. But I was disappointed by the content because it does not bear too much useful information.

Most of the critics and comparisions are already well known. Nothing novel.

The book is more like a handy memo of the language features and good/bad tags than a serious study of the trade-offs and concerns (theoretical and practical)

Some comparisions are biased or even superfluous. The author tried to put everybody's feet into Eiffel's designer's shoes. Many of the practical concerns of C/C++/Java were intentionally or unintentionally ignored. That, in my opinion, undermines the book's objectiveness a lot.

Overall, this book is not good for beginners who want to learn C,C++,Java or Eiffel¡£It is just not written as a tutorial or textbook.

On the other hand, it is not of much value for serious language researchers either, in either academic or practical sense.

Exceptional OOP book
You may feel impressed with this book if you are disappointed with other books about object-oriented. This book is rather unusual. He mentioned points that typical OOP books don't cover, for example, a dilemma between flexibility and correctness.

Put simply, this book is not informative but argumentative. The author believes Eiffel is simply better than C++ and Java. He could seem to try to convince readers.

Unfortunately, this book is not well-organized. This book is filled with unique opinions about C++, Java, Effel unlike so-called textbook. Hence, you may feel unconfortable when you just want to understand a certain topic such as exception.

If you just want to learn (not study) OOP, another typical and common book is more helpful. But, this book certainly offers something you cannot know from typical books.

Some flaws, but still worth the money
The places where Joyner discuss each programming language in terms of how they implement a certain OOP feature are very good and even important. But then he starts to compare languages...

The problem, as I suspected, is that Joyner goes on with a great number of paragraphs critisizing C++ features that was never intended to be an OOP paradigm feature. But when an (even important) Eiffel glitch is found, he simply states that a fix is around the corner. NOT FAIR!

You should also note that the editor of the series is Betrand Meyer (author of Eiffel.)

In general, it is not a good idea to make a comparison between C++, Java and Eiffel in the first place because their goals are so different. C++ is a multiparadign programming language for large system-level applications, but Joyner does not seem to reckognize this. All these programming languages have pros and cons, but you don't settle on one of them for all purposes.

That said, the good parts of this books are so good that I recommend it.

wonderfully thorough, useful critical comparison
Coming from a Unix/C background, I was at first a little wary of such a scathing criticism of C++. However, after letting go of my initial caution, I was amazed at how many problematic areas of the language existed. Thisbook really does get down to what's really important in an OO programminglanguage, and discusses the +ves and -ves of each language in great depth.

Even though a great deal of positive attention is given to Eiffel, I donot think this comes from bias: I think that it's a natural reaction tostudying the language with an open mind. After reading up on Eiffel on thenet, and wallowing in Bertrand Meyer's incredibly lucid book 'ObjectOriented Software Construction', I was totally blown away with the designof Eiffel. It really does seem (IMHO) to be far and away the mostcomprehensive OO language available today. While no language is perfect, itis a quantum leap ahead of both Java and C++ in too many areas tomention.

If you're willing to come to this book without emotionalattachment to any particular language, you'll find yourself on a wonderfuladventure exploring an amazing (relatively) new OO language which isdesigned from scratch without compromise to be a bullet proof way ofconstructing top quality reliable, reusable, maintainable, functionalsoftware, from initial analysis and design, all the way to implementationand subsequent maintenance and extension.

Good, thougthful analysis; misleading description
I'm midway through this book, and thoroughly enjoying it. Joyner has a clear and accessible writing style, and the content is obviously well-researched and thorough. That, however, is my main problem with the book -- its core grows out of a paper of Joyner's on weaknesses in C++ and the resulting book, while still excellent, follows from that mindset. Thebook sometimes feels not so much like a comparision between C++, Java, andEiffel, but rather an exhortation to avoid C++'s misfeatures (and, to alesser extent, Java's), and instead use Eiffel. While the author makes anadmirable case for Eiffel, this isn't why I bought the book, and thenon-critical treatment that Eiffel receives undercuts the overall strengthof the book -- no programming language is perfect, and if what Joynerreally wants is better language tools and better language design, he owesit to himself and his audience to treat the objects of his comparisonequally.

All that said, the book is well-organized, even the mostloaded statements Joyner makes are thought-provoking, and its approach isunique. If you're willing to keep your critical thinking filters on andstay engaged with the book instead of being a passive reader, blindlytrusting the author, you'll get a lot out of it. ... Read more

Product Description
Eiffel is a pure object-oriented programming language growing both in education and industry. It is a high-level language, and is particularly suitable as a starting point for those who wish to learn the fundamentals of object orientation. Eiffel is, however, more than a teaching language: it incorporates an approach to software development based on ideas of reusability, extendibility and reliability. Uniquely among object-oriented languages, it was created with mechanisms for making formal assertions about software components, based on the "design by contract" philosophy. This work provides an introduction to object orientation and a practical introduction to nearly all the features provided by the Eiffel programming language. It should be suitable for those with some experience of programming who wish to learn about object oriented programming. It should also appeal to those who already have some knowledge of object orientation, and wish to find out about the Eiffel language. ... Read more

Product Description
Eiffel is an ISO-standardized, object-oriented programming language designed to enable programmers to efficiently develop extensible, reusable, reliable software. Eiffel is used in academia as a language for teaching computer-programming principles. Eiffel is used in the finance, aerospace, health-care, video-gaming, and other industries as a development platform. Since 1985, many suppliers have developed Eiffel programming environments. ... Read more

Product Description

Introduces object-oriented data structures using Eiffel, a language that is ideal for the beginning programmer.Introduces abstract data types, encapsulation, classes, external and internal views of classes, inheritance and polymorphism. Presents an overview of the Eiffel Language and its advantages. Introduces Eiffel's ARRAY and STRING classes and several standard sorting algorithms. Introduces stack and queue abstractions, in both static and dynamic implementations. Presents the basics of recursion and lists. Also introduces binary trees and search trees, presenting important algorithms for balancing search trees.Anyone who wishes to learn object-oriented techniques without encountering the complexity of C++.

Product Description
Chapters: Java, C++, Python, Eiffel, Smalltalk, Ruby, Simula, Common Lisp, Oberon, Clu, Objective-C, Squeak, Sather, Pike, D, Oxygene, C Sharp, Jade, Agentsheets, Magik, Python for S60, Visual Prolog, Oak, Pharo, Embedded C++, Spec Sharp, F-Script, Lava, Boo, Ferite, Vistasmalltalk, Strongtalk, Smalltalk Yx, Sing Sharp, Fuxi Programming Language, Nu, Monkeybars Framework, Bistro, Little Smalltalk, Clascal, Object Rexx, Active Oberon, Chora, Lightweight Java. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 350. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Common Lisp, commonly abbreviated CL, is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in ANSI standard document ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (R2004), (formerly X3.226-1994 (R1999)). From the ANSI Common Lisp standard the Common Lisp HyperSpec has been derived for use with web browsers. Common Lisp was developed to standardize the divergent variants of Lisp (though mainly the MacLisp variants) which predated it, thus it is not an implementation but rather a language specification. Several implementations of the Common Lisp standard are available, including free and open source software and proprietary products. Common Lisp is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language. It supports a combination of procedural, functional, and object-oriented programming paradigms. As a dynamic programming language, it facilitates evolutionary and incremental software development, with iterative compilation into efficient run-time programs. Common Lisp includes CLOS, an object system that supports multimethods and method combinations. It is extensible through standard features such as Lisp macros (compile-time code rearrangement accomplished by the program itself) and reader macros (extension of syntax to give special meaning to characters reserved for users for this...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=6068 ... Read more

Product Description

Distributed processing has a strong theoretical foundation, but many day-to-day practitioners make limited use of the advantages this theory can give them. The result includes unreliable systems with obscure and intermittent failures that can cost time, money and in extreme cases, lives. Reliable construction of distributed and concurrent systems must incorporate theory in practice.

This book provides a concise presentation of the theory closely linked to the practical realisation of these concepts. This easy-to-follow textbook focuses on practical issues of building working distributed systems and gives an overview of the basic theory, principles and techniques, whilst illustrating how these fit together, via the process of building interesting, non-trivial systems.

Topics and features:

• Provides all the elements needed for a complete development of a distributed system, from theory to practice

• Offers an integrated approach to the field of distributed processing, and presents a coherent view of the field as a practical subject

• Links theoretical models of concurrency with practical realisation of systems

• Contains many examples from C, Java Ada and Eiffel, as well as case studies

• Considers important aspects of the engineering process, including models that can be used to assess and analyse parts of distributed systems, implementation techniques, as well as protocols and security concerns

• Many pedagogical tools: chapter summaries, exercises (with sketch solutions and hints), comprehensive glossary, Internet support for students and instructors, accessible at http://www.scm.tees.ac.uk/p.j.brooke/dpb/.

• Ideal for use by lecturers as a coherent one-term course or module on distributed systems

Written with undergraduates in mind, especially relevant for intermediate-level students, this user-friendly textbook will prove a clear and comprehensive guide to the topic and the foundations for a methodological approach to building these systems.

Dr Phil Brooke is a lecturer in computer science at the University of Teesside, and Dr Richard Paige is a lecturer in computer science at the University of York. Both have extensive teaching experience, from which this textbook has grown.