Smalltalk or Eiffel

[Graham Telfer]

Hi

I'm new to object oriented programming though not exactly new to programming. I've never been a professional programmer, more a dabbler and hobbyist. For many years I used Forth and Prolog but now I'm retired I want to face the mountain of object oriented programming.

Both Smalltalk and Eiffel look appealing. The dynamism of Smalltalk reminds me of Forth with its extreme factoring of routines into words and Eiffel attracts me because of its design by contract method. Many years ago I used 'me too', (a friendly formal specification language) and it hit a sweet spot with me.

So which way to fall? I think that if I could use design by contract in Smalltalk I would get the best of all worlds because the method is what attracts me to Eiffel.

[Cholo Lennon]

Post by Graham Telfer
So which way to fall?

Well, what kind of answer would you expect in a Smalltalk newsgroup?

[Friedrich Dominicus]

Post by Cholo Lennon

Post by Graham Telfer
So which way to fall?

Well, what kind of answer would you expect in a Smalltalk newsgroup?

Eiffel of course, one knows ones language shortcomings ;-)

Now a bit more serious. I once have used Eiffel quite extensively. It
has some good things and well to my time some things which should work
did not. Anyway if Smalltalks is a language not that often used, Eiffel
is used even less.

There's but one Eiffel still maintained. That's the ISE Eiffel. There
exists at least 3/4 Smalltallk vendors. I'd say the most used Smalltalk
is from Cincom, then maybe VisualAge?

There are quite a few Smalltalks available for free, among others:
- Pharo
- Squeak
- Gemstone
- Dolphin
- Cicoms Smalltalks come in free versions also
-

and quite some more I probably have forgotten.

The Smallltalks differ quite much in platform support. The most
supported ones are from Cincom, Pharo and VisualAge (AFAIKT)

Now I've spend a lot of time and money with some Smalltalk developments
and here comes my critique. The support for Web-Development is not
good. You have to write a lot of things. During our development, some
have developed QCMagritte. That was not available before, and has worked
"nearly".

So you have to write a lot of stuff yourself and there much less
available then in other languages, but Eiffel is worse.

So by every means, use Smalltalks if you want to get something done. Be
prepared anyway that you will have to write a lot of software on you
own. If you want at least support and more used libraries go for Cincom
or Instantiations Visual Age.

If you can live with the Decisions from the Pharo of Squeak you may be
fine with that. I for my part just can write, that I had a hard time
using the libraries of that implementation. I guess you have to live
long enough in Pharo or Squeak to overcome my limits....

Regards
Friedrich