Friedrich Dominicus wrote:
>
> So where are they?
>
Here I am ! I'm a happy user of that compiler you mentioned, and I'm doing
the
best I can to convert young people to Eiffel ;-). But IMHO, the problem is
elsewhere: tools and compilers are quite mature, but there is not a wide
Eiffel
culture yet, neither in production nor in academic environments.
I can depict a situation about Italy: as regards universities, most
software
development courses (and teachers) are focused on Java+UML, so newly
graduated
students can be divided roughly into two categories:
1) those who don't know or remind any programming language (yes it is
quite
frequent)
2) those who know Java
there is a small percentage of open-minded students who go further, but
they
usually prefer scripting languages like Python or Ruby :-(
This situation reflects in working environments: most companies have
adopted
Java or C++ plus some UML and I think they would hardly consider different
approaches. Just before last summer I had a look at job offers for
software
developers around, I found only one company mentioning Eiffel and DbC in
their
knowhow, went for an interview with them and asked:
"So, what's the language you use ?"
"We use Java, of course."
"But I read about Eiffel in your brochure ..."
"No, no, just Java!"
that's the way it goes here ...
I hope things go a little better abroad, but until young people won't have
a
real opportunity to be exposed to Eiffel, at least in universities, I
think we
won't see much discussion here or elsewhere.
Best regards,
Francesco
|
