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Eiffel Explorer: the new face of ISE EiffelEiffel Explorer is the new Eiffel environment developed by ISE. It replaces both EiffelBench and EiffelCase, providing a single seamless framework for the entire software lifecycle, from analysis and design to implementation and maintenance. Eiffel Explorer is the most important development in Eiffel history since the introduction of ISE Eiffel 3 in 1993. It contains major new tools, such as the built-in diagramming and metrics tools; virtually every existing tool has been revamped and expanded; the interface is brand new; and you will discover spectacular speed improvements, coming on the heels of those already introduced with 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5. Eiffel Explorer is currently in Beta release and the final version, benefiting from user feedback, is expected for delivery in early 2001. The interfaceThe first thing you'll notice with Eiffel Explorer is the brand new interface, entirely based on ISE's EiffelVision 2 library for portable graphics, the successor to the original EiffelVision. Here is a typical Eiffel Explorer screen:
You can still create as many Explorer windows as you like (for example to work on several classes or features at once), but for many common tasks you can just rely on the single window shown, giving you a compact representation of a considerable amount of information. Built-in roundtrip engineeeringInstead of forcing you to use an analysis and design tool separate from the development environment, Eiffel Explorer lets you perform forward and reverse engineering freely and seamlessly between the program text and a graphical view. To see a graphical picture of a cluster, or of the inheritance structure of a class. or of its clients, just use the new diagram tool by picking the Diagram tab at the bottom of an Explorer window:
Faster, faster, faster, ...Try compiling one of your existing systems and judge for yourself the spectacular speed improvements of the release. In our tests we find that compilation is sped up by a factor of 2 to 3, coming on top of similar improvements in 4.5. (Yes, as compared to previous release this means a ratio of 4 to almost 10!). Improvements have been made not only to compilation of an entire system (finalization) but also to incremental (melting ice) recompilation. Measure your projectTry this for something really new and cool. The metrics tool (get it from the Metrics tab at the bottom of Eiffel Explorer) lets you compute all kinds of quantitative information on your project, one of its clusters or one of its classes. You can use the predefined metrics, or you can even define your own. Get an estimate of the clarity of the code, check that a given system satisfies design rules, see how many routines have contracts, and compare your results to those of other Eiffel professionals!
A great debuggerAnother completely revamped tool is the debugger, which in addition to all previous facilities provides 'step into', 'step out' and 'step by step' features, positioning breakpoints on the fly, all-graphical display, a convenient way to inspect objects, and great ease of use improvements.
An editor that completesAlso notable is the new editor, offering smart syntax highlighting and completion of features; just type CTRL-spacebar after entering a target name, and you will be prompted with a list of the applicable features. The editor also allows you to pick classes and features from an edited file, and of course features multi-level undo/redo. To know moreMake sure to consult the following documents:
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