This Invitation assumes that you have some experience of software development, but that's all. Previous exposure to object technology is not required. If you've had it, it will help; but if it has all been to notations like UML or programming languages like C++ and Java, you should not let it guide your study of this Invitation. Although Eiffel shares a number of properties with these other approaches, it takes a fresh path to object technology, based on a small number of simple, far-reaching concepts.
Once you are familiar with the basic ideas you may want to try them with EiffelStudio, which provides a direct implementation of the Eiffel concepts, available in a completely portable way across Windows, Linux, many versions of Unix and VMS.
Eiffel Home Page (Web) -- Getting started with Eiffel (local)
Copyright Interactive Software Engineering, 2001