Features

EiffelStudio is one of the most portable environments in the industry, providing full source-code compatibility across a wide range of client and server platforms, from Windows 98/Me/XP/NT/2000 to all major Unix brands, Linux and VMS. Eiffel is ideal for client-server and cross-platform development.

The components of EiffelStudio include EiffelStudio, Eiffel Libraries, EiffelBuild, Resource Bench, Debugger, Profiler and a Diagram Tool, to name a few. EiffelStudio 5.1 also boasts support for the latest release of Microsoft's .NET platform.

To see which tools and libraries are included in the various editions of EiffelStudio, see our feature comparison table.

EiffelStudio

The award-winning EiffelBench and Jolt award finalist EiffelCase are gone! A new tool, EiffelStudio, brings together all the functionality of the environment, both textual and graphical. EiffelStudio achieves the Eiffel aim of completely seamless and reversible development, letting you choose at any time between graphical tools and textual tools.

Libraries

All editions of EiffelStudio come with a variety of high quality libraries:

• EiffelBase - The library of fundamental data structures and algorithms, covering the basics of computing.
• EiffelCOM (Only available with the Enterprise Edition) - Interoperability library and wizard using COM, OLE, ActiveX.
• EiffelNet - For client-server and three-tier architectures: exchanging objects and object structures over a network, guaranteeing the consistency of transmitted structures. Cross-platform. Ideal for distributed applications.
• EiffelLex - For lexical analysis based on finite automata of various kinds.
• EiffelParse - For object-oriented parsing mechanisms, based on simple and elegant principles. Yields parsers that can be easily adapted to language changes, and to several semantics for the same language.
• EiffelStore - The principal interface between Eiffel and external database management systems, relational or object-oriented.
• EiffelWeb - Web form processing that uses Eiffel to write CGI scripts.
• EiffelThreads - Thread library providing the full power of multithreading.
• EiffelVision - The platform-independent graphical and graphical user interface (GUI) library; includes Windows Eiffel Library (WEL), and Motif Eiffel Library (MEL).
• EiffelVision2 - An even better way to write high-quality, nice-looking, portable GUI applications taking full advantage of the facilities provided by modern toolkits.

EiffelBuild

Eiffel's application generator and graphical user interface builder. Currently available in a beta version.

Eiffel Resource Bench

Enables you to use a Windows GUI builder (resource editor) to define the interface of an Eiffel application, through WEL.

Debugger

The debugging mechanism has been considerably enhanced and developed. You can now debug any routine, without having done anything special to it. Execution, if interrupted, will put you in a debugging session right at the place of interruption. You can use "step into", "step out" as well as step-by-step and breakpoints. The Object Editor shows a convenient picture of objects, using tree views.

Profiler

The profiler wizard lets you analyze the result of a profiling session. The profiling mechanism within EiffelStudio helps you optimize your system by pointing out the features where your system spends most of its time. This can be done for an entire system, or alternatively, for small portions of a larger program.

Documentation Tool

EiffelStudio comes with extensive online documentation, including a complete "Guided Tour", a detailed language tutorial, and hundreds of individual help files.

You can already see the documentation at: docs.eiffel.com

Microsoft .NET Compatibility

With the release of Eiffel 5, we previewed Eiffel for .NET, our native implementation of Eiffel for the new .NET platform. Now, EiffelStudio 5.1 stands as the first full-fledged implementation of Eiffel for Microsoft .NET.

Eiffel 5.1 for .NET is the only language to offer multiple inheritance, genericity and Design by Contract on .NET. In addition to these - and other - powerful features of Eiffel, .NET developers have the benefit of direct access to libraries written in all .NET languages. This combination makes Eiffel for .NET the ideal solution for first-to-market, web-enabled, mission-critical applications.