   Frequently Asked Questions

   Table of contents

   Q01: [1]Is it possible to have the complete Eiffel source code of
        SmartEiffel?
   Q02: [2]Is it possible to use SmartEiffel for large/commercial
        applications?
   Q03: [3]Is it possible to do incremental compilation with
        SmartEiffel?
   Q04: [4]Is there a SmartEiffel mailing list?
   Q05: [5]What is the semantics (meaning) of a manifest string?
   Q06: [6]Is it difficult to switch from ISE to SmartEiffel?
   Q07: [7]Is it possible to use the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage
        collector with SmartEiffel?
   Q08: [8]Why don't you post more messages in newsgroups and/or mailing
        lists?
   Q09: [9]Is there a mechanism to pre-compile libraries?
   Q10: [10]How is SmartEiffel compiled?
   Q11: [11]How do I keep informed about SmartEiffel?
   Q12:
        [12]What documentation is provided with SmartEiffel?
        Where can I find Eiffel documentation?
   Q13: [13]How can I help ?
   Q14: [14]Why don't you change this and add that?! It would be much
        better/cooler/whatever !
   Q15: [15]How to customise the Garbage Collector for a new
        architecture?
   Q16: [16]What is SmallEiffel compared to SmartEiffel?

   Questions and answers


   Q01: Is it possible to have the complete Eiffel source code of
        SmartEiffel?
   A01: Since it is the GNU Eiffel Compiler, the complete source code of
        SmartEiffel is of course in the distribution. The source code for
        additional libraries is also provided.

   Q02: Is it possible to use SmartEiffel for large/commercial
        applications?
   A02: It is indeed possible to use SmartEiffel for a large application.
        An Eiffel compiler is a really big project and SmartEiffel itself is
        fully written in Eiffel. SmartEiffel is completely free and any
        private company can use SmartEiffel freely, and distribute (or sell)
        freely the products made with it. They do not have to pay royalties.
        Also note that only classes which are closely related to the compiler
        itself are under GPL (actually, only the classes of directory
        SmartEiffel/tools and install.e are under GPL). The other classes are
        not under GPL in order to let people completely free (i.e. all classes
        of SmartEiffel/lib). Always keep in mind that SmartEiffel doesn't come
        with any warranty (please read the COPYING file in the distribution).
        As explained in the header of non-GPL files, the only important thing
        is to kept the header unaltered when the corresponding source file is
        provided in your product. For extended support, donations as well as
        consulting, see [17]here.

   Q03: Is it possible to do incremental compilation with SmartEiffel?
   A03: Because of the SmartEiffel type inference mechanism, SmartEiffel
        always produces all needed C files from scratch. As old C files are
        automatically saved, only modified C files are recompiled. See
        [18]man/compile for details.

   Q04: Is there a SmartEiffel mailing list?
   A04: Yes! SmartEiffel users and developers can share their experiences
        and ideas by subscribing to the [19]SmartEiffel official mailing list.

   Q05: What is the semantics (meaning) of a manifest string?
   A05: Bertrand Meyer clearly explains the semantics of manifest strings
        in section 18.5 on page 653 (and previous sections for background) of
        Object-Oriented Software Construction (Second Edition). A manifest
        string expression (in declaration) is not a constant but a reference
        to a shared object. A variable initialised with a manifest string is
        equivalent to a once function, so the string may change! For example:
           Message: STRING is "abc"
        is equivalent to
           Message: STRING is
             once
               !!Result.make (3)
               Result.append_character ('a')
               Result.append_character ('b')
               Result.append_character ('c')
             end
        SmartEiffel implements manifest strings in this way.
        Be aware that manifest string expression may be written in two ways:
           str := "abc"
        This is the standard manifest string expression.
           str := once "abc"
        This is the once manifest string expression.
        In the first case, new string is allocated each time the line is
        executed. In the second case you've got a once result like in
        declaration described above, so the string may have changed. See
        [20]man/compile_to_c for the flag -manifest_string_trace which help
        finding memory leaks from non-once manifest strings.

   Q06: Is it difficult to switch from ISE to SmartEiffel?
   A06: If your original ISE software only uses simple types like
        INTEGER, STRING, ARRAY, BOOLEAN, CHARACTER and DOUBLE, it is usually
        very simple. It is a little bit difficult for simple input/output
        (used with predefined io) because some features have different names.
        If your original software heavily relies on the EiffelBase library, it
        may be very difficult. For example, one must keep in mind that
        SmartEiffel.ARRAY inherit SmartEiffel.COLLECTION and that ISE library
        also have a class COLLECTION. By the way, subclasses of ISE.COLLECTION
        cannot be used. The ISE.LINKED_LIST can be used in conjunction with
        SmartEiffel.ARRAY because ISE.LINKED_LIST do not inherit
        ISE.COLLECTION (no clash).

   Q07: Is it possible to use the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector
        with SmartEiffel?
   A07: Yes.
        You just have to disable the generation of the GC by SmartEiffel
        (option -no_gc) and replace it by the BDW library. Note that the BDW
        GC can be easily added because SmartEiffel only uses
        malloc/realloc/calloc.
        You can download the BDW library from :
               [21]http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc

        How to integrate the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector with
        SmartEiffel (from a message of Dietmar Wolz) :
         1. Make the gc.a file from the BDW package. Then move this gc.a file
            to /usr/lib/libgc.a.
         2. Move gc.h the to working directory and add the following lines:
            #define malloc(n) GC_malloc(n)
            #define calloc(m,n) GC_malloc((m)*(n))
            #define realloc(p,n) GC_realloc((p),(n))
            #define free(p) GC_free(p)
         3. instead of calling
                "compile -o executable -boost -O root"
            now call
                "compile -o executable -boost -O root -no_gc -lgc -include
            gc.h"


   Q08: Why don't you post more messages in newsgroups and/or mailing
        lists?
   A08: First, because we strongly believe that too much information
        kills information. Scientists call this "cognitive overload". :)
        Second, because we don't have the time. It takes an awful amount of
        time to follow discussions, whatever their quality. We try to do that.
        But it's even more time-consuming to be part of them. So, we often
        have to choose between posting/mailing, and working directly on
        SmartEiffel. Since our mailboxes tend to overflood, we generally
        choose the latter :)

   Q09: Is there a mechanism to pre-compile libraries?
   A09: No, there is no such mechanism in SmartEiffel. But if you're
        concerned about compilation speed, don't worry, pre-computed libraries
        are not the only way to be fast ! Just try SmartEiffel, and you'll see
        :)

   Q10: How is SmartEiffel compiled?
   A10: With Eiffel optimisation options -boost and -no_gc. The garbage
        collector is indeed useless on the SmartEiffel commands: since
        SmartEiffel did not include a GC in its first versions, we were very
        careful about memory when we developed it.
        With C compilation optimisations turned on (it depends on the C
        compiler used; we generally use gcc).
        The resulting executables are stripped.

   Q11: How do I keep well informed about SmartEiffel?
   A11: The best way is to keep an eye on our web pages, more especially
        on the [22]What's New? page and the [23]History of Changes.
        People who want detailed information may also decide to stay tuned to
        [24]the SmartEiffel mailing-list or even look at the [25]bug-tracking
        system.

   Q12: What documentation is provided with SmartEiffel?
        Where can I find Eiffel documentation?
   A12: The documentation provided with SmartEiffel is a transcript of
        what you can find on the original SmartEiffel Web site, at
        [26]http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr. It is related only to the use and
        internals of SmartEiffel (yes, we know we still have to improve it ;)
        ).
        For information and documentation about the Eiffel language, check the
        links on our [27]Internet resources page. Note that we are not aware
        of any complete Eiffel language manual freely available on the Web
        (yet?).

   Q13: How can I help ?
   A13: The best way to help SmartEiffel and its users is probably to
        pick up some area you're interested in, and develop with SmartEiffel
        your own library, application, tool, extension, etc., releasing it to
        other users.
        To avoid duplicate efforts, we suggest you have a look to [28]what
        other people are already doing around SmartEiffel and help them if
        something that's of interest to you is already under work. There are
        actually very good things in there, some we were not even aware of,
        when they were under development ! :)
        You may have a look to the [29]future plans and have a look into the
        bugs database (access via the [30]bug report page on the SmartEiffel
        web site.
        Finally, you may also consider funding the development of particular
        features you would like to have.
        Another very good way to help us is to follow the [31]bug report
        guidelines when you find some problem with SmartEiffel :))

   Q14: Why don't you change this and add that?! It would be much
        better/cooler/whatever !
   A14: People must understand that we can't always do everything. We
        simply can't. Because we don't have the time. Whether we like it or
        not, we also have other things to do than provide free stuff, modify
        our compiler and/or libraries to please everybody. We do as much as we
        can, but we don't do miracles, sorry.
        Since SmartEiffel is free of charge and open-source, people who do
        need things we don't provide can always implement them and have them
        benefit everybody. A good way to do this is to start working on it,
        and ask other people (i.e. not the SmartEiffel team ;) ) to join and
        help. See the [32]"How can I help?" question.
        Alternatively, someone or some company who does need us to implement
        something may always consider funding a bit the development of
        SmartEiffel... After all, we've even heard that some people were
        selling software and making a bit of money with it... ;)))

   Q15: How to customise the Garbage Collector for a new architecture?
   A15: If your architecture need special handling to get the GC working
        (because the stack is not contiguous, because some registers are not
        written on the stack on `setjmp'...) then you need to implement
        function `mark_stack_and_registers' for your system in the file
        SmartEiffel/sys/runtime/c/gc_lib.c.
        If you get some message telling you that the stack direction is wrong,
        then you should change macro definition to use the other generic code
        (there is one generic code for each stack order).
        In order to check the GC, you should be able to run all files of the
        SmartEiffel/misc/benchmarks/gc directory.

   Q16: What is SmallEiffel compared to SmartEiffel?
   A16: SmallEiffel is the former name of the SmartEiffel project. We
        changed because we thought the compiler had become smart enough ;) For
        a list of changes between the last version of SmallEiffel and the
        first one of SmartEiffel, have a look [33]there.

                                   [Line]

             Copyright © Dominique COLNET and Suzanne COLLIN -
                         [34]<SmartEiffel@loria.fr>
                Last modified: Mon May 5 10:45:51 CEST 2003

References

   1. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q01
   2. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q02
   3. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q03
   4. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q04
   5. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q05
   6. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q06
   7. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q10
   8. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q08
   9. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q09
  10. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q10
  11. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q11
  12. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q12
  13. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q13
  14. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q14
  15. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q15
  16. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q16
  17. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/support.html
  18. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/compile.html
  19. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/support/mailing-list.html
  20. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/compile_to_c.html
  21. http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/
  22. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/general/whatsnew.html
  23. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/miscHISTORY.html
  24. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/support/mailing-list.html
  25. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/support/bug_report.html
  26. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/
  27. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/general/resources.html
  28. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/general/repository.html
  29. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/papers/future.html
  30. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/support/bug_report.html
  31. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/support/bug_report.html
  32. file://localhost/users/miro/colnet/SmartEiffel/man/SmartEiffelFAQ.html#Q13
  33. http://SmartEiffel.loria.fr/misc/HISTORY.html#1.0
  34. mailto:SmartEiffel@loria.fr
