Experiences in learning Eiffel

Question

Does anyone have any experiences in learning the language Eiffel.

Is the Eiffel Studio like Visual Studio?

Is it a good route to take to learn OOP?

etc.

Answer 1

I learned this language about 15 years ago and never regret it.

Eiffel is a bit different from mainstream languages and features some mechanisms not readily available in other environments. In some sense it's a bit more academic than mainstream.

EiffelStudio environment takes some approaches that are not present in average IDEs as well. (For example, it supports Pick&Drop facility which is similar to Drag&Drop, but does not require to keep mouse button pressed as you drag the selected item.) It provides pretty advanced browsing facilities, so in this sense it's quite close to Visual Studio. It also has several built-ins like Diagram and Metrics tools, recently added AutoTest, etc. You can have a look at EiffelStudio documentation to get an idea about its features.

Since the language lacks hacks to introduce basic types, supports multiple inheritance and generic types and integrates Design by Contract right from the beginning, it is extremely good as a learning tool for OOP even if you do not plan to use it on a day-by-day basis. For that purpose I'd recommend "Object-Oriented Software Construction", 2nd Ed. by Bertrand Meyer. It does not include the most recent additions to the language, but it does provide a good route to OOP as a whole.