Minutes of the April meeting of the Colorado Eiffel User's Group 
Author Message
 Minutes of the April meeting of the Colorado Eiffel User's Group

It was a busy and active meeting, so I have a lot to report.

At the March meeting, the group agreed to start raising funds for the
purchase
of an LCD projector to use at the meetings. (We were getting tired of
huddling
around Steve's laptop to see SDL demos.) Annie Meyerat Eiffel Software
heard
about this, and offered to donate an LCD projector from her company to
the
group. Needless to say, we gratefully accepted. Many thanks to Annie
and Eiffel
Software! Our new projector received a good workout right from the
start and
Ryan had a lot of fun playing with the settings.

Rex has offered to set up an Eiffel laboratory in his office space.
Several
machines will be set up to run VisualStudio, and will be available to
people
interested in experimenting with the language.

We saw an excellent presentation from Jacob{*filter*}titled "Covariance:
What it is
and why it sucks to not have it". This led to an energetic discussion
about
no-variance and contravariance, and how they compare to covariance. We
hope to
see Jacob again at future meetings.

Steve presented classes for handling audio with the SDL. His classes
are more
than a thin wrapper, providing management of many of the details and
greatly
simplifying the use of audio.

The following projects are now, or soon will be, part of the larger
CEUG
project. (Included is a desciption of their current state.)
Eiffel_SDL - Still needing more documentation.  Basically, all of the
subsystems (sound, 2D graphics, networking, true type fonts, etc.)
seem to be
working.  The one thing that still needs to be addressed is getting
overlays
(video) to work in the SDL.

Eiffel_OpenAL - OpenAL is a portable open source sound solution.  It
offers
more functionality than what is available via the SDL, though in most
cases the
latter should be sufficient.  This wrapper has been coded, but Steve
is still
trying to get a working example.  Also, it needs some documentation.

Eiffel_Dislin - This is a wrapper for the extremely portable DISLIN
library for
all sorts of 2D/3D graphics (business and otherwise) to be drawn,
manipulated,
and written to file (the library supports a ton of formats).  Steve
has
completed the low-level external routines, and is now focusing on the
interface
to the client in order to make the library as easy to use as possible.
 The
next step will be to figure out the best abstractions, and divide the
lib into
classes, and from there provide documentation.

IFLTK - Pronounced Eiffel-Tick, stands for the Improved Fast Light
Toolkit.  It
is a wrapper for the FLTK (pronounced Full-Tick) GUI library, which is
very
portable, very small, and very fast.  Currently, about 95% of this
library has
been wrapped.  Steve has yet to add in-line documentation and DbC.
Much of the
user documentation for this will be quite similar to the existing FLTK
docs.

wrapIt - You'd think that in two years Steve would be able to figure
out a good
name for this tool - oh well!  wrapIt is a SWIG like tool that is able
to
generate Eiffel wrappers from C/C++.  Though it is somewhat primitive,
Steve
used it successfully to wrap the FLTK library.  There are many things
that this tool needs, here are a few line items, as well as a
difficulty rating
(higher = harder):
- Does not yet handle struct/union wrapping. (4)
- Does not yet handle straight 'C' routine wrapping (4)
- Needs to let the user embed eiffel routines (1)
- Needs to let the user rename routines/member functions/variables (2)
- Needs to let the user associate DbC with routines/member functions
(3)
- Does not yet automatically handle feature redefinition in generated
wrappers
(5)

Eiffel Parse Library/Core - Steve's open to suggestions as to the
name.  This
library allows an application to reverse engineer Eiffel source into
objects,
for such possible projects as CASE tool development, architectural
analysis,
etc.  There are things that it does not parse on purpose, but rather
keeps
around in string format, such as pre/post/invariant clauses and
routine
bodies. There are other things that it does not handle yet, including
indexing
and obsolete clauses.  For the most part, this tool is ready for use.
Steve
hasn't written the documentation yet, but this can be pretty easily
done, as
the interface is pretty self-explanatory.

Steve Thompson and Jim Cochrane have agreed to work on a home page for
the
CEUG. The page will be associated with the CEUG Open Source project
hosted on
SourceForge.

Munchies; Food is always a high priority on my agenda, and CEUG
meetings are no
exception. Fowler Software Design has consistently supplied the
meetings with
knoshes, and will continue to do so in the future. However, it would
be nice
for other members to occasionally bring their own goodies to share.

Next month we'll see a presentation from Giancarlo of FSD on an
XML-based
persistence mechanism he is implementing for Eiffel. We'll also see a
presentation on tuples.

Subscribe the the group's email list at:
http://www.*-*-*.com/

The Eiffel programming language offers advanced support for OO,
generics, assertions (in the form of Design by Contract) closures
(known as agents) and more. A good starting place to learn more about
Eiffel is at Cetus Links:
http://www.*-*-*.com/

The CEUG Open Source Project is located on SourceForge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ceug/

The CEUG is proudly sponsored by Eiffel Software, the creators of
EiffelStudio(TM) and Eiffel ENViSioN! (TM) For more information,
visit:
http://www.*-*-*.com/

Special thanks to Jacob{*filter*}of ToolCASE LLC. Jacob's book can be
found at
Amazon:
http://www.*-*-*.com/

For information about Jacob's company, visit www.toolcase.com.



Sat, 22 Oct 2005 01:21:10 GMT  
 Minutes of the April meeting of the Colorado Eiffel User's Group
(Reposted with formatting fixed)
It was a busy and active meeting, so I have a lot to report.

At the March meeting, the group agreed to start raising funds for the
purchase of an LCD projector to use at the meetings. (We were getting
tired of huddling around Steve's laptop to see SDL demos.) Annie Meyer
at Eiffel Software heard about this, and offered to donate an LCD
projector from her company to the group. Needless to say, we
gratefully accepted. Many thanks to Annie and Eiffel Software! Our new
  projector received a good workout right from the start and Ryan had a
lot of fun playing with the settings.

Rex has offered to set up an Eiffel laboratory in his office space.
Several machines will be set up to run VisualStudio, and will be
available to people interested in experimenting with the language.

We saw an excellent presentation from Jacob{*filter*}titled "Covariance:
What it is and why it sucks to not have it". This led to an energetic
discussion about no-variance and contravariance, and how they compare
to covariance. We hope to see Jacob again at future meetings.

Steve presented classes for handling audio with the SDL. His classes
are more than a thin wrapper, providing management of many of the
details and greatly simplifying the use of audio.

The following projects are now, or soon will be, part of the larger
CEUG project. (Included is a desciption of their current state.)

Eiffel_SDL - Still needing more documentation.  Basically, all of the
subsystems (sound, 2D graphics, networking, true type fonts, etc.)
seem to be working.  The one thing that still needs to be addressed is
getting overlays (video) to work in the SDL.

Eiffel_OpenAL - OpenAL is a portable open source sound solution.  It
offers more functionality than what is available via the SDL, though
in most cases the latter should be sufficient.  This wrapper has been
coded, but Steve is still trying to get a working example.  Also, it
needs some documentation.

Eiffel_Dislin - This is a wrapper for the extremely portable DISLIN
library for all sorts of 2D/3D graphics (business and otherwise) to be
drawn, manipulated, and written to file (the library supports a ton of
formats).  Steve has completed the low-level external routines, and is
now focusing on the interface to the client in order to make the
library as easy to use as possible. The next step will be to figure
out the best abstractions, and divide the lib into classes, and from
there provide documentation.

IFLTK - Pronounced Eiffel-Tick, stands for the Improved Fast Light
Toolkit. It is a wrapper for the FLTK (pronounced Full-Tick) GUI
library, which is very portable, very small, and very fast.
Currently, about 95% of this library has been wrapped.  Steve has yet
to add in-line documentation and DbC. Much of the user documentation
for this will be quite similar to the existing FLTK docs.

wrapIt - You'd think that in two years Steve would be able to figure
out a good name for this tool - oh well!  wrapIt is a SWIG like tool
that is able to generate Eiffel wrappers from C/C++.  Though it is
somewhat primitive, Steve used it successfully to wrap the FLTK
library.  There are many things that this tool needs, here are a few
line items, as well as a difficulty rating (higher = harder):
- Does not yet handle struct/union wrapping. (4)
- Does not yet handle straight 'C' routine wrapping (4)
- Needs to let the user embed eiffel routines (1)
- Needs to let the user rename routines/member functions/variables (2)
- Needs to let the user associate DbC with routines/member functions (3)
- Does not yet automatically handle feature redefinition in generated
wrappers (5)

Eiffel Parse Library/Core - Steve's open to suggestions as to the
name. This library allows an application to reverse engineer Eiffel
source into objects, for such possible projects as CASE tool
development, architectural analysis, etc.  There are things that it
does not parse on purpose, but rather keeps around in string format,
such as pre/post/invariant clauses and routine bodies. There are other
things that it does not handle yet, including indexing and obsolete
clauses.  For the most part, this tool is ready for use. Steve hasn't
written the documentation yet, but this can be pretty easily done, as
the interface is pretty self-explanatory.

Steve Thompson and Jim Cochrane have agreed to work on a home page for
the CEUG. The page will be associated with the CEUG Open Source
project hosted on SourceForge.

Munchies; Food is always a high priority on my agenda, and CEUG
meetings are no exception. Fowler Software Design has consistently
supplied the meetings with knoshes, and will continue to do so in the
future. However, it would be nice for other members to occasionally
bring their own goodies to share.

Next month we'll see a presentation from Giancarlo of FSD on an
XML-based persistence mechanism he is implementing for Eiffel. We'll
also see a presentation on tuples.

Subscribe the the group's email list at:
http://www.*-*-*.com/

The Eiffel programming language offers advanced support for OO,
generics, assertions (in the form of Design by Contract) closures
(known as agents) and more. A good starting place to learn more about
Eiffel is at Cetus Links:
http://www.*-*-*.com/

The CEUG Open Source Project is located on SourceForge:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ceug/

The CEUG is proudly sponsored by Eiffel Software, the creators of
EiffelStudio(TM) and Eiffel ENViSioN! (TM) For more information,
visit http://www.*-*-*.com/

Special thanks to Jacob{*filter*}of ToolCASE LLC. Jacob's book can be
found at Amazon:
http://www.*-*-*.com/

For information about Jacob's company, visit www.toolcase.com



Sun, 23 Oct 2005 10:57:37 GMT  
 
 [ 2 post ] 

 Relevant Pages 

1. Minutes of the March 27 meeting of the Colorado Eiffel User's Group

2. Minutes of the October meeting of the Colorado Eiffel User's Group

3. Minutes from the September 2002 Meeting of the Colorado Eiffel User's Group

4. Minutes of the May meeting of the Colorado Eiffel Users Group

5. Minutes of the March 6 meeting of the Colorado Eiffel Users Group

6. April meeting of the Colorado Eiffel Users Group

7. October's Colorado Eiffel User's Group Meeting

8. March meeting of the Colorado Eiffel User's Group

9. February meeting of the Colorado Eiffel User's Group

10. January Meeting of the Colorado Eiffel Users Group

11. The first (really the second) meeting of the Colorado Eiffel Users Group

12. Reminder: Colorado Smalltalk User Group Meeting Tonight

 

 
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