The 6.3 release of EiffelStudio will come with a new testing tool combining unit and system level testing. The tool is currently under development but is already capable of managing, creating and executing tests. At this point I would like to give a short overview on what has been implemented, how to tool is used and what functionality will be added in the upcoming weeks.

This blog entry is only for those Windows user out there. It's concerning tips and tricks for the EiffelStudio Windows Installers.

Mac fanatics out there might have heard that there is native implementation of GTK running on MacOSX. There's been a bit of backlash against the port because it doesn't provide a native MacOSX look and feel, but we are assured that they are working on it.

I was truly thrilled when I first came across exceptions in C++ after using the clumsy error reporting style of C. It made my algorithms cleaner and, therefore, it made me happy. After several years, I tried Java and I found it interesting to impose the discipline of explicitly declaring the exceptions that may be raised in a routine.

A couple of weeks ago, I started to create a wrapper around the C++ activemq (http://activemq.apache.org/cms) library, which allows to connect to the activemq message oriented middleware. I had a couple of problems while interfacing between Eiffel and C++, where Manu helped me a lot (big thanks again). But got it working well in the end.

The tamarin toolkit compiles C code to LLVM byte code...

Is this the easiest way to run Eiffel programs into a browser?

http://www.toolness.com/wp/?p=52

For those of you in the know about the Goleta Gap Wildfire, it's responsible for the outages of eiffel.com. We have UPSs attached to all machines and servers but when the power is out for that long the batteries just can't cope and each and every server and machine politely shuts itself off.

As an Eiffel developer, albeit currently keeping my powder rather dry (!), I and possibly others might like to have a better idea than we have at present about how big the Eiffel community really is and, perhaps more importantly, whether it is growing, and if not why not.

A Register of users, potential users, and developers might, just might, be a useful resource.

Last week, I was wrapping some C++ code for a customer and I was surprised that my code did not work properly. I'm not a C++ programmer and thus this error might have been a typical gotcha but still this was a very surprising behavior.

The code in question was:

<c>void my_routine (CppClass my_obj, int buffer_count, char * buffer) { const char * l_cstr = my_obj->getName().c_str();

EiffelStudio 6.2 has just been released. For those who haven't followed the intermediate releases, here is an idea of what is included:

• Added new contract editor tool to ease edition of contracts on routines and classes.
• Added Eiffel Information System which let you connect external documentation to your Eiffel code and vice versa.