Talk:Eiffel (programming language)/Archive 1

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Older comments (2004 or so?)

This all reads a bit like advertising copy for the ISE commercial product. Is there someone out there who actually knows Eiffel, but also knows something else and can give a more realistic appraisal. (Yes, it does look like a nice language, but there are other nice languages, and this stuff is just over the top.) -- Geronimo Jones. (This comment is now largely obsolete due to much work on the page. Thanks guys.) -- Geronimo Jones.

I have taken out a lot of preachiness in the recent changes to the "fascism" section and tried to make it more factual; however, it was so absurd to begin with (and I am such an Eiffel advocate) that it may require more work.

Also, I removed unsubstantiated and inflamatory claims that Eiffel compilers are somehow "smarter" than C++ compilers. The discussion of moving runtime analysis to compile time presumably refers to the SmartEiffel compiler's ability to devirtualize method calls, and even to inline dynamically dispatched methods. However, this alone (while clever) is no great compiler breakthrough---Self and Smalltalk have had devirtualization for years---and it certainly doesn't allow SmartEiffel to claim that it's "smarter" than C++ compilers (some of which, in fact, can also do some devirtualization). On the contrary, SmartEiffel produces C code, and therefore leaves all the difficult aspects of compilation to the C++ compiler (eg. optimization, register assignment, etc.).

For what it's worth, I think the section Elegance, simplicity, or fascism? is really silly. There are a variety of languages that are simple and more high-level than C, and these comments could apply to any one of them. Moreover, "clever coding tricks" are not what I'd call optimization hints to the compiler; they are hand-optimizations. Finally, "Eiffel seeks to produce a quality software system over anything else" seems to imply that other languages are not designed for this purpose, which is silly — even C was not designed primarily for performance. Fascism is pretty over-the-top too — I dare anyone to design a "fascist" language. I'm seriously considering deleting this whole section, if there are no objections. Deco 21:13, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree. The section is a sales pitch. Eiffel leans more toward clarity (over efficiency for example) than many other languages, but this section as it stands doesn't explain that very well. There are probably a couple of nuggets in that section that could be reworked into the article a different way, but on the whole I think the article would be improved by this section's deletion. --Doradus 14:38, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
Really, this article needs a serious cleanup. The trouble is, I have found that computer science articles don't stay cleaned up for long. Well-meaning CS people come along and add in their opinions, seemingly unaware that they are not objective facts. That's why I have turned my attention more towards science and astronomy articles lately.  :-) --Doradus 14:40, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)


Pure OO

In the section where it is claimed that Eiffel is pure OO, it introduces control structures that are not in any way object oriented. I'm not a purist or formalist, but if you claim a language to be pure OO, "special form" control structures like loops and ifs should be replaced by message sends (like in Smalltalk). This page really is a sales ad!

Yeah, the claim of "pure OO" is meaningless, as everyone has different ideas of what constitutes purity. Probably the fact all Eiffel types are classes (even INTEGER and NONE) contributed to this claim, but as you say, there are different dimensions of purity. --Doradus 18:33, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)


The loop example is silly, it would be better to show an example using the COLLECTION interface or at least *even* an example of that, since you almost always use that interface which is available in every kind of sequence/list/array/data structure. 

from 
 x.start
until
 x.after
loop 
 x.forth
 x.
end
Have one question -- what is "x." you've used there? I'm not guru in Eiffel, but can you explain this for me? Why should this be placed in the article if this isn't clear? May it is better to use simple examples? -- Kolesnikov P.A. (ru-wiki) 17 June 2006
I guess that the x. is a typo, it has no mean in Eiffel syntax. Whereas x is a reference to an instance of a class that inherits from TRAVERSABLE[G] (in the eiffel base). Momet 16:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
That's clear for me now that "x." has no meaning. But said "inherits form class in the Eiffel Base" -- you restricted that example only for those implementations with Eiffel Base. IMHO, that are ISE Eiffel and Visual Eiffel. Am I right in that? And SmartEiffel hasn't this class at all. --Kolesnikov Paul
I think I made a mistake, it's not TRAVERSABLE in the EiffleBase (from ISE), I guess it has to inherit from LINEAR, but don't trust me... There is something very similar in SmartEiffel, and it is ITERATOR, see this documentation for more informations Momet

Reflective?

The article began like this: "Eiffel is a reflective, object-oriented programming language[...]" Eiffel is not reflective. I don't know where did that come from, but Eiffel is a statically typed, *compiled* language (it's usually compiled to C). The runtime system includes a garbage collector (usually mark-and-sweep) and not much else. Of course this doesn't mean one cannot write an implementation of Eiffel which provides facilities for reflection, but I haven't heard of such an attempt and it would be against the "nature" of Eiffel, as far as I can tell. Maybe we are talking about a different kind of reflection? Regarding programming languages it usually has the meaning defined at the famous [[1]] but Eiffel is famous for inventing their own terms for everything (features instead of methods, etc).

Compiled languages can be reflective. There is no requirement that reflection has to be at runtime. Read Reflection (computer science) for more information. - DNewhall

Bias

Out of curiosity for the language I just read this entry, and I have got to say, though the author(s) clearly have been trying to be objective it is quite a biased account. The neutrality of the article feels very superficial, and the tone of the contents is clearly that of an ardent advocate. I had no preconceptions of the language but after reading the article I find myself slightly put off from Eiffel simply from the subtextual bias present the text. -- Mikademus

The group of people who have contributed to this article tend to be a self-selecting group of people who like the language, and may not even be aware of the biases we have inserted. We welcome any assistance in identifying the biased portions. --Doradus 17:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

It is difficult to point out specific things since the entire text emits a promotional air, not overtly, but undeniably there. It goes to the credit of the authors, however, that much effort has obviously been spent on trying to retain NPOV. Nonetheless, one salient thing is the "contra-sed contra" argumentation style prevalent in the text. To provide one example from early in the article:

"Eiffel intentionally limits stylistic expression, providing few means for clever coding tricks or coding techniques intended as optimization hints to the compiler. Some software developers feel constrained by Eiffel's simplicity and compiler-enforced structure; the language has been referred to as a "bondage and discipline" language.

In contrast, others feel that the simplicity of the language not only makes the code more readable, but also allows a programmer to concentrate on the important aspects of a program without getting bogged down in implementation details. Eiffel's simplicity is intended to promote simple, readable, usable, reusable, reliable and correct answers to computing problems. Eiffel seeks to produce a quality software system over anything else."

Though neutral by definition, the entire phrase "Some software developers feel constrained by Eiffel's simplicity and compiler-enforced structure" is designed as a counter-argument in itself, and the entire following paragraph is in turn a defence, then turns the table on the antagonist to show that the alledged weaknesses are really strengths, before finally, ending in close to pure promotion for the greatness of Eiffel. Again, I know nothing at all about the Eiffel language, but I do know marketing (even subconscious such).

This style is recurrant in the article, and, though from good intentions, is more reminescent of sales talk than encyclopaedic treatment or dispassionate analysis. Hope this helps!
Mikademus 21:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I think the sentence fragment that reads "which emphasizes the production of robust software" is questionable. It would be better (more accurate/NPV) to change this to something along the lines of "emphasises the production of software which is provable correct to a formal specification". Esp. given the Eiffel tendency to fail hard on contract breaches at the expense of absolute robustness.

Thrown away Principles?

Does anyone know what exactly are these 'thrown away' principles? 

This standard is not accepted by the SmartEiffel team, which has decided to create its own version of the language,
because they think the ECMA standard throws away important principles of the original language. Eiffel Software and
Gobo have committed to implementing the standard. Object Tools has not to date expressed a position.

--rolandog 02:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Begun?

What's wrong with starting a sentence with "begun"? --Doradus 19:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

What code formatting convention should be used?

The font conventions and in particular the use of blue for program texts are part of Eiffel's style conventions. Whatever rules are applied in the descriptions of other languages are not applicable here. Thanks for respecting the specific rules for Eiffel. B-Meyer 17:18, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

That colour and style use would demand a short note before the first code example mentioning this. Also, in the discussion following or surrounding the text, the normal computer code tag should be used since using blue text in caps in body text makes the article look garsish, difficult to read, unencyclopedic and deviates from the wikipedia style guide. Also, it probably won't carry to a possible printed edition. So sure, go wild with idiomatic colours in code examples but use the conventional black-in-<code> style in the text. Mikademus 17:38, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. I am applying it at the moment (include <code>), but I think that using black in the text would be confusing — the connection with the code extracts then disappears. Changing to code fonts, although this is not done in Eiffel documentation, should make the mix look less "garish" to you.
I think the blue text is improper for this article because A) it's easily confused for a link and B) no other article uses it. - DNewhall 21:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

These idiosyncratic blue fonts should really be removed. It doesn't make any difference what Eiffel's own documentation uses for formatting conventions: this is an article on Wikipedia, which has its own set of typographic (and other) style conventions. There would be a case for exact colors (well, as exact as web rendering can be) if this were on Color Forth or the like: i.e. something where colors are part of the actual program semantics. But that is not true of Eiffel. LotLE×talk 19:41, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate the desire for consistency, but faithfulness to the subject matter should always supersede other criteria. Let me again ask you not to redefine Eiffel. The font conventions are part of the language rules. Eiffel is not just a programming language; it is a certain way of thinking about software and describing it. In particular, it is a language for publication of programs. B-Meyer 21:38, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
If the use of blue fonts is idiomatic to Eiffel code I for one have no issues with a blue colour being used in the code examples. Examples are just that: examples of language structure, grammar and style. Thus, though other may disagree with me, I personally find the blue colour appropriate if it is as is claimed, a convention used by the majority of the Eiffel community. However, I would for several reasons strongly recommend the blue to be removed from the bread text: first of all it does break with wikipedia style and will cause a lot of negative reaction from many readers and editors. Secondly it does in fact make the article a bit garish and distracting. Thirdly, colours in the text does not contribute anything, the point is already made in the code examples. Finally, as has been stated above, it is somewhat confusing because they blue passages as suggestive of hyperlinks. Look at this artificial paragraph I cut together from the article (note that I have link underlining turned off, as have many others too):
The concepts of Design by Contract are central to Eiffel. The keyword in that case is no longer require but require else.
All wikipedia programming articles follow the convention of black-in-<code> for keywords etc discussed in the text. That this article should not will ruffle feathers and is, above all, unnessesary and superfluous. When I look at a painting I want to see the colours. When I read a critical review of it I do not want it written in matching colours. Also, think about the wether to use bold and italics in the text, the current libera use, while mirroring the constructs in the code examples, are again if not confusing then at elast contributing to the garishness. Just plain, unadorned code will do in the text regardless of example formatting. Mikademus 22:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Adding another note when on the topic, every so often there are links inside code-tags, like #include <iostream>. Considering that, I assume you see the unreasonableness of colouring the text itself. Mikademus 22:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Two things, first the statement "Let me again ask you not to redefine Eiffel. The font conventions are part of the language rules." by Dr. Meyer is incorrect. Quoting the ECMA standard : "The color-related parts of these conventions do not affect the language definition, which remains unambiguous under black-and-white printing (thanks to the letter-case and font parts of the conventions). Color printing is recommended for readability." So color printing is NOT part of the standard for any other reason besides formatting of text. If this is to be considered part of the standard then we also have to use BNF to describe everything because that is defined in the standard. Second, while Eiffel is defined as a specification language too a quick look at the title of this article shows the text "Eiffel programming language". - DNewhall 23:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The ECMA text that yo cite precisely confirms that this is the way Eiffel text should read. That text is in fact saying the same as the Wikipedia rules: semantics should not depend on color. On the other hand, color should be used to reinforce semantics, in a consistent way.

Until I and another person started working on the Eiffel article a few weeks ago it was a disgrace, full of inaccuracies and opinions, with almost no factual information on the language (a single code extract, "Hello world", and poorly written at that!). Apparently that was not a reason to complain. Now that we are devoting our time to producing a good article with the same standards of quality as a scientific publication we are being heckled by people who only care about enforcing some font commonality.

I wonder if you realize the harm that you are doing to Wikipedia by harassing the designer of the very technology that the article describes. Maybe I am naive or pretentious, but I would assume that such a contribution by the original author should be enjoyed rather than heckled down. If you want to turn away such contributors, and get to the level of soc.culture discussions, this is exactly the way to go. I don't assume that's the case, so please correct errors of substance if you find any (I make no claims of perfection) and in the meantime respect the conventions and rules of the topic being addressed. Thanks. B-Meyer 23:32, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the Wikipedia warning against autobiography, WP:AUTO, is there for a fairly good reason. While this article is not autobiography per se, I would suggest that the chief architect of the language should take a step back from too much emotional investment. It's hard to have a good NPOV distance from a topic you are so close to. We appreciate the great help you've given to this article, Bertrand—and indeed, I appreciate that you've created an interesting and well-thought programming language. I see you've also made contribution to a number of other related article topics. But an encyclopedia takes its own values as primary: this isn't an advertising pamphlet for Eiffel, and neither is it the official documentation that your company produces. But most especially, nothing you write here is anything that you have any more ownership in that does every other Wikipedia editor.
The typographic issue is somewhere in the middle of where the content's conventions intersect with the conventions of Wikipedia. For example, I've worked on the Python programming language article, and think it would be utterly foolish to say that Python code examples should not use that language community's traditional "spam" and "eggs" meta-variables because most programming language articles use "foo" and "bar" or "x" and "y". At the other extreme, many commercial products (in software, or in completely unrelated areas)—or for that matter, many religions or other beliefe systems—use a set of jargon intended to create a positive impression of the product. Wikipedia absolutely should not adopt the "feel" of the way marketers talk about their particular product (mentioning the usage, sure; but not adopting it). I think in the end the best solution will be one suggested above: use the Eiffel-style code coloration for block examples, but use Wikipedia style for inline examples (and make sure the unusual block example style is explained in the text). But I'll wait for some more opinion, and check some other usages. LotLE×talk 01:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Bertrand, I, along with others, deeply appreciate you personally investing time in this article. Being the architect of the language there are innumerable contributions you can make. So please don't make this discussion about you. Wikipedia is about cooperation, collective ownership and shared responsibility, and its most dangerous enemy is Ego, as we see in many articles. Risking preaching to the choire, since I know you as a WP advocate, it must be said that above all Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and characteristic for encyclopedias are on the one hand accurate representation of the subject, and on the other hand a dispassionate and to other articles stylistically consistent treatment of it. No-one here will object to the code snippets being formatted according to your doxa, but taking that into the article text is not "stylistic accomodation", it is, as has been shown, confusing, idiosyncratic and disparate. You love your language and I respect you for your work; I and many wikiminions love wikipedia and I wish you would respect us for our dilligence. Also, since you desire to produce an article of scientific caliber, then why are you surprised at receiving peer review? What separates Wikipedia articles from paper ones is that here you get immediate feedback while the article is written. As for submitting to stylistic regulations, that should hardly be something new. My psychology articles have been written to the APA (American Psychologist Association) standard, from which any significant deviations are criticised. You know that when submitting articles to journals they must generally be written to that journals' specifications. Conforming to rigid standards is something I personally dislike but is a battle not worth fighting because the message can principally be made regardless of form. The alternative here is entrenched battle and the Eiffel article suffering, which really seems quite unnecessary since we are on the same side here... Mikademus 09:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm a little uncomfortable with departing from the house Wikipedia style for code samples. But I think it'd be a reasonable compromise to retain colored text in the block samples, while sticking to black text for inline samples. --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:47, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Data points

Looking at "the rest of the world" I find (LotLE×talk):

1 Symbols of BNF-E itself, such as the vertical bars | signaling a choice production, appear in black (non-bold, non-italic).
2 Any construct name appears in dark green (non-bold, non-italic), with a first letter in upper case, as Class.
3 Any component (Eiffel text element) appears in blue.
4 The double quote, one of Eiffel's special symbols, appears in productions as ' " ': a double quote character (blue like other Eiffel text) enclosed in two single quote characters (black since they belong to BNF-E, not Eiffel).
5 All other special symbols appear in double quotes, for example a comma as ",", an assignment symbol as ":=", a single quote as "'" (double quotes black, single quote blue).
6 Keywords and other reserved words, such as class and Result, appear in bold (blue like other Eiffel text). They do not require quotes since the conventions avoid ambiguity with construct names: Class is the name of a construct, class a keyword.
7 Examples of Eiffel comment text appear in non-bold, non-italic (and in blue), as -- A comment.
8 Other elements of Eiffel text, such as entities and feature names (including in comments) appear in non-bold italic (blue).
The color-related parts of these conventions do not affect the language definition, which remains unambiguous under black-and-white printing (thanks to the letter-case and font parts of the conventions). Color printing is recommended for readability.

Welcome to Dr. Meyer and a warning

I have long observed that brilliant innovators have difficulty joining a community. Some here may recall the Carl Hewitt case where he tried to promote his Actor model here and eventually decided to leave Wikipedia instead.

There is no question that Dr. Meyer is a brilliant innovator, and his contributions to the article on Eiffel are certainly welcome, provided that he can work with the community. No matter how brilliant he is, no matter how valuable his contributions, if he does not respect the community and most importantly the process of reaching consensus then he will have to go.

The characterizations of feedback to his edits as "heckling" are unfair. Experienced Wikipedia editors know more about Wikipedia conventions than Dr. Meyer does. While Dr. Meyer is of course the expert on the Eiffel programming language, he needs to recognize that he has much to learn about the Wikipedia way of doing things.

Brilliant innovators generally aren't humble. But working in a community requires humility. Wikipedia would benefit from Dr. Meyer's participation, but the Eiffel article is one out of over a million. No matter how brilliant Dr. Meyer is, if he can't take a little "heckling" he doesn't belong here.

--Ideogram 09:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You don't seem to be the kind of person who knows anything about humility. B-Meyer 15:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I tried to give you advice. You aren't listening. --Ideogram 15:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Ideogram, you do come through as unnecessarily harsh. I do agree with the principles you posit but surely there are better ways of putting it? There is a difference between being right and being confrontative about it. We still haven't seen that Meyers can't work with the community, so innocent until proven guilty, m'kay? Mikademus 16:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
I would indeed feel bad if I was the one to drive Dr. Meyer away. But I did try to be polite in my warning. I called Dr. Meyer a brilliant innovator, what, half a dozen times? He seems to be offended that I suggested he needed some humility. Calling other Wikipedia editors "hecklers" is just unacceptable from anyone, no matter how brilliant they are.
I don't know how better to put it. Dr. Meyer doesn't make the rules here. Experienced Wikipedia editors know the rules here, and if Dr. Meyer refuses to learn from them then this isn't going to work. --Ideogram 16:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
After seeing that he just tried to revert all his edits and instruct future editors that they have no right to include them I feel slightly inclined to retract my "still haven't seen that Meyers can't work with the community" comment. That was a very silly and small thing of him to do. Still, I must admit to having been silly and childish so I won't judge him, and I still hope he will try to work with the community to create a good article. I realise that it must feel very difficult to have to adjust a treatment of one's own creation together with what must be considered as relative novices, but on the other hand, one has much less control still over the contents in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Mikademus 17:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Yielding to the mob

This article is a disgrace. It says very little about the language; what it does say is mostly inaccurate, written by people who took a 5-minute look at Eiffel. I corresponded with a few of them who admitted they knew next to nothing about it but consider themselves Wikipedia vigilantes who want all the articles to look the same, and do not care about the contents.

In August 2006 I set out to write a clear, precise, factual description of the Eiffel language. I was soon heckled down by a coalition of the kind of people cited above.

I still have not come to terms with the idea that dozens of people know a technology better than the person who created it and has devoted 20 years of his life to developing it. The only analogy I can think of is "Sofia Petrovna" by Lidia Chukovskaia -- read it to understand the incoming nightmare.

This is the worst fear of the Wikipedia skeptics coming true: mob rule, proud of its arrogant incompetence. I will move the text to a place where it is free from interference from the vandals.

B-Meyer 15:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Goodbye and good riddance. --Ideogram 15:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Let's be nicer, Ideogram!
Being nice is important, but we cannot let Dr. Meyer operate under the illusion that we need him more than he needs us. Any editor with that attitude is a problem editor. --Ideogram 17:05, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes of course... but good editors grow from the seeds of problem editors, if given proper water and nutrition. LotLE×talk 17:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Bertrand has indeed fallen into a bit of a pitfall that a lot of experts do when trying to cooperate in Wiki style on matters close to them. It's hard for newbies to fully understand WP:OWN and WP:AUTO (Dr. Meyer had a small number of contributions some months back, but essentially is a newbie since his real contributions are all in the last few days). Remember WP:BITE.
But I absolutely do not wish Bertrand "good riddance"... I hope he takes a short break, and tries working a bit on some articles he is less close to personally. I am sure there are many topics about which he is highly knowledgeable without them being his personal creation. For example, I think the writing on Covariance and contravariance (computer science) could definitely stand improvement. Or perhaps the article on Lydia Chukovskaya could be better. After a bit of work somewhere else, I am certain Bertrand would gain a better feel of the "wiki way". And even if he decides not to work further on Wikipedia, Bertrand's contributions so far have been valuable, and form a great basis for further article improvement... and I thank him for these efforts. LotLE×talk 16:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Wow, that was quick arrival at the blanket definition of wikipedians as a proudly ignorant mob. It is a shame you feel that way since this means you're leaving an important first reference on Eiffel to that very mob. Frankly, the disputes on this page are nothing, and compared to the bitter battles of Academia it is lighthearted banter. Of course it must feel ankward to come to a place where one isn't given reflexive deference, but does that mean one should quit the field as soon as people fail to genuflect? Of course, there might be more to it than what's found on this talk page, but I know nothing of that, and calling what's found here "heckling" and "mob rule", especially given that no-one has interfered with the edits undertaken by Bertrand Meyers, is overdramatic in the extreme. Mikademus 16:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This is too bad. Dr Meyer is an excellent writer who would doubtless have enhanced the article tremendously. I can't say I blame him for being frustrated: I've also been known to give up trying to improve some articles that have a particularly "active" group of editors that make contributing a chore. The "good riddance" comment is definitely against Wikipedia policy. There's no circumstance where that kind of is warranted, no matter what "illusion" he was operating under. Having said that, Dr Meyer's outburst at the top if this section seems to show his ignorance of how this place works. I'm just glad he contributed a substantial amount of well-written text on Eiffel before he bolted, and I hope his absence is temporary. --Doradus 17:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Language mechanisms description

The description of Eiffel language mechanisms is now available at http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/online/eiffel/basic.html.

Please note that it is copyrighted. The aim of copyrighting it is not to prevent other people from using it (with permission), but to ensure that the integrity of the description is preserved. I am of course happy to change the contents on the basis of comments from people who understand the subject matter. B-Meyer

You are, of course, perfectly free to use this GFDL material wherever else you wish. But blanking the content is way uncool. Just because you are primary creator of it, that gives you absolutely no legal, ethical, or intellectual right to remove content that way. When you released the content as GFDL, you RELEASED it[*]. Ultimately, if you continue to attempt to disrupt Wikipedia out of some sort of WP:POINT, you'll wind up blocked from editing. Which would be a great shame, since it would be wondeful to have you as a contributor here... just as long as you can bracket the ego concerns a bit, and think about the goals of an encyclopedia. LotLE×talk 18:28, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
[*]Technically, of course, GFDL is not an assignation of copyright, but simply a broad permission for reuse, republication, and creation of derived works. In a very narrow sense, your contributions retain your copyright; but given that what you blanked was not simply your work, but also reflected the (smaller) contribution of other editors, the joint derivative work must retain GFDL (I myself made trivial, but copyrightable, improvements interpersed with yours, for example)
Hmmm... there's an interesting point about the link you give. I see that it includes at least one small change made by me: namely a fix of a mismatched variable name. This might well fall below the level of copyrightability, since the change is functional rather than expressive (perhaps). But combined works must retain GFDL if the individual contributions are each so licensed. Now in this case, you got lucky: I explicitly release all my contributions to the public domain (see my user page to confirm this fact). So in regard to my contribution, you are perfectly free to relicense under different copyright terms; but if anyone else made (even small) changes as GFDL only, you are probably required to retain GFDL on your above-linked mirror. LotLE×talk 18:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I am not aware of any such point. As far as I can tell from the history page you made only one change, replacing "my_test" by "my_condition", and there is no "my_condition" in my text -- never was, as this was intended to be "my_test" from the beginning.B-Meyer 18:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Here's the diff: [2]. A block code sample used 'my_condition' while the discussion of it that followed used 'my_test'. I made the variables consistent between the two references (I really, really don't care which variable name is used of the two, so I chose one). That's how Wikipedia works: editors cooperate to make text better, each one always releasing the contribution as GFDL. Of course my change wasn't profound or large, but it was an improvement; moreover, you have also blanked a couple slightly larger wording changes by me (and many by Fuchsias, and perhaps a few by other editors). LotLE×talk 20:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

What is going on here?

I am flabbergasted at seeing what has happened on this page. You get a contribution from the Eiffel author himself and the minute he starts helping you start shouting at him! And that from people who can't even spell his name right.

Come on, guys, this is a shame. I can relate to the guy's disappointment. And this is the very same person who publicly defended Wikipedia!

Dr. Meyer, please accept my apologies on behalf of the Wikipedia community. We are not all as bad as those.

And to the others: if he wants to remove his contributions let him do so and go away before this turns into more bad publicity for Wikipedia. I don't think we can bring him back in, but at least leave him alone.Necklace 19:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There is not and never can be a good reason to pretend that anyone has the right to remove their contributions from Wikipedia if they change their minds, in defiance of the GFDL. This would throw into question the entire Open Source movement, which is much more important than Dr. Meyer, or even Wikipedia itself.
Dr. Meyer doesn't understand the Wikipedia rules and thinks he can impose his own. No one contributor is important enough to be able to do that. If you take his side you make a mockery of all the Wikipedia principles of community and consensus. --Ideogram 19:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
In what way is it a shame? From what I've read Meyer is an advocate of Wikipedia, and as such should be relatively in the know about the Wikipedia goals and means. Wikipedia is a communal effort and utterly non-heriarchial as well as non-elitist. Experts are extremely valuable but do not have neither more or less power than any other editor, especially not over WP policies. Having no vested interest in Eiffel, from reading --and partaking-- in this article it is rather the good Dr. Meyer who brings a bad name to wikipedia by small-mindedness, presumpteousness, claiming that other editors or commentors (who has not interfered with his edits) are arrogantly incompetent, and trying to claim copyright to edits posted under GFDL. Though I personally think that some debate might have been somewhat harsh it is has not been haressing in any way. Niether is it more unreasonable to expect conformance to Wikipedia styles than to that of any other journal. Mikademus 20:08, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no need to insult people. This is not helping Wikipedia. Necklace 20:48, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Please list the diffs of insults. --Ideogram 21:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
The answer is a few lines above, in Mikademus' text: small-minded, presumptous...
For the record: you say that people had "not interfered with his edits". This is incorrect: the origin of the whole thing is the removal of Meyer's layout conventions, without any warning or discussion: [3].Fuchsias 17:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


I am shocked also: Jimbo's user page states: [4]

Greater involvement by scientists would lead to a "multiplier effect", says Wales. Most entries are edited by enthusiasts, and the addition of a researcher can boost article quality hugely. "Experts can help write specifics in a nuanced way,"

But, when one comes along and adds quality verifiable content he is made to feel heckled and is finally dismissed with "Goodbye and good riddance" because Wikipedians feel that all coding snippets must not be blue?

Hasn't anyone read Ignore_all_rules: "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia's quality, ignore them." - It's part of the Wikipedia Trifecta: [5] (along with NPOV and Don't be a dick).

So, the Editors here have violated 2 of the Wikipedia Policy Trifecta (ignore preventative rules, and don't be a dick) and have alienated a good faith, quality, knowledgeable contributer because they prefer non-blue text. Dr. Meyer may have also made the same violations, but he is a newbie. The long-time editors and admins should definitely know better and should be ashamed of their behavior. 144.189.5.201 00:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

That is an excellent point. There were violations all around, but Meyer was a Wikipedia newbie, and we should have cut him some slack. --Doradus 22:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Pandering to Dr. Meyer

It's bad enough that people want to ignore the GFDL out of some hero-worship for Dr. Meyer, but now they can't even agree on what version to revert to to satisfy Meyer's selfish desires. Am I the only one opposed to this? --Ideogram 20:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The editing pattern of Necklace certainly looks suspicious. But of course the hero-worship thing is silly and absurd. LotLE×talk 20:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleting content without explanation is not acceptable. I am protecting the article for now, please explain the GFDL to the people deleting the content, and when you are ready to restore the missing text, drop me a note or place a request at WP:RFPP. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I would also encourage Mr. Meyer to read WP:AUTO that reads:

You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest.

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Legal analysis

The reason I chose that version to revert to is it has none of the copyrighted material at http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/online/eiffel/basic.html. Now, it seems almost certain that he created that page after adding it here but can you prove it? If you can then, by all means, revert it back but there are a few issues regarding the legality of it. Is User:Bertrand Meyer the real Bertrand Meyer and was the article created after adding the material here?

  • If the content was added here before the creation of that article it's GFDL regardless of who User:Bertrand Meyer is.
  • If User:Bertrand Meyer is really Bertrand Meyer and the article was created before he added it here it's GFDL.
  • If User:Bertrand Meyer is not the real Bertrand Meyer and the article was created before it was added here it's a copyright violation.

Now, it is almost 100% obvious that User:Bertrand Meyer is the real deal and the material was added here first but if the real Bertrand Meyer tried some sort of legal action would we be able to conclusively show that he did in fact release it under the GFDL? If you can prove that the article was created before today and that User:Bertrand Meyer is really him he'd have no case but otherwise it's too legally vague for my taste. Plus, the material shouldn't be that hard to add back changed. - DNewhall 21:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems pretty tortured to find the alleged violation. Of course, I am sure I never looked at that specific URL prior to it being mentioned here (i.e. later than the changes on WP). Maybe the Wayback Machine would help us. I also have a bunch of emails from Bertrand (with full headers), where we talk about the edit issues. Presumably the fact that the email is sent from domains controlled by the "real" Dr. Meyer is pretty good evidence.
It is a wild and woolly world of publication on the internet. Nevermind this particular case, what if I were to take any random article, publish it on my own website, then claim that my publication was earlier? What might a court do? I suppose they could subpoena my server logs to see if any earlier access occured to the contested documents. Of course, my own web host cycles full logs every month, and only saves statistics. Who knows, maybe they have tape backups. LotLE×talk 21:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
It is a very tortured argument for sure, it's just me being anal. If you have emails from him using his real address then we know it's really him.
Regarding your hypothetical, if you were to go through the trouble to persue legal action over something like this then, yes, records would be involved., ISPs contacted, emails checked, etc. However, keep in mind that in court you need to convince the jury that what you say is true so they would need logs showing corroborating what they are saying. - DNewhall 22:22, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Before or after the creation of the above linked document is immaterial. Assuming that it was BM who added the text --and no-one doubts this, claiming otherwise is just an attempt to befuddle the discussion by planting FUD seeds-- then the additions to WP has been released under GFDL. Mikademus 07:49, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to butt in, but if you need a "legal" reason, the author has a moral right to withdraw publication which, although not enshrined in US statute, is protected by French copyright law and is generally acknowledged by the Berne Convention. However, as with many cases on Wikipedia, the "logically correct" or "plausibly legal" thing is not necessarily the righteous thing. The legality shouldn't matter; Most of Wikipedia's bad PR comes from people feeling like they got used and abused by the Wikipedia Machine. Is having the text in question (or making some sort of point against Mr. Meyer) worth more? Rewrite it.
Also, I have to note that the following statements I noticed in edit summaries appear to show a misunderstanding of the GFDL:
  • (cur) (last) 12:21, August 22, 2006 Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (Talk | contribs) (This is very bad behavior, Bertrand: Contributions are released as GFDL, they ARE NOT "yours" in any copyright or ethical sense)
  • (cur) (last) 14:01, August 22, 2006 Ideogram (Talk | contribs) (rv; it's not your material anymore)
Copyright in the material belongs to the author. By contributing to Wikipedia, they only grant a broad license to the general public. This is actually a vital point to the effectiveness of the GFDL, because the author cannot enforce the terms of the license grant if they do not retain legal copyright. Everyone owns their "piece" of Wikipedia, unless they specifically donated their contributions to the public domain. KWH 03:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Kwh's analysis is, unfortunately, wholly and entirely wrong (and dangerously so). If we were to follow it, it would be tantamount to shutting down Wikipedia. Explicitly licensing a work on specific terms—as User:Bertrand Meyer did here—under Berne and French law, supercedes otherwise applicable moral rights. This matter is actually quite a bit more important than is this article topic, or than how Meyer feels about the matter, or even that whatever PR might conceivably result. Without the GFDL, or something much like it, there is simply no Wikipedia. If any contributor can retroactive and arbitrarily withdraw any contribution (and thereby any later edit that is ipso facto a derived work), there is no possible way that Wikipedia can ever publish any article on any topic.

Obviously, the GFDL is a license not a copyright assignment. I suppose my edit comment could possibly be read the wrong way, with a bit of coaxing; the obvious reading is the true one. But even if I could have selected a slightly different 50 characters to describe the edit, the fact remains that GFDL does not (and must not) allow retroactive change to licensing terms. For that matter, the editors who blanked content claimed to have a "moral right" not just to Meyer's contributions, but to my contributions as well... what was erased was a jointly derivative work (much more work by Meyer than by me; but non-zero contributions of mine). Like I've said before... that bird ain't gonna fly. LotLE×talk 04:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I just said that being "plausibly legal" doesn't matter - that is my argument. And any half-decent lawyer who wanted to win a case could toss off a dozen better reasons why the license grant doesn't apply. But consider the mention of moral rights to be a segue into the matter of whether it is the right thing to do. Can you tell me that Wikipedia is improved by this example? This is not the right way to acquire free content. Meyer's work can and should be removed and rewritten without reference. KWH 04:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Without the slightest doubt, Wikipedia is improved by example! The quality of this collective response to a disruption by a "celebrity contributor" has been absolutely exemplary, and one of the strongest examples of the proper functioning of Wikipedia as a collaborative process that I have seen. Acquiring free content by the voluntary contributions of editors, without regard to their outside noteriety or credentials, and without regard to their retroactive wishes to control that content to their own narrow purposes, is at the very heart of Wikipedia and of the very best ideals it exemplifies. Moreover, in practical terms, doing exactly this is the best, quickest and most fruitful way of the ongoing improvment in the quality of Wikipedia. LotLE×talk 04:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
That would be nearly true if the person in question had not been bitten so badly. I really don't know them as a "celebrity contributor", and the only example I see here is bad. Like I said, I'm not arguing that they have the right to rescind their license - though they might - I'm arguing that ethics and harmony would be served better if the author's wishes were respected (by rewriting the content), whether the law compels you to or not. It is quite possible if the "experienced" editors took the high road there could be a win-win situation. As it was, it appears as though it were Wikipedia v. Bertrand Meyer - Wikipedia wins, hooray! However, if you are certain that everything was done for the best, then I doubt that my opinion would sway you. KWH 05:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I see no evidence of Meyer being "bitten". Well, one comment by Ideogram was possibly slightly intemperate. But overall, he was treated with far more deference than is really reasonable, out of a desire to placate his excessively ego-driven demands. But for g*d sake, he stomped off because a few editors sugggested different typography on the talk page, without even making the change on the article itself. In the end, it just doesn't appear Meyer is psychogically suited to the type of collaboration Wikipedia requires, and there's no way he could stay on Wikipedia with such attitudes. It's absolutely imperative that we not "give" an article to on particular editor, and especially not do so to help what proved a violation of the spirit of WP:AUTO. There are many respected experts on Wikipedia who are perfectly well able to collaborate.
I really think that quite grave harm would be done to Wikipedia if we were to start giving way to unreasonable demands of the sort Meyer made, or to disingenuous claims to repudiate GFDL release. Not because these specific words are so uniquely brilliant or irreplaceable; but because that's a very steep and slippery slope that leads to giving every petty self-interest the capability of destroying articles. FWIW, I think a fair amount of rewriting will be best from just stylistic considerations anyway. LotLE×talk 05:47, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Again, being impartial (and in fact indifferent) to the Eiffel PL, and thus functioning as an outside obsesrver in this article, there has been no haressing or heckling of B Meyer in this talk page - I simply do not understand from where that impression comes. In fact, the discussion here has been relatively respectful and distinctly constructive. Is there ever a political debate or discussion on TV that can claim this? Being horrorstruck over this discussion is being horrified by humanity --which may be a valid concern-- but people should be able to work together. Are you editors who complain over this talk page new to Wikipedia? Have you seen the debates on other pages? Have you been part of academic debates? This page is a calm oasis in comparison. As a final observation, not necessarily related to this debate, I'd like to support the above post by saying that experts without an ego may be outstanding wikipedians, experts with an ego may be outstandingly bad wikipedians. Mikademus 08:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

"Explicitly licensing a work on specific terms—as User:Bertrand Meyer did here—under Berne and French law, supercedes otherwise applicable moral rights." This is false. I don't know about Swiss law (Pr Meyer works in Switzerland) but in French law, moral rights cannot be waived, even by explicit written contract. David.Monniaux 18:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Bertrand Meyer lives and works in the United States, and his contributions were made from a US location. Were what David.Monniaux true of French law, we would need to bar all contributions from France to Wikipedia. Fortunately, I do not believe it is. LotLE×talk 19:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Bertrand Meyer is professor of computer science at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, as far as I know. As for French law, let's say that nobody cares about what you believe. :-) I suggest you to read articles L121-1 and L121-4 of the French Code of Intellectual Property. David.Monniaux 20:17, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Moral Rights cannot be waived, whatever the place he contributed from. Anyway, the GFDL is not exactly a license, but a license offer. Meaning it only comes into force when people accept it. The GFDL is an agreement between an author and individuals, not an agreement between an author and the world. Meaning also that anyone can stop offering its content under the terms of this license. Of course, he will have to continue to apply the license to anyone who already accepted it. Then, the question will be to know if these people can still go on distributing the GFDL content or not. From my point of view, they cannot. Maybe they could adapt the content to create a new one that they would be able to distribute. In any case, a GFDL author can certainly decide to get his content "back". But he will have to respect the terms of the concluded license with everyone who accepted it first. Soufron 20:35, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Erm, this sounds like it is in direct opposition to "contributors' obligations" of WP:COPY: "... you retain copyright to your materials. You can later republish and relicense them in any way you like. However, you can never retract the GFDL license for the versions you placed here: that material will remain under GFDL forever." I don't understand what part of that implies that you have any right to remove text once you post it. -- Isogolem 05:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Post-protection

It's been a week and there's been no discussion by the "Pro-Bertrand" parties and there's a new draft to replace the current article that they haven't commented on. Does the page still need to be protected? - DNewhall 21:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest copying the material we believe to be useful in the /Expanded draft into the article section-by-section, rather than simply all at once. While the previous contributions were generally excellent, there are a few tone issues that I'd like to work on as we expand the article. In particular, while the degree of detail is very strong, there is somewhat of an advocacy tone that I'd like to move in a better NPOV direction. Thoughts? LotLE×talk 01:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I've started at more concretely re-expanding the article. The first thing I notice here is that while the "scratchpad" version has a lot of good content, this is a good opportunity to greatly reduce the amount of "peacock language" in the description, and also to trim descriptions to more concise and precise phrasings. Most programming language articles have, naturally, been written by their enthusiasts; but the tone should not make that fact overly obvious. None of the draft langauge is bad, but as you we copy over material, let's keep NPOV prominently in mind. LotLE×talk 04:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
A few things that you took out that might have been too much were the SmartEiffel differences and the "Hello, world" example. The SmartEiffel differences are very important because SmartEiffel is a very notable implementation and it isn't standard and the "Hello, world" code example is canonical to every programming language article. - DNewhall 18:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
You are correct - the Wikipedia c, perl, pascal, simula, logo, and basic articles all have a "Hello World" section (although the lisp article doesn't). I'll add it back in. 144.189.5.201 18:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
OK. I'm not crazy about the Hello World, and a lot of languages don't do it (Python, R, S-Plus are a few I've looked at recently). But a bunch do, so that's fine... I moved it to a more relevant section, closer to the top and in the overall "Syntax and semantics" section. The SmartEiffel section just feels wrong; definitely SmartEiffel should be linked to, but specific differences from the Eiffel Software version should be discussed in its own article. But mostly it just felt like the tone sounded like advertising for Eiffel Software, i.e. "SmartEiffel isn't as good as our version". LotLE×talk 20:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Greater involvement by scientists and Ignore all Rules

Can Wikipedia stress the "Ignore all Rules" part of the Trifecta a little more?

Dr. Bertrand Meyer (the creator of the Eiffel programming language) came to Wikipedia and cleaned up the Eiffel programming language article (No editor disagreed with any of his content) but a number of Wikipedia editors would not allow him to use a blue color for the articles code snippets. (The Eiffel standard states that color should be used to reinforce semantics, in a consistent way and blue is used for this).

They were inflexible and occasionally not as polite as they could have been.

And most notably of all: NO ONE so much as touched the article prior to discussion on the talk page! I actually do have a number of (relatively minor) issues with Meyer's content—mostly tone, a little bit flow—but as soon as the slightest whisper of the Wikipedia style issue was made, Meyer went apoplectic, rather viciously insulted Wikipedians individually and collectively, then engaged in repeated page blanking until he got himself blocked. Just adding the silly conceit of writing "Dr." before each mention of his name doesn't excuse his behavior, nor does it make his contributing more important than the health or sustainability of Wikipedia. Y'know, Meyer isn't the only contributor here (on WP generally, but even on this article) with a doctorate or a wide publication history. Dr. LotLE×talk 17:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
This is incorrect; you should check before making such statements. People started canceling his use of fonts. See [6]. Obviously that's what got him concerned.Fuchsias 03:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
If the great Bertrand Meyer can't stand having his immortal copy edited by "incompetent zealots" then he surely cannot be a part of Wikipedia. --Ideogram 07:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

In the past, he has had a very positive view of wikipedia: Defense and illustration of Wikipedia where he stated: "A more pragmatic look at Wikipedia as it exists today indicates that the project, while perhaps not living up to the hype of its most fervent promoters, has become a superbly useful tool for Web-based fact-finding."

Finally he gave up, and the Wikipedia editors sent him on his way wishing him: "Goodbye and good riddance." and "rv; enjoy your block"

A little more flexiblity (as in "Ignore all Rules" and let in some blue code snippets (I don't even think that wikipedia has an official policy on the color for code snippets)) would have helped here, but the Ignore All Rules part of the trifecta is stressed quite a bit less than the NPOV and the "Don't Be a Dick" parts.

Maybe some kind of "Ignore All Rules" week would help. 75.30.203.153 07:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you ignore all rules and vandalize this page, that would sure show everyone. 65.95.41.70 02:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Please take a look at WP:IAR, vandalizing a page does not improve or maintain Wikipedia's quality. --Credema 07:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't see WP:IAR as the key to the issue that you mention. NPOV and DBAD are just as applicable. Whoever wrote the comments you mentioned ("...good riddance", etc.) was wrong. At the same time, looking at the changes, it looks like Mr. Meyer could have been more civil as well.
Wiki is a different medium than other writing. While the idea of wiki sounded fine, dealing with reality is a lot messier. I have a nice little mess of my own creating higher up this page. The user in question (who might or might not by the real life Bertrand Meyer) didn't seem particularly interested in collaborating, and several users were understandably irate over this. You can be brilliant in your field, but that doesn't buy instant privs or esteem.
You must be willing and able to deal with other people if you want to be part of wikipedia. No amount of "ignoring all rules" will change that. -- Isogolem 23:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the Eiffel discussion degenerated, but the initial conflict (non-content based conflict) occurred the editors were more interested in the rules "no code snippets may be blue" and "all code snippets for all programming languages must be in an identical format" than in producing good Wikipedia content.
Please, anon, well first get an account. For someone taking such a tone of superiority, hiding behind and IP address is quite unseemly. But past that, you are blatantly and offensively misrepresnting this talk page and the article edit history. No one said, "we must blindly follow rules". Rather there was a discussion of "What is the best style convention to follow, given the minor difference between WP style guides and those of Eiffel Software?" Every editor, except Bertrand Meyer, discussed this in an open minded and collaborative way. Meyer basically wrote: "Fuck off, none of your opinions matter." This had nothing to do with obeying or disobeying rules... it was an open, polite, and joint discussion of the how best to improve the article. Meyer could not stomach the last of those adjectives, especially (though he did not appear all that fond of the first two either). LotLE×talk 17:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with much of your characterization of the event, but I've already given my view and you've given yours, so that's that. 144.189.5.201 22:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
"Fuck off"? Where did Mr. Meyer say "Fuck off"? That doesn't seem to be his style. And he never said that "none of your opinions matter", in those terms or any others. This is very bad -- putting words in other people's mouths.Fuchsias 03:24, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Fuchias, LotLE qualified the quote with "basically", clearly indicating the statements thereafter were LotLE's interpretation of statements made by Meyer. To claim that LotLE is "putting words in other people's mouths", is at best misleading. -- Isogolem 07:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Fuchsias, for your own credibility, I suggest you go through Dr. Meyer's comments and list the diffs where he insults us. Note his complaints that we didn't know what we are talking about and therefore should not speak. I trust you can connect the dots to the implications of his statements. Here, I'll start you off with one from his user page: [7] --Ideogram 07:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
When admins post: "I don't know how better to put it. Dr. Meyer doesn't make the rules here. Experienced Wikipedia editors know the rules here, and if Dr. Meyer refuses to learn from them then this isn't going to work." [8] when discussing the font color for a section of an article, it demonstrates that to them "the rules" may be more important than content or civility. What rule could be less disruptive if broken than that one? If an admin/editor won't IAR in that case, when will they?
Bend the rules - let the font be a different color than on other programming languages, let the language creator improve the article, make Wikipedia editting a positive experience, everyone wins.
or
Stick to the rules - make the font be the same color as on other programming languages, let the language creator leave in frustration, say "goodbye and good riddence", no one wins.
75.30.203.153 01:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I have already agreed with you on the "good riddence" comment. There is no excuse for it.
That being said, no matter how many times you mention it, it is still only one commment out of many, and I feel you are misrepresenting the progression of events. There seems to constructive disussion for a while here and here, including the suggestion that while in might not be the same as other articles, color is an option still under discussion. Then it appears B-Meyer is the one who begins to get upset, here, claiming harasment where I personally can see none. There was good faith effort to to caution B-Meyer, here. There is even a plea for mutual respect by one editor to B-Meyer, here. And once again it is Meyer who escalates matters, here - "... mob rule, proud of its arrogant incompetence. I will move the text to a place where it is free from interference from the vandals." Now here finally we see someone committing personal attack, but it is Meyer not one of the other editors.
The other comments you mention occured after that edit, as here. This doesn't excuse them, but it does cast them in a slightly different light, I think. The editors didn't gang up on Meyer to force him out, he left in a huff.
That is not correct. The matter started when people started editing out the fonts. See [9].Fuchsias 03:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't see how your statement applies. You seem to be claiming that someone changing the font on an article is equivalent to a personal attack, but I'm sure that is not what you mean. -- Isogolem 07:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
This is not about the "rules" as you are trying to frame it. The editors you are claiming should have done more IAR were trying to make sure that they maintained the quality of wikipedia by maintaining the consistency of the wikipedia article style. They were willing to break with that style if it were needed but were unwilling to do so without due consideration and discussion. The discussion might not have been progressing at the speed or in the direction Meyer wanted, and so he became upset, confusing many.
What you seem to be suggesting is something other than IAR. This isn't about the rules, it is about medium awareness. Everyone can edit is part of the wiki medium, and it appears Meyer was unable to handle that aspect of it. -- Isogolem 07:32, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

From the User:Jimbo Wales page

Of course, I would argue, it might not be helpful for us to blame him for lack of 'medium awareness'. I would have preferred to see people treat him with a lot more patience and kindness EVEN AFTER he got a bit huffy. And why shouldn't we be nice? Costs nothing, and has a better result in the end.--Jimbo Wales 09:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it's important to note that we're missing a crucial point while our attention is diverted by this self-flagellation contest we're having. Meyer's behaviour was, in my view, as inappropriate as that of any other editor with the possible exception of Ideogram. It may be silly for us to insist that code be black, but it's equally silly for Meyer to insist it must be blue. As a long-time Eiffel user, I can tell you I only ever encounter blue code in Meyer's books and web sites. Yet he made the decision that the font convention is more important to him than the Wikipedia article. That's his prerogative, but I still find it asinine, and I think we can't ignore his part in this whole unfortunate mess. Don't take my word for it; his perplexing reasoning and personal attacks are preserved on this very page for your perusal. --Doradus 14:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not see any self-flagellation. All I see is - "Meyer didn't follow the rules and was a bit of a jerk". Can you point me to where anyone has criticized their own behavior or performed any other type of self-flagellation? 75.30.203.153 14:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't mean people criticizing their own behaviour; I mean Wikipedia editors collectively criticizing our own behaviour. I'm talking about "a little more flexibility ... would have helped here" and "the initial conflict ... occurred the [sic] editors were more interested in the rules ... than in producing good Wikipedia content". But you're right: looking back at the discussion, it's not as lopsided as I had thought. --Doradus 19:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
It may well be true that Dr. Meyer "made the decision that the font convention is more important to him than the Wikipedia article", but then so did those that demanded it be black. Upon Dr. Meyer's arrival the page went through considerable change and improvement, and this was clearly still ongoing. Instead of working to fill out the developing page first and quibbling over details second, people seemed to feel that adherence to an unstated rule was more important than the overall quality of the page. I feel a little more patience could have seen this issue resolved eventually without having alienate an editor in the middle of a considerable, and high quality, expansion of the page content. Leland McInnes 16:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Patience is exactly what was needed. The "Wikipedia way" to deal with an edit you don't like, such as making the code black, is to hash it out on the talk page while continuing to make progress on the article; not to revert other editors' contributions repeatedly before a concensus is reached. Only one person repeatedly reverted formatting changes on the Eiffel page. --Doradus 19:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Just to be ultra-clear yet again: there never was an edit of "making the code black". Meyer's stomping off was entirely because we dared discuss making the code black on the talk page. Can you imagine how quickly he probably would have stomped off if we had actually, y'know, edited the content of the page?! LotLE×talk 19:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, we did make the code black here. --Doradus 23:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

My God, this new header turned monstruous fast. Anyway, what the anon OP said above is wrong. Or at least what he implies is wrong. Let's distinguish between code samples, which are in the code boxes, and inline code. No-one were having any real difficulties with blue-coloured code samples. However, blue-coloured inline code break wikipedia standard formatting, which can be taken as a minor or major obstacle depending on your personal perspectives, but more importantly made the article look distractingly garish and introduced text confusingly similar to hyperlinks, which is distinctly unpedagogical and impractical. Again, everyone was if not happy then at least accepting of blue code sample boxes. However, experienced and good editors voiced concern --as they should!-- over decreased article quality from the idiosyncratic and in effect confusing inline code snippets. Mikademus 22:36, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

September Meyer exit thread

As the editor everyone is pointing to as the "bad guy" here I feel the need to weigh in. In my defense let me point out that my first response to Dr. Meyer was excruciatingly polite. But there is a point to made here, aside from all the histrionics, and that is that WIKIPEDIA IS RUN BY CONSENSUS AND NOT BY DR. MEYER. Dr. Meyer was INSULTED that we even TRIED TO DISCUSS THE MATTER. Then he tried to invalidate the GFDL, further showing that he has no respect for anything and he only wants his way.

I happen to have dealt with Dr. Meyer before, and so my store of patience was not as great. But you are all missing the point. No amount of patience would have been enough to deal with Meyer, because he wants his way and that's all he wants.

Dr. Meyer doesn't compromise. He doesn't discuss. That's why he doesn't belong here. All of you defending Dr. Meyer and criticizing our already careful handling of him do not understand that the Wikipedia community is more important than any one article. It's not about fonts, for christ's sake, it's about being willing to discuss. Nothing you can say will change the fact that Meyer was a rude, arrogant, selfish, spoiled child. --Ideogram 07:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

September 2006: getting back to normal

A posting by "Ideogram" above, dated 6 September 2006, explains what has happened to this Wikipedia article in the last month. Finally he (I assume it's a "he") admits it: "I happen to have dealt with Dr. Meyer before, and so my store of patience was not as great. But you are all missing the point. No amount of patience would have been enough to deal with Meyer, because he wants his way and that's all he wants", and proceeds to call me "rude, arrogant, selfish, spoiled". Well, I am really sorry that he bears such grudges, but since I don't know who he is I can't discuss that previous case in which he "dealt" with me. In any case, whether he likes me or not should have no effect on an encyclopedia article. Is there a Wikipedia policy that says if you don't like someone who posts under his real name you should vandalize his contributions?

This seems to be what happened. A handful of people — "Ideogram", "Lulu", "Mikademus"... — had apparently decided to teach me a lesson. I think this is inappropriate, and I ask other people interested in this article to help make sure that they don't again let their passions override concern for the quality of the article.

No one tried to "teach you a lesson", Bertrand. That's as far from the truth as is easy to imagine. The fact you would state such a thing, to me, suggests you are nowhere close to ready to work on this article that is far too close to your personal emotions. In point of fact, you owe a gigantic apology to Wikipedia editors collectively for your truly obnoxious and uncooperative behavior. I strongly, strongly recommend that you simply stay away from this article, and use your writing skills and intelligence to some better endeavor. LotLE×talk 00:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Would you please stop making these personal comments? This is not helping anyone. I had requested that my explanation be left as it is for coherence; I don't see why you can't be courteous and considerate.
This is all exactly like Usenet in its heyday, but does it have to be that way? Finally, couldn't the discussion be about the best ways to describe Eiffel, rather than these irrelevant ad hominem attacks?
It's really very sad to see such a great idea as Wikipedia be perverted that way. I'll stop commenting on this discussion page since it's obviously hopeless, but what a waste of time.

B-Meyer 01:04, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

So now to the heart of the matter. Eiffel is not just a programming language intended for talking to a machine but a vehicle to express and communicate models and designs clearly and convincingly. The concern for style and the attempt at elegance are at the core of the approach. This implies in particular devoting attention to matters that are not necessarily thought important in other technologies, such as the layout of program texts, the choice of names for classes and features (there are precise rules for when you should use a noun, a verb, an adjective), the wording of routine header comments (going so far as to say when you should end with a period and when not), and many other matters that others consider mundane. In this respect Eiffel tries to be in the line of the great programming methodologists of the seventies, who said that a good program should be beautiful too, like a castle or an adagio.

The basic font convention goes all the way back to Algol 60: keywords in boldface. I can't understand the motivation of the person who rewrote the "hello world" example to remove that convention. Where is it said that a Wikipedia article should violate the standard conventions of the subject matter? More fundamentally, I haven't seen a Wikipedia rule (which would be silly) stating that all programming languages should look the same. They don't. I am sure there is an article somewhere on the Swedish language, and that it retains the diacritical marks. The same applies to programming languages: each has its own personality.

Color, as some people have pointed out, is not as universally used in Eiffel publications, partly because of the constraints of print, and partly because it's a pain to prepare the text accordingly. It's less fundamental than the use of bold etc., but it's part of the recommended conventions all the same. Once again I see no Wikipedia rule that says you cannot use color if it's part of the subject matter. The only rule I have seen states the same as the ECMA Eiffel standard: you shouldn't use color as the only way to express a semantic difference. This is perfectly reasonable.

I can pretty much guarantee that if you blithely ignore consensus and start deleting other editors work with an attitude that you know better, and they don't matter, you will get yourself in trouble again... probably blocked from Wikipedia. If you wish to find a consensus about this really quite minor issue of what font conventions are used, discuss it first. Your above comments are a good start, despite their tone. But before implementing something that will clearly violate consensus, please conduct a discussion, perhaps a quick poll to gauge sentiment.
This is pretty unbelievable. It's my work that was edited out by others. Please stop this personal campaign, it serves no useful purpose. B-Meyer 01:34, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
My evaluation of the matter is that at least 90% of editors are pretty strongly opposed to using non-standard fonts in the body text to illustate code: i.e. anything other than <code> around the samples. My impression is also that a slim majority is also against using non-standard fonts in block code samples, but this sentiment is weaker. My own opinion leans against using the non-standard stuff anywhere, for a number of reasons; but understanding Wikipedia, I yield to consensus if it is demonstrated.
And please: don't play some pedantic game of pretending "non-standard" means something different that what it does: we're referring to the "Wikipedia (in-house) style guide" That guide has not entirely been stated anywhere, but it is reflected by the loose consensus and habit of editors of all the articles that are more-or-less similar to this one (i.e. programming language articles and the like). LotLE×talk 00:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

It's also reasonable to have differences of opinions on such fairly small topics. In fact issues of this kind arise all the time in the world of classical publishing. Authors have their preferences, and journal editors have "house styles" to apply. So you end up in a constructive discussion intended to produce the best possible result. You don't angrily cancel the other person's last edits and start shouting at him.

I think this has to stop and that the sole goal should be to produce a good article on the language (the current state, even after my additions, is still far from ideal). So in the next few minutes I will reinstate the contributions that I had previously withdrawn (extended with several new sections), taking the risk that those who have disfigured them before will try again; I just hope that common sense and the search for the best will prevail. I do have a few requests:

You need to immediately stop the shennanigans about claiming you failed to read the GFDL during your past 50 contributions, and immediately stop claiming a right to withdraw and resubmit contributions at your personal whimsy. Otherwise, anything you might contribute is FAR WORSE than useless. That's a first step. But frankly, a better first step is to just not work on this article. If it gets to be a problem again, I'll almost certainly try to get an administrator to act on the WP:AUTO violation that is clearly involved. LotLE×talk 00:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • If you don't like the color convention please don't go on a wild editing campaign to remove it, or start an edit war etc. If you really feel strongly about the issue please discuss it on this page and wait for some reasonable consensus to emerge among people of good will. (Talking about consensus, someone had suggested that the code blocks be in color, but not the short extracts in the main text. If all that's desired is to find a compromise this could be it, but I still don't like this solution because it will look strange: x in the text will not immediately be seen as referring to x in the code extract above or below.)
  • Please give due consideration to any editors who know and practice Eiffel. This is really only a page about a programming language and it doesn't need to become a battlefield about Wikipedia principles. Substance should prevail.
  • There is still a lot to add and improve in this article; please help. In particular my additions have not had enough proofreading; there must be typos and inauspicious phrasings.
  • I don't think I have cancelled any edit of substance made recently, but if I inadvertently have please accept my apologies and fix the problem.

The present section will have to be moved elsewhere (in fact it would be good if the whole discussion were eventually removed from this page, which should be devoted to talking about how best to describe the language) but I would really appreciate if you left it as it is, since it explains my view as completely as I could express it, and used a separate section for any further discussion of this topic.

B-Meyer 00:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

WP:BOLDly move article name per consensus at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Programming languages/Renaming poll. Bye bye transclusion.

Stomping on other editor's work

Unfortunately, now that I've taken a look at what Bertrand Meyer has added back, I see he almost entirely destroyed the work I put into the article after he stomped out (and destructively blanked stuff repeatedly, earning himself a 3RR block). In particular, even apart from the font issue that he continues to refuse to discuss cooperatively, he also removed all my improvments to tone to try to meet NPOV and encyclopedic style. The result being that the article looks like... well, like an article that suffers badly from WP:AUTO violations. It is altogether too exuberant in tone, reading something like an advertisement for Eiffel rather than like an encyclopedia article on the language.

I'm quite frustrated by this. Quite honestly, even without the additional material that could be helpful, I think the last version of the article before Meyer came back was quite a bit better than the latest version with his changes. However, I'm nearly certain that if I try to improve anything, including restoring my own not-insignificant efforts, Meyer will play a similar game of either mass-deletion, or edit-warring, or make a new round of spurious claims not to have seen the GFDL release. At this point, I think he just has no place editing this particular article, he simply cannot approach it with the necessary objectivity, detachment, and especially not with the needed understanding that Wikipedia is based on cooperation.

Before I launch some more formal effort to prevent Meyer's edits, can someone of more optimistic spirit suggest a way this article can move forward despite Meyer's involvement. I'm not really sure what the formal procedure might be. I suppose a user conduct RfC is possible, but those are awkward and rarely productive. Maybe a WP:ANI request, but those also tend to fizzle. Possibly something with the mediation committee. Or just try to get an editor to block based on WP:AUTO violation. I honestly don't want to do that sort of thing, but seeing all the inappropriate tone (and jarring fonts, of course) reinserted just makes me cringe (because I care about the encyclopedia, and not particularly about this particular programming language). LotLE×talk 02:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Just calm down. I am not aware of having removed any of your edits. I added a section that wasn't there (apart from one subsection on agents). If I have made a mistake, please correct it, or point me to it and I will do the correction (but this may not be the most effective way to proceed since I won't be much available in the next few days). And stop accusing me of imaginary evils past and future.
How can you say that a version that didn't say a word about what characterizes Eiffel -- features, Design by Contract, inheritance, conversions, genericity etc. etc. -- is better than the latest version?
Earlier you were upset that I removed some material; now if I understand you properly you are upset that I put it back. I don't quite understand.
For the record: until I and another editor started working on this page earlier this summer, it said nothing about the language. We added a detailed section on language mechanisms, so that the page actually describes Eiffel. Everything else is a figment of your imagination. If you feel that at some place I have been over-enthusiastic (although I don't know of any such occurrence), just make the correction you feel appropriate and get over it. There is no need for the pathos. Thanks. B-Meyer 02:22, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it'd be more constructive Dr Meyer, if you let others write the article. And then review it here, tell them where it went wrong, what needs to be embellished etc. I really don't see what's wrong with having the fonts blue/bold if the language dictates that it is useful, it's better to be accurate then for it to look consistent with other pages. Because if both parties are editing this article in their own ways, then it's going to go to shit. - Hahnchen 02:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I see that "Lulu" has started editing the text and restoring his earlier changes that were unintentionally cancelled as a result of the change of fonts in the agents subsection. I was going to do it, but thank you very much for taking care of it so quickly. Let me point out that as far as I can tell there is no disagreement with other recent editors on the substance of the text, and that if you see an unwarranted cancellation of an earlier edit it is most likely the result of a mistake B-Meyer 05:44, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Quick poll on typographic conventions

Past debate has occurred on the best typographic conventions to use in this article. In a nutshell, documentation produced by Eiffel Software and other parties documenting Eiffel generally uses a set of conventions for color (mostly blue), boldface, and italics in the visual presentation of code samples. In contrast, Wikipedia conventions (as indicated by most programming-related articles) use a simple <code> font for inline code, and a MediaWiki "literal" block (indented text; currently rendered with <pre>) for code blocks.

How should this article handle typographic markup of source code examples. Please comment with your opinion, and the reasons for it.

Code Blocks

Eiffel color/font in code blocks

  • I definitely think that we should use the colour guidelines as laid out by the standard, especially in the code boxes. These are not as jarring as the inline code samples, and if you're going to edit the code blocks, you should know what you're doing anyway. Wikipedia is for the reader first, the editor second. It's better for it to be accurate than for a less accurate easy-edit version. For me, this stems down to Meta:Wiki is not paper, Wikipedia is not bound by the costs of colour ink, colour is trivial, Wikipedia should take advantage of this fact. - Hahnchen 03:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I think Eiffel code must be made to look like Eiffel code looks. Otherwise the article trivializes it to just another code syntax and misses a key point of its purpose and design. Make it blue, etc. Dicklyon 05:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I tend to prefer this option, this way the article is more illustrative --Twilight 03:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Me too. There are the following precedents on Wikipedia for using each language's preferred convention (although not with color): Algol 60, Simula, Algol W, Pascal (programming language). Anyone know of others? Fuchsias 03:38, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • if there is a standard resp. recommendation, i'd rather go with the standard. --ThurnerRupert 21:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • This should satisfy all parties, and was my original suggestion at the beginning of the entire debacle. On the one hand it allows the example code the appearance of "normal" Eiffel code, on the other hand it will not mar the discussion. Of specific significance is that blue text in the body text is confusing in a hypertext context because it is easily mistaken for hyperlinks, even if in code-tags (f.i. this occurs in several C++ articles: #include <iostream>). Also, it is bad pedagogics because it throws of normal text flow. There are very simple reasons that text books not to laborate with colours in mid-text. Mikademus 06:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Best way would be to apply the "Eiffel style in code blocks, Wikipedia style in blocks" scenario, as it leaves the Wikipedia text unformatted. Code blocks are OK on Eiffel style. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I have not done lots of editing on wikipedia yet, but I am familiar with software engineering (including Eiffel) and typography. As a user I was puzzled with the inline blue fonts (I expect links to be blue). I hear that one of the reasons why Lulu wanted all the standard typographic editing was to make it easier to edit for beginners, right? Looking at the source, I do not understand, why using the font tag with the color argument also alters the face to italic when using uppercase only. Personnally, I find it best to read if the words appear in Eiffel style (except for the color) inline, while code snippets are completely in Eiffel style --Masche 08:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Eiffel style (no color) in code blocks

  • I agree with Lambiam. While it would be good, in principle, to use Eiffel style conventions wherever possible, I agree that the blue text colour, particularly in inline text, can be confused too easily with Wikilinks. That, however, only represents an argument against the use of blue text. My understanding is that if colour is unavailable as an option, then it is reasonable to default to black text according to the standard. Given the potential confusion of blue text, perhaps it is best to assume colour is, essentially, unavailable, and default back to black text with all the other style conventions remaining. As Lambian said, this deals with most of the objections of both sides. I would also point out that this is hardly jarring given that it would be similar to pseudocode according to Wikipedia style guidelines in Wikipedia:Algorithms_on_Wikipedia. Leland McInnes 18:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia (partially implicit) style guidelines in code blocks

  • Beyond the general jarringness of encountering a non-standard convention in one particular programming language article, I found additional difficulties when I began to edit code blocks marked in the "Eiffel style". A lot of extra markup goes into those conventions, making code samples extremely fragile for editors to modify without disturbing markup features (often in ways that produce dramatically bad results). Non-editing readers will not see this issue, but allowing easy collaboration (rather than implied "invariant" sections) is an important principle of Wikipedia. LotLE×talk 03:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Besides the reasons above there is no official standard for the font. Yes, the ECMA standard does recommend the typographic conventions discussed but it is not an official enforced standard. If an implementation's IDE would not be considered compliant because they changed the color of the text then it would be a standard. There are unofficial standards for many languages. Should the Java article (and all articles that feature Java code) be rewritten using the same font as Sun's documents? Likewise, should all the C code (and there's tons of it) be rewritten using the "One True Brace Style" (which has been recommended by standards groups just like Eiffel's conventions)? I don't think anyone would seriously advocate any of the previous notions, hence, I believe that enforcing the stylistic recommendations over the current Wikipedia de facto standard is inappropriate in this case. - DNewhall 05:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

What value does the blue color add?

  • Like every other programmer I understand the value of syntax highlighting - keywords in one color, variables in another, separators in third... That's really useful. But highlighting all the code with just one color doesn't make sense to me. It's just as good as not highlighting it at all. The black-text codeblocks stand out just fine, there's no need to add extra emphasis with bright blue color. If I look at the page, the codeblocks are like screaming: "Look at me! I'm codeblock!". Marking the keywords in boldface is fine, but the blue color has absolutely no meaning. Admit it. Nene 13:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The principe of using blue typeface for code is that all code, including inline code referring to variables in the previous codeblock, or keywords, or feature calls etc. can then be easily distinguished as code. Note that the emphasis here is on inline code being easily distinguishable from text. Because of the poor quality compromise that this article has taken the end result is moot. Code blocks being blue serves little purpose if inline code is left alone. Consistency of style differentiating it from text is the aim. I agree that it is not served here. I suggest using black text evrywhere and reserving bold and italic text for code to help distinguish it. Leland McInnes 18:12, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Inline Code

Eiffel style with color in inline code

  • I definitely think that we should use the colour guidelines as laid out by the standard, especially in the code boxes. These are not as jarring as the inline code samples, and if you're going to edit the code blocks, you should know what you're doing anyway. Wikipedia is for the reader first, the editor second. It's better for it to be accurate than for a less accurate easy-edit version. For me, this stems down to Meta:Wiki is not paper, Wikipedia is not bound by the costs of colour ink, colour is trivial, Wikipedia should take advantage of this fact. - Hahnchen 03:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I think Eiffel code must be made to look like Eiffel code looks. Otherwise the article trivializes it to just another code syntax and misses a key point of its purpose and design. Make it blue, etc. Dicklyon 05:43, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I tend to prefer this option, this way the article is more illustrative --Twilight 03:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Me too. There are the following precedents on Wikipedia for using each language's preferred convention (although not with color): Algol 60, Simula, Algol W, Pascal (programming language). Anyone know of others? Fuchsias 03:38, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • if there is a standard resp. recommendation, i'd rather go with the standard. --ThurnerRupert 21:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Eiffel style about bold/italics, but no color in inline code

  • Use the Eiffel conventions for inline code except for the colour. Example:  "In the below code block, the class called HELLO_WORLD has a feature called make, which is usually used as an entry-point for the class."   I think this is better than "Eiffel style in code blocks, Wikipedia style in paragraph text" and takes away most of the objections against both "Wikipedia style everywhere" and "Eiffel style everywhere". --LambiamTalk 06:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with Lambiam. While it would be good, in principle, to use Eiffel style conventions wherever possible, I agree that the blue text colour, particularly in inline text, can be confused too easily with Wikilinks. That, however, only represents an argument against the use of blue text. My understanding is that if colour is unavailable as an option, then it is reasonable to default to black text according to the standard. Given the potential confusion of blue text, perhaps it is best to assume colour is, essentially, unavailable, and default back to black text with all the other style conventions remaining. As Lambian said, this deals with most of the objections of both sides. I would also point out that this is hardly jarring given that it would be similar to pseudocode according to Wikipedia style guidelines in Wikipedia:Algorithms_on_Wikipedia. Leland McInnes 18:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I would be more than happy to use this convention, if it is general consensus. Color is the part I find the most jarring, italics and boldface are farily neutral (this is enforced by the fact that ital/bold have built-in wiki markup, where color needs to drop to HTML). It still makes modifying examples slightly harder, but not too badly. LotLE×talk 19:45, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I have not done lots of editing on wikipedia yet, but I am familiar with software engineering (including Eiffel) and typography. As a user I was puzzled with the inline blue fonts (I expect links to be blue). I hear that one of the reasons why Lulu wanted all the standard typographic editing was to make it easier to edit for beginners, right? Looking at the source, I do not understand, why using the font tag with the color argument also alters the face to italic when using uppercase only. Personnally, I find it best to read if the words appear in Eiffel style (except for the color) inline, while code snippets are completely in Eiffel style --Masche 08:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
  • —Ruud 13:06, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Use generic fixed-font for inline code

  • This should satisfy all parties, and was my original suggestion at the beginning of the entire debacle. On the one hand it allows the example code the appearance of "normal" Eiffel code, on the other hand it will not mar the discussion. Of specific significance is that blue text in the body text is confusing in a hypertext context because it is easily mistaken for hyperlinks, even if in code-tags (f.i. this occurs in several C++ articles: #include <iostream>). Also, it is bad pedagogics because it throws of normal text flow. There are very simple reasons that text books not to laborate with colours in mid-text. Mikademus 06:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Best way would be to apply the "Eiffel style in code blocks, Wikipedia style in blocks" scenario, as it leaves the Wikipedia text unformatted. Code blocks are OK on Eiffel style. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:45, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Beyond the general jarringness of encountering a non-standard convention in one particular programming language article, I found additional difficulties when I began to edit code blocks marked in the "Eiffel style". A lot of extra markup goes into those conventions, making code samples extremely fragile for editors to modify without disturbing markup features (often in ways that produce dramatically bad results). Non-editing readers will not see this issue, but allowing easy collaboration (rather than implied "invariant" sections) is an important principle of Wikipedia. LotLE×talk 03:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Besides the reasons above there is no official standard for the font. Yes, the ECMA standard does recommend the typographic conventions discussed but it is not an official enforced standard. If an implementation's IDE would not be considered compliant because they changed the color of the text then it would be a standard. There are unofficial standards for many languages. Should the Java article (and all articles that feature Java code) be rewritten using the same font as Sun's documents? Likewise, should all the C code (and there's tons of it) be rewritten using the "One True Brace Style" (which has been recommended by standards groups just like Eiffel's conventions)? I don't think anyone would seriously advocate any of the previous notions, hence, I believe that enforcing the stylistic recommendations over the current Wikipedia de facto standard is inappropriate in this case. - DNewhall 05:59, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I would be fine with this too. - Hahnchen 03:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd be fine with this. I use emacs when writing Eiffel programs. Having code in blue makes it difficult to make a complete article in Wikipedia style. I think the main article should be shorter and details moved to subtopics, which could be expanded. Epiteo 03:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Examples

To illustrate the proposed stylistic conventions, each is presented below.

Wikipedia style everywhere: In the below code block, the class called HELLO_WORLD has a feature called make, which is usually used as an entry-point for the class: 

class
   HELLO_WORLD
create
   make
feature
   make
      do
        io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
        io.put_new_line
      end
end

Eiffel style in code blocks, Wikipedia style in paragraph text: In the below code block, the class called HELLO_WORLD has a feature called make, which is usually used as an entry-point for the class: 

class 
    HELLO_WORLD
create
    make
feature
    make
       do
          io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
          io.put_new_line
       end
end

Eiffel style everywhere: In the below code block, the class called HELLO_WORLD has a feature called make, which is usually used as an entry-point for the class: 

class 
    HELLO_WORLD
create
    make
feature
    make
       do
          io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
          io.put_new_line
       end
end

Eiffel style everywhere, less colour: In the below code block, the class called HELLO_WORLD has a feature called make, which is usually used as an entry-point for the class: 

class 
    HELLO_WORLD
create
    make
feature
    make
       do
          io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
          io.put_new_line
       end
end

Eiffel style everywhere, colour in code blocks only : In the below code block, the class called HELLO_WORLD has a feature called make, which is usually used as an entry-point for the class: 

class 
    HELLO_WORLD
create
    make
feature
    make
       do
          io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
          io.put_new_line
       end
end
guys: I can't follow the long baroque discussion about formatting.
is this what your are looking for? :
 
 class
    HELLO_WORLD
 create
    make
 feature
    make
       do
         io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
         io.put_new_line
       end
 end
the source/syntaxhighlight label has many parameters, just decide which ones to use and be consistent in their use. Please do not format directly the program text, otherwise it would be useless for copying and pasting to try it with an Eiffel compiler.

Discussion

An additional problem, to my mind, with using syntax highlighted code (even in code blocks) is that it tends to mislead readers who may be unclear at first exactly where the highlighting comes from, and whether it is required to make code compile/execute. I.e. do I need to use a custom IDE to manually mark keywords as such, in order to create or run Eiffel code? In my personal world, the most common way I look at code is something like: 

% cat hello.e
class
   HELLO_WORLD
create
   make
feature
   make is
      do
         io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
         io.put_new_line
      end
end

I never see any special highlights or non-standard console color, even when I look at completely compilable source code files. Now obviously, if I were to use specific IDEs or programming editors, I might see the "Eiffel style" markup features (or I might see other ones, depending on what syntax highlighting features I chose). Picking something non-generic and IDE-specific draws readers into thinking a non-essential feature is an actual part of the language syntax (albeit a moderate amount of potential confusion). LotLE×talk 19:56, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

To carry the example of the confused reader "I.e. do I need to use a custom IDE to manually mark keywords as such, in order to create or run Eiffel code?" to its logical conclusion, we should probably remove the indentation so that the mentioned reader does not wonder "Do I need to indent manually indent blocks of code in order to create or run Eiffel code?"

something like: 

class
HELLO_WORLD
create
make
feature
make is
do
io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
io.put_new_line
end
end

or 

class HELLO_WORLD create make feature make is do io.put_string ("Hello, world!") io.put_new_line end end

75.30.203.153 06:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - it's unreasonable to try to cater for, to me, a misunderstanding so silly as to be only an academic exercise. Removing colour from the code purely to avoid the case where a user assumes the colouring is somehow part of the syntax is akin to handing out rubber knives and forks at a restaurant to stop people accidentally stabbing themselves.

Destynova 01:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:AUTO

I would kindly request from Mr. Meyer to allow others to edit the article. Mr. Meyer can provide guidance via the talk page, and limit his direct editing to correcting mistaken or out-of-date facts only. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I dont agree, this article is not about Dr. Meyer, and in no way can be considered a biografy or an autobiografy. This article is about a programming language, and nobody can illustrare it better than its creator. --Twilight 03:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Why don't you read the policy. --Ideogram 04:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Because the policy makes no sense, and blatantly promotes stupidity. 128.135.99.80 22:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
Agree! Agree! Agree!, more over a policy is not a rigid rule just a guide, flexibility is a quality of policies. People can use their criteria to apply policies!

Trying again with Dr. Meyer

Dr. Meyer, despite everything I have said, I do welcome you back and I am glad you are making another effort to work with us, even if you are not perfect. I apologize for all my nasty and intemperate statements and ask you to pretend they never happened, but there are two overwhelming factual points that I will not let you ignore:

  1. Wikipedia is run by consensus and you must be willing to discuss any edits you wish to make.
  2. The GFDL (that's GNU Free Documentation License) cannot be revoked on your whim.

Thank you, and I will now leave you in peace and let you work. --Ideogram 05:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Once routines

There is a mismatch between the current text and its examples. The text suggests the do is replaced by once, but the sample reads: 

shared_object: SOME_TYPE
   do
      create Result.make (args) -- This creates the object and returns a reference to it through 'Result'
   end

Should this be: 

shared_object: SOME_TYPE
   once
      create Result.make (args) -- This creates the object and returns a reference to it through 'Result'
   end

Can someone clear up the conflict between description and code sample? LotLE×talk 06:15, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. Also, the keyword is after SOME_TYPE is missing, which I have added now. MoA)gnome 15:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
The keyword is is no longer required by the standard. 83.79.215.69 11:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

keyword is & ECMA 367

Thanks for adding these. Oddly, all the code samples with the missing "is" seem to have been written by Bertand Meyer. What's up with that? Does Eiffel allow some syntax variant, or something? LotLE×talk 15:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

As I've found out now, leaving out is seems to be a quite new standard [10]; the current version 5.6 of the EiffelStudio IDE does not support it, but obviously, 5.7 will. Same thing goes for the Tuple, as it is described in the article, it won't work in 5.6. Somebody decide about having it there or not (or maybe mentioning it explicitly), but make sure to keep it consistent.... MoA)gnome 17:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I've just removed one of these again, so I thought I would mention it here again: the keyword is in the feature declaration is, according to the ECMA-367 standard mentioned in the text and listed on the links, not part of the Eiffel syntax any more. MoA)gnome 11:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Page vandalized again

Well, it seems someone (apparently Mr. "Lulu" if I read the history right) went surreptitiously (no comment in the history) through the whole material and destroyed all the font conventions -- all of them, not only color. All this without any discussion (in fact the comments expressed on this topic were mostly for retaining all the conventions.) The resulting text does not look like Eiffel; it violates all the typesetting rules of the language.

This is sheer vandalism and this person should be barred from editing the article any further.

All this makes Wikipedia look terrible -- Usenet at its worst. I am powerless to try to instill some civilized behavior here, but perhaps someone else will have the courage take over. Too bad, it could have been fun. B-Meyer 18:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

But there are colours in the "style" header. Isn't that sufficient to indicate the preferred presentation of standard Eiffel code? When re-reading the article, after your post, above, nothing about it struck me as "terrible" --note that I am not an Eiffel practitioner-- and the separate header for normal style was informative without breaking the encyclopaedic convention. Or am I missing something here? Because I hope there must have been some significantly nefarious editing going on for someone to cry "vandalism" and "ban the witch!". Mikademus 18:49, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I am an Eiffel practitioner. Nobody I've ever met cares about the official Eiffel Font Conventions™ except Meyer. He's being inexcusably stubborn and rude on this point. --Doradus 16:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
If or when consensus is reached to use a non-standard style convention for this article, despite the rather glaring contrast with other PL articles, I will happily defer to such consensus. That's why I created the above "Quick poll" to gauge sentiment" (given that the prior reams of discussion were inconclusive, and excessively rancorous). But unless such agreement is reached, using the "standard Wikipedia convention" is really the only reasonable action. As Mikademus indicates, I took the trouble of adding an example using the "Eiffel convention" so that readers could see it, and tried to integrate that well with the narrative text about style conventions. If you think some other code sample would illustrate more conventions, I'd be more than happy to use such an expanded example.
Do we really need the ongoing almost hysterical accusations and insults from Bertrand Meyer? This seems awfully close to WP:NPA violation to accompany the WP:AUTO violations (especially following on all the "idiot mob rule" stuff from before).
And what's the weird thing with the scare quotes around my username? Not that four ticks actually harms me, but it seems peculiar... is this some sort of "discovery" that my birth-certificate didn't actually read "Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters" (I've actually used that name for about 14 years now, in various fora, and it's pretty simple to figure out roughly what my birth certificate did say... and notably, if one were to stand on ceremony as "Dr. Meyer" insists on, my honorific is 'Dr.' not 'Mr.' LotLE×talk 19:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I really think you should have waited the result of the poll you have created, before taking any action related to style conventions. The bitter reaction of B-Mayer is fully justified IMHO. --Twilight 03:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
The sequence of edits has just about no resemblance to Meyer's description of it. I was restoring a large number of wording improvements that he had removed, and did so only after he said "go ahead and restore" on this talk page. His "vandalism" foolishness is just another example of his belief that he "owns" the WP article because he created the language that is its topic. LotLE×talk 04:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Do you know what vandalism is? How about large-scale removal of previously contributed material? --Ideogram 04:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
For anyone thinking that the accusation of vandalism is in any way founded in reality, please reread Wikipedia:Vandalism. Vandalism should only be claimed when you can no longer assume good faith. Blanking is vandalism, bold edits are not. I find it hard to view changing the font to the common font style used on WP and otherwise leaving the samples intact as "large-scale removal". The poll is underway, but until it is completed where's the harm in having the article adhere as closely as possible to common WP style conventions? -- Isogolem 21:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Just to clarify, my comment was in response to Twilight, not Lulu. The "large-scale removal" I was referring to was Meyer's attempt to withdraw his contributions, not Lulu's edits. --Ideogram 03:54, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I am Eiffel agnostic, and do not have specific POV on ths subject. Can someone explain what is the contention about the "font conventions"? Please provide Diffs for the different versions. Thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:15, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I added samples of the three basic proposed style conventions at the above quick poll. LotLE×talk 19:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Why WP:AUTO matters

This is all so silly that I probably should not respond, but in the interest of openness, and to close my part: (1) I don't know where you get the idea that I care about titles next to my name -- I don't give a hoot, call me whatever you like. I am not sure how you want to be called, so "Mr." seemed a generic form of respect. (2) I do care about substance, and don't understand why you find it so crucial to spend your time removing again and again the carefully prepared style conventions of Eiffel, apparently as a kind of preemptive more since it's so much more difficult to restore them later than it would have been to leave them as they are and then remove them if that's the consensus view. (3) All the accusations of autobiography etc. make no sense; this article existed for 5 years (five years!) before I came anywhere close to it, and I simply made it factual; describing how Eiffel handles inheritance or object creation has nothing to do with autobiography. (4) The allegations of personal involvement are just as groundless; I took it upon myself to add to this article what it should have had in the first place, a matter-of-fact description of the language; there has not been any biased of self-serving element, and anyone who thinks he has spotted one can just fix it, like anything else, by editing the page. (5) It's true that it takes some guts to post under one's own name, especially if that name is known in the corresponding community; but I decided that using a pseudonym, like most of the people who have hampered the development of this article, would just be devious. The result is that I have been hooted down not because of what I wrote (with which no one found any serious problem, other than typos or other minor points) but because of who I am. There's this prejudice that because I have been involved with the language I should not be permitted to contribute to the description. This is absurd and discriminatory. I wrote descriptions of language mechanisms because no one else had done it and as a result the article was deficient in its presentation of the language (it was mostly expressions of various POVs). (6) Obviously a few people determined to make a point, Usenet style, have more time than I do, and I am happy to leave them the last word. What no one can deny is that even though the article is far from perfect -- not just because the font conventions are wrong -- it is much better than when a couple of other people and I started working on it (just see the record of what it was only seven weeks ago). That's what counts, and it means that I haven't completely wasted my time. I hope that others, perhaps with names less likely to attract the attention of the censors, will continue that work, and wish everyone good luck, with my thanks for what I have learned in the experience. B-Meyer 12:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

With "I have been hooted down not because of what I wrote (with which no one found any serious problem, other than typos or other minor points) but because of who I am." you're twisting the sequence of events horribly as well as adding a substantial self-serving and self-aggandising bias to the debate. No-one opposed your edits, regardless of who you were, until you started ignoring the concerns of several editors, started acting autocratically, and finally claimed all wikipedians a "proudly ignorant mob". Then, and only then, did the debate turn to being about you and WP:AUTO et ál started being invoked by commentors. Mikademus 15:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Call me whatever you like. 'Dr. Lulu' has a nice sound to it, but lots of things are equally fine. Like you, my well-known "real name" is perfectly apparent too (it occurs within the first few words on my user page; and takes no particular bravery or chutzpah to reveal; FWIW, it seems I'm "half as famous as Meyer" :-): [11]). Meyer's above note tends to emphasize why WP:AUTO really is an important concern. This isn't about rules-lawyering (yes, "autobiography" on WP is clearly not limited to biography as such; no, Meyer didn't create the article). Let's get to the real problem, and why it relates to WP:AUTO...
Like Jossi and some others, I am entirely agnostic about Eiffel; I have have no great knowledge or investment in the language, but I have known for a number of years its general structure and the ways it differs from other similar languages. I really only stumbled across the article because of a slightly-too-exuberant couple sentences about it someone inserted into Functional programming, which is an article I had contributed to significantly (though again, a topic about which I am pretty agnostic). The first thing that struck me upon reading the article as it was then was, indeed, how very jarring the idiosyncratic font conventions were in a Wikipedia article; and I indeed politely asked about that on the talk page (having seen some prior comments to the same effect there). My perspective is one of a Wikipedia reader and editor, not one of a dedicated Eiffel proponent and enthusiast. The garish color certainly harms the article from that perspective
Now that I've gotten around to really editing the article, I see quite a lot of problems that pretty closely tie in to Meyer's role in writing it. I don't want to do a forensic analysis of exactly which word was added by whom. But the overall tone is really quite a bit off for a Wikipedia article. There are three general categories of problems that most strike me, all closely connected to this:
  1. The article reads much too much like advocacy. Rather than say that Eiffel does things such-and-such way, it tended (before my cleanup, more still needed) to argue why such-and-such is the right way to do it, and why other PLs are wrong to do it otherwise. And even where it wasn't per se "Eiffel is better", there were altogether too many circumlocutions into the thinking of the designers (i.e. Meyer) in chosing such-and-such. A general section on "design goals/philosophy" is useful, but not a reiteration of that when discussing each dot and tittle, as it had.
  2. The article reads much too much like a tutorial. It's easy to write tutorials, and some other PL articles fall into this trap to varying extents. But that assumes the wrong perspective for readership. Meyer (and advocates generally) start with the assumption the reader comes in with: "I want to learn Eiffel, what do I need to know?" For the most part, that's the wrong readership of an encyclopedia. Instead, they come in with: "I want to understand (a) What Eiffel is (i.e. a PL, one which has certain principles and strengths, etc); (b) How Eiffel differs from other PLs; (c) The history, tools, community, etc. that surrounds the PL". Readers should most certainly be pointed to other resources, such as actual tutorials on a PL. But an encyclopedia article isn't the right place to learn a programming language... it's the place to learn about a PL.
  3. The article jumped much too quickly into the specific lingo of Eiffel without providing context and bearings for readers who are likely to be familiar with other PLs. For example, before I added it, there was not even a mention of the fact that what Eiffel calls a "feature" is often called a "method" in other PLs. Similarly for many other terms and phrases.
In the interest of accuracy: a "feature" in Eiffel does not correspond to what is called a "method" in Smalltalk and subsequent languages. Features cover both "routines" (the closer equivalent to "methods", or "functions" in C++) and "attributes" ("instance variables" in Smalltalk, sometimes called otherwise, e.g "field", in other languages). I guess that if you want a word in a more widely used language it's "member". The reason for the importance of the word "feature" in Eiffel is the "Uniform Access Principle" which implies that you cannot distinguish functions from attributes from the outside, i.e. in "a.a_feature", a_feature could be a function or an attribute and the other class can use it without knowing which. Perhaps you could correct this. Fuchsias 03:32, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Or to put it all in a phrase: WP:AUTO matters. LotLE×talk 15:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Meyer points to an old version at [12] in the above thread. I'm not sure if that's the exact version before his contributions, or what. But looking at it, I'm quite struck by what a nice tidy article it was then. It's not really clear to me whether that 7-week ago version was better than the current one, but it certainly avoids a lot of the pitfalls of the current WP:AUTO version, and was a very clear and well-written overview of the language at a conceptual level. I do think it's better to move forward with trimming down the newer additions, and working for NPOV in them; but it's quite striking how wrong the claims of prior deficiency in the article are: I really encourage editors to glance at that pre-Meyer version. What the older one was not, of course, was an Eiffel tutorial; which is exactly what a WP article should not be. I don't think the article is big enough to spin off an "Eiffel syntax" child (we did that at Python), but I encourage editors to keep in mind letting readers get the conceptual parts as close to the top of the article as possible, while postpoining syntax details until later (I just moved "background" up to this purpose). LotLE×talk 16:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I would argue that the article is way too long and reads more as an how-to than an encyclopedic article. See for examples C++, a widely used language. I would suggest to trim the article to a compact size, explain the overall concepts of the language, and provide some references for any assertions that require it. All other text could be moved to Wikibooks. Tag added. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with language font conventions?

I see two articles on programming languages with examples using specific fonts in accordance with the respective language conventions (keywords in boldface): Simula and Algol 60. It's not clear why this can't apply to Eiffel as well. Fuchsias 03:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

These two examples make use of bold and italics, but neither use any special color. Just a data point. If you'd like to participate in the Quick Poll about this, I'm sure that would be helpful, Fuchsias. LotLE×talk 03:21, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I understand color is more controversial, but didn't you remove all boldface and italics as well?Fuchsias 03:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
One more: Pascal (programming language) uses bold keywords. What's all the fuss about?Fuchsias 03:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I didn't remove any typography at all, at least not in the way Meyer claims. I copied some sections over from the "scratch pad" draft that a few editors used while the article was protected, in order to get my wording improvements back in place (as Meyer requested I do on the talk page!). Nonetheless, what we have now is clearly the "Wikipedia default", so absent some consensus to do otherwise, it's the right thing. FWIW, I thought about how I might automatically add highlighting to code samples should such consensus emerge. I found a keyword list, and the whole thing would take less that 20 lines of code to do automatically. So bellyaching about the huge effort that might be involved in adding highlights is rubbish... I'll write a script in 15 minutes, and run it in 5 seconds. LotLE×talk 04:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Just found another example: Algol W uses underlining. More evidence that elsewhere having each language article follow the language's own conventions doesn't seem to have bothered anyone. Fuchsias 03:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Note that no-one has contended the use of Eiffel-specific code formatting in the code sample blocks. It is formatting of inline code (code in the article text) that is controversial and inadvisable for many reasons. So the articles you've listed are, unfortunatly beside the point; notice that none of them uses language-idiosyncratic formatting of inlined code. Mikademus 09:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Please note the quick poll above: A number of editors have stated a preference against using Eiffel conventions in code blocks, in some cases only against the color convention. But certainly, a larger number of editors dislike inlined code highlighting. LotLE×talk 14:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I meant that during the flurry of Meyer's edits, before the real atagonism arose, no-one was intransigent about colours in the code boxblocks. Mikademus 17:35, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Which, I think, leaves the best compromise position as being that of using font conventions everywhere without use of colour anywhere. This removes the primary complaint with regard to font conventions for inline code - that it becomes confused with Wikilinks, and removes the primary complaint with regard to removal of font conventions - that keywords, variables, etc. referenced inline in the text are clearly referencing code, are more readable, and consistent in style with their reference point in code blocks.
It strikes me that this is an easy solution. Clearly if we can have readability and consistency without creating confusion then we should do that. Leland McInnes 21:05, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

FTR, the Wikipedia manual of style is very clear on the use of color -- namely, don't do it. - Keith D. Tyler (AMA) 18:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I read the use of color as very clearly stating: "Using color ALONE to convey information (color coding) should not be done. ... It is certainly desirable to use color as an aid for those who can see it, but the information should still be accessible without it." 75.5.175.149 02:34, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


Adding boldface to keywords

Here's the 15 lines necessary to highlight all the keywords in the Wikitext: 

#!/usr/bin/python
import sys
kws = '''
    alias all and as check class create debug deferred do else
    elseif end ensure expanded export external feature from frozen
    if implies indexing infix inherit inspect invariant is like
    local loop not obsolete old once or prefix redefine rename
    require rescue retry select separate then undefine until
    variant when xor'''.split()
fname = sys.argv[1]
wikitext = open(fname).readlines()
for line in wikitext:
    if line.startswith(' '):
        for kw in kws:
            line = line.replace(" %s" % kw," '''%s'''" % kw)
    print line,

If I have the keywords wrong, let me know to fix it. I'm not really sure what the rule is for where italics go (the article doesn't really say clearly), but presumably if I did it would be easy to add to the simple scaffolding. LotLE×talk 04:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Please note that such a script will also only cover codeblocks, and not inline code. There is also, as you note, the issue of italics. Leland McInnes 05:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

authors intention not important?

if the author thinks the typesetting is important, why not leave it as such? if you really write code in eiffel, you anyway use an editor and set your style to your own preferences. imo wikipedia tries to give an authentic picture and is not "your personal text editor". one paragraph at the end hinting at that is just blowing up an already long article.

also python uses a special kind of indention ... but contrary to eiffel the python compiler enforces it. currently the article sometimes does not get the indention right - comp. http://se.ethz.ch/~meyer/publications/online/eiffel/basic.html.

is there a place to vote about such things in en.wikipedia.org?

--ThurnerRupert 05:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Bold and italic font conventions

I think we have, at this point, at least a rough consensus for bold and italic Eiffel font conventions to be used throughout the article (inline, and in codeblocks). Colour, whether restricted to codeblocks or not, seems to still be somewhat cntroversial, so let's leave that aside for now. Barring no further complaints in response to this I will, sometime in the next week or so, try and go through the article and apply bold/italic font conventions wherever appropriate. Leland McInnes 05:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

i tried to re-order the poll and separate out a vote for code block, and for inline code.
it seems to be a clear vote for eiffel standard with color in code blocks.
for inline code i do not know how to interpret the vote. it seems quite even for all three options. if we take away the color then wikipedia style looses. --ThurnerRupert 22:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
No, there's not. The way things work is that the editor with the most time (or sockpuppet friends) wins. If you don't like it, fork Wikipedia; it's Free. 128.135.99.80 23:05, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Font conventions (again)

Another possible approach to handlign syntax conventions has become available. Wikipedia now supports GeSHi[13], which provides automated syntax highlighting by use of <syntaxhighlight> tags. This would eliminate the need to include formatting markup in the text of the page itself (which can be a little cumbersome). A downside is that the current support for syntax highlighting of Eiffel (yes, it has Eiffel support already) doesn't perfectly conform to the current syntax presentation guidelines:

For example we would get the following 

   class 
       HELLO_WORLD
   create
       make
   feature
       make
         do
            io.put_string ("Hello, world!")
            io.put_new_line
         end
   end

However, if we were to convert the page to using GeSHi <syntaxhighlight> tags then we could move the convention issues over to fixing Eiffel syntax highlighting in GeSHi (there are, apparently, files for each language which can be changed) and not have to mess with markup on this page anymore -- it would all propogate automatically. Thoughts? -- Leland McInnes 20:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I like this proposal. GeSHi seems to use CSS so it's reasonable to think users could pick how they want to view the code. For instance, I could imagine little buttons on every source snippet that would switch between formatted and unformatted views. Regardless, with GeSHi support, I think these <syntaxhighlight> tags are likely to become the standard way to present code, so this article should probably conform for that reason. --Doradus 03:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
It is done. Certainyl it makes maintainability of code samples much easier. It also has the bonus of actually taggin code as Eiffel code specifically. Unfortunately it doesn't work fo inline code. -- Leland McInnes 06:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Why wouldn't it work for inline code? --Doradus 21:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Because GeSHi automatically renders into blocks, so putting <syntaxhighlight> tags on inline code only results in it no longer being inline. -- Leland McInnes 02:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice to see the article has recovered from its brief bout of blue-font insanity. I think the way it's done now, with a "style conventions" section, is just right. --Doradus 21:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

there was a clear vote on how it should like, and the inventors proposal was voted for. i'd suggest you change your stylesheet so it conforms to the original, or you change it back to without stylesheet and it looks again like the original. --83.215.194.249 00:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
I would be happy if the GeSHi Eiffel stylesheet could be cleaned up to conform. It's actually reasonably close already (compare, for example, to code on the open source EiffelStudio wiki [14][15]). That, however, is in the hands of whoever maintains GeSHi for Wikipedia -- I really would not know how to make the change as an ordinary user. Ultimately this is the best solution, it just has pending stylesheet changes to be dealt with. -- Leland McInnes 02:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
It seems to be at MediaWiki:Geshi.css, so make whatever change you want. --Doradus 11:57, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
That is what I suggested to do 4 years later, although the format has an inline option class HELLO_WORLD create make feature ... if that makes sense.
I don't know if you already had noticed that. This discussion is so long that I forgot what other point I wanted to write about.

No instructions, advice, or how-to

I removed Thumperward's "how-to" marker, as I do not see where it applies. Please provide a specific example or more detailed critizism. Thanks. --Schoelle (talk) 15:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Introductory sentences are promotional, not NPOV

The introductory paragraph reads like marketing copy.. Since efficient development, reliability, and extensibility are generally considered virtues, and object-oriented programming is widely seen as a road to these qualities, all this introduction says is that Eiffel is designed to be a good object-oriented language. The way the first paragraph reads now, it seems to say, "Eiffel is designed to get object oriented languages right, which is demonstrated by its use in academia and in all of these different applications, and you even have a wide choice of tools to use!" It is only in the second paragraph that the article gets around to discussing the specific principles that distinguish Eiffel from other languages.

The introduction should describe what makes Eiffel objectively different, and anything that is said about how good it is needs to be backed up by citations to published and peer-reviewed studies that demonstrate using Eiffel leads to measurably better results than using some other specific choices that could be made. Only then are such statements NPOV. What we have here instead sounds like bandwagon marketing tactics don't cut it (ironic, since according to Tiobe Software's Programming Community Index, Eiffel is not even in the top 50 programming languages).

popularity is not a way to judge the good quality of a language. Many OO languages are very bad designed. Eiffel, was designed with a more formally rigorous approach, I don't care if the majority of programmers ignore what a precondition is, preferring languages more easy to learn for the laymen, those with no types, and a lot of traps to fall.
Eiffel has a good design because it gives no rope to programmer for hanging himself. And has features which were added just recently to those more popular OO languages, which I wont mention to avoid a religious discussion with their fans.
I hate OO languages because they distorted many concepts. For example, encapsulation, in many OO languages the objects are parametrized changing internal constants. That violate the information hiding principle.
Nevertheless, I am interested to learn about Eiffel, because contrary to many of the other OO counterparts, seems a well designed language, Because it is designed for good software engineering practices, like design by contract. It is not in the top list of popularity, but had positively influenced both other programming languages and the programming practice.
It may sound publicity to you, but it is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2806:106E:B:EB8A:5812:FFA3:1BF4:BDDD (talk) 03:34, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Unless there are objections which need to be worked through, I will soon rewrite the first sentence to "Eiffel is an ISO-standardized, general-purpose object-oriented programming language," move the rest of the paragraph to the end of the section into a paragraph just above the contents, and continue the first paragraph with the second paragraph. --—C. V. Hyphus\talk 04:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

 Lead reworked --Cybercobra (talk) 05:28, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

When appeared?

Infobox says 1986; text says "Since 1985, many suppliers have developed Eiffel programming environments". Any better sources? 192.12.12.178 (talk) 02:24, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

 Added a reference in the info block to the web page mentioning the history of the language. Alexander (Sasha) (talk) 09:06, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Missing File Extension

Can someone who knows Eiffel add the file extension used by its components. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.209.111.39 (talk) 22:49, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

 Added the file extension to the language template block. Alexander (Sasha) (talk) 08:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
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