Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!watdragon!violet!afscian From: afscian@violet.waterloo.edu (Anthony Scian) Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel Subject: ISE deadlines missed (was Emacs Eiffel mode) Message-ID: <16636@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Date: 24 Sep 89 23:40:18 GMT References:Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu Reply-To: afscian@violet.waterloo.edu (Anthony Scian) Distribution: comp Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 26 In article jwg1@gte.com (James W. Gish) writes: >I too, was told on numerous ocassions, that "we will start shipping >next Monday". However, we got a call a couple of days ago saying our >tape was being made - so I hope to have 2.2 very soon. It will be >nice when our industry develops to the point where expected ship dates >become more real. I can't speak for ISE and other companies, but >where I have worked in the past, the sales and marketing folks seemed >to be compelled to make false claims to the customers about shipping >dates, even when told by the engineers up front that it just couldn't >be done. Maybe if more of us start using Eiffel....:-) Obviously, using Eiffel hasn't helped ISE eliminate these sort of problems. This type of experience does not look good for a company that advertises "Eiffel is the industrial application of software engineering techniques". ISE gives you "incredible support" and (with Eiffel) "can solve your problems both today and tomorrow". [Dr.Dobbs, Sept. 1989] A company that makes these sort of statements has to back them up with high-quality software delivered on time, not promises. Lest I sound overly critical of ISE, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the OOSC book and most of Dr.Meyer's published articles, so I'm not anti-Eiffel. I would like to see Eiffel prevail over C++ but this will take nuturing and commitment to ISE's seminal customer base. -- Anthony //// Anthony Scian afscian@violet.uwaterloo.ca afscian@violet.waterloo.edu //// "I can't believe the news today, I can't close my eyes and make it go away" -U2