Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!sun-barr!lll-winken!uunet!hsi!wright From: wright@hsi.UUCP (Gary Wright) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Header files Message-ID: <616@hsi86.hsi.UUCP> Date: 28 Sep 89 14:24:00 GMT References: <24955@louie.udel.EDU> Reply-To: wright@hsi.com (Gary Wright) Organization: Health Systems Intl., New Haven, CT. Lines: 20 In article <24955@louie.udel.EDU> new@udel.EDU (Darren New) writes: >Does anyone know of any relatively popular languages that allow this >sort of separation other than C and C++? If not, why not? Discussion? Eiffel does not have use header files but does support separate compliation. Each eiffel class resides in its own file. An individual class may be compiled or an entire system of classes may be compiled. To create an executable, one class is designated as the root class. Starting at the root class, the compiler examines the heirarchy of dependancies and recompiles any classes that have changed or that use another class whose *interface* has changed (if only the implementation has changed, not the interface, then clients of that class need not be recompiled). The compiler handles any client cycles automatically. There is no need to play games to avoid including header files more than once, building make file dependencies, or waiting until link time to find all the pieces of a class. -- Gary Wright ...!uunet!hsi!wright Health Systems International wright@hsi.com