Looking forward to 6.1 (and 6.2)

It has been a while since I last blogged here. We've all been busy with wrapping up 6.1 and I've been busy working on extension points for EiffelStudio.

No so long ago we went open source, which not only allowed you guys access to everything you needed to build your own version of EiffelStudio, but gave you the opportunity to add your own tools or extend existing ones. However, the code for EiffelStudio doesn't do anyone many favors when it comes to actually playing around with extending EiffelStudio. In 6.1 we are beginning to change all that. During this release cycle we've added SOA framework, part of a framework called Griffin, for implementing services. In addition we've added new helper classes and base implementation we are calling EiffelStudio Foundations (ESF) for assisting in developing EiffelStudio UI.

Both of these frameworks are already running inside the development version of EiffelStudio. The new Errors and Warnings tool is actually a product of using both Griffin and ESF. The new frameworks remove the burden of having to know the intricate details of how parts of EiffelStudio interact and the foundation implementation does pretty much most of the work for you when creating tools and dialogs. Tool and service development is so much easier in 6.1 that in any previous version, and, the good news is, we're just getting started!

Performance is another aspect that Griffin and ESF are trying to combat. I've personally been on a quest to improve the startup time as well as memory usage. You are not going to notice a lot of gains in 6.1 because we are still in the process of converting over all the tools to use ESF but all new development is already making us of it. Integrating those changes so late in the release cycle is far too risky but you should start to see improvements very early post-6.1.

I'm working on documentation/whitepapers as fast as I can but I have many things to do in the next few weeks. Keep an eye on the following pages:

http://dev.eiffel.com/Category:EiffelStudio_Services
http://dev.eiffel.com/Category:Extending_EiffelStudio