Eiffel

Alexandre Gustave
[a-lek-sahn-druh gys-tav] /a lɛkˈsɑ̃ drə güsˈtav/ (Show IPA), 1832–1923, French civil engineer and pioneer aerodynamic researcher.
Contemporary Examples

Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana’s Black Star Square.
Best of the Memorial Service The Daily Beast July 6, 2009

From Paris, there came a dispatch of a commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, across from the Eiffel Tower.
The Ways of American Memory Fouad Ajami September 11, 2011

This was not the Impossible—the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House—this was a walk above the LongHouse pond.
Philippe Petit’s Moment of Concern Walking the WTC Tightrope Anthony Haden-Guest August 7, 2014

In the last three weeks, the Eiffel Tower has been evacuated twice for bomb threats.
How to Travel Safe Lauren Streib October 3, 2010

Historical Examples

I never saw such an interminable shaft; it seemed higher than the Eiffel Tower.
The Voice on the Wire Eustace Hale Ball

He says they are higher than any building in Europe, except the Eiffel Tower.
Diary of a Pilgrimage Jerome K. Jerome

The brilliant beacon of the Eiffel Tower sat high up in the sky, like an exile star.
The Daughters of Danaus Mona Caird

The Eiffel Tower is in itself a gigantic lightning-conductor.
Thunder and Lightning Camille Flammarion

At the other end of the city, they gather round the Eiffel Tower, which now bears the highest artillery in the world.
Ways of War and Peace Delia Austrian

The Eiffel Tower was my one danger, yet it was my winning-post!
My Airships Alberto Santos-Dumont

noun
Alexandre Gustave (alɛksɑ̃drə ɡystav). 1832–1923, French engineer
language
An object-oriented language produced by Bertrand Meyer in 1985. Eiffel has classes with multiple inheritance and repeated inheritance, deferred classes (like Smalltalk’s abstract class), and clusters of classes. Objects can have both static types and dynamic types. The dynamic type must be a descendant of the static (declared) type. Dynamic binding resolves multiple inheritance clashes. It has flattened forms of classes, in which all of the inherited features are added at the same level and generic classes parametrised by type.
Other features are persistent objects, garbage collection, exception handling, foreign language interface. Classes may be equipped with assertions (routine preconditions and postconditions, class invariants) implementing the theory of “Design by Contract” and helping produce more reliable software.
Eiffel is compiled to C. It comes with libraries containing several hundred classes: data structures and algorithms (EiffelBase), graphics and user interfaces (EiffelVision) and language analysis (EiffelLex, EiffelParse).
The first release of Eiffel was release 1.4, introduced at the first OOPSLA in October 1986. The language proper was first described in a University of California, Santa Barbara report dated September 1985.
Eiffel is available, with different libraries, from several sources including Interactive Software Engineering, USA (ISE Eiffel version 3.3); Sig Computer GmbH, Germany (Eiffel/S); and Tower, Inc., Austin (Tower Eiffel).
The language definition is administered by an open organisation, the Nonprofit International Consortium for Eiffel (NICE). There is a standard kernel library.
An Eiffel source checker and compiler front-end is available.
Latest version: 4.2, as of 1998-10-28.
Latest version: ISE Eiffel version 3.3.
See also Sather, Distributed Eiffel, Lace, shelf.
E-mail: .
[“Eiffel: The Language”, Bertrand Meyer, P-H 1992].
(1998-11-15)