Development environments for Windows platform

This document is under construction. Last update: 2/25/99

  C++ Ada95 Visual Basic Component Pascal Eiffel SmallTalk Delphi Java
Empirical Data? N Y N N N N N N
IDE Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Win API Y Y Y Y ? ? Y Y
GUI Builder Y Y Y Y ? ? Y Y
availability Y free Y free free free Y free
standard ANSI ANSI/ISO N N Y N N Y
validated
compilers		 N Y N N N N N N
portability 1 1,3 0 3 1 1 0 1,2
reliability 0 5 0 ? 5 3 ? 4
maintainable 1 5 1 ? ? ? ? ?
reusability 1,2? 1 1,? 1,2 1 1 1 1
needs runtime? n n YES n n ? ? YES
                 
                 

Portability

  1. compilers exist on multiple platforms
  2. byte-code portability
  3. compiler can re-target to multiple platforms

Reliability (0-5 rating based on these attributes: )

strong typing, subrange checking, array bounds checking, assertion checking, overflow checking, typed pointers, exception handling, garbage collection

Maintainable (0-5 rating based on these attributes: )

support for ADT's, readable syntax, separate compilation, version control

Reusability

  1. Object-oriented (source level reuse)
  2. Components (binary level reuse, E.g. COM or DLL)