Editing Eiffel (programming language) (section)

===Background===
Eiffel was originally developed by Eiffel Software, a company founded by [[Bertrand Meyer]]. ''[[Object-Oriented Software Construction]]'' contains a detailed treatment of the concepts and theory of the object technology that led to Eiffel's design.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Meyer |first1=Bertrand |author1-link=Bertrand Meyer |date=1997 |title=Object-Oriented Software Construction |edition=2nd |publisher=[[Prentice Hall]] |isbn=0-13-629155-4}}</ref>

The design goal behind the Eiffel language, libraries, and programming methods is to enable programmers to create reliable, reusable software modules. Eiffel supports [[multiple inheritance]], [[genericity]], [[Polymorphism (computer science)|polymorphism]], [[Encapsulation (computer programming)|encapsulation]], type-safe conversions, and [[parameter covariance]]. Eiffel's most important contribution to [[software engineering]] is [[design by contract]] (DbC), in which [[Assertion (software development)|assertions]], [[precondition]]s, [[postcondition]]s, and [[class invariant]]s are employed to help ensure program correctness without sacrificing efficiency.

Eiffel's design is based on object-oriented programming theory, with only minor influence of other [[programming paradigm]]s or concern for support of legacy code. Eiffel formally supports [[abstract data type]]s. Under Eiffel's design, a software text should be able to reproduce its design documentation from the text itself, using a formalized implementation of the "Abstract Data Type".