"Must it be assumed that because we are engineers beauty is not our concern, and that while we make our constructions robust and durable we do not also strive to make them elegant ?
Is it not true that the genuine conditions of strength always comply with the secret conditions of harmony ?
The first principle of architectural esthetics is that the essential lines of a monument must be determined by a perfect adaptation to its purpose." -- Gustave Eiffel, 1887
From his response in the newspaper Le Temps to a petition by members of the literary and artistic Establishment protesting his project of elevating a tower of iron in Paris. Quoted by Bertrand Meyer, creator of the Eiffel language.
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-367.htm
I firmly believe it is useful to consider this Gustave Eiffel's statement also holds for modern, ambitious, and realistic development environments such as Visual Studio.
(Dominique Colnet, implementor of SmartEiffel was one of my teachers in Nancy...)
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