I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable when it comes to the 'e' language, but a question from a reader a couple of weeks ago asked a question that I really had never thought too much about before. He wanted to know what 'e' signified - in other words, what the heck does that letter 'e' mean? Mike Stellfox from Cadence was kind enough (as usual) to provide the answer:
When Yoav (founder of Verisity and the main inventor of the e language), came up with “e”, his idea was “English minus minus” (as opposed to C++). The idea was to create a language that would allow verification engineers to more concisely describe their verification environment in a more English-like and declarative way. It might be arguable how “English-like” e really is, but you probably get the idea of the analogy when you consider how declarative the language is in the following areas:
- Declarative constraints
- Declarative coverage
- Declarative temporals
Thanks Mike, and thanks to the reader who asked the question!
