BUSINESS CASE
The Business Case
For CTOs evaluating risk, cost, and capability.
Executive Summary
40-80x
productivity
5 days
training
0
CVEs
100%
ownership
The Cost Equation
Traditional Approach
- • Hire experienced developers ($150-200K+ each)
- • Months to find qualified candidates
- • Ongoing dependency management
- • Framework upgrade cycles
- • Bug discovery in production
Eiffel + AI Approach
- • Train existing developers (5 days)
- • Tiered library strategy (see below)
- • You control your own evolution (not chasing external fashion)
- • Contract verification catches bugs early
The Library Reality
Eiffel has a real library ecosystem—it's just different:
1
Stable Core Libraries
EiffelBase, EiffelNet, WEL—foundation-layer stable like C/C++, not fashion-layer volatile.
2
Community Libraries
GitHub projects like simple_* libraries. Fork, fix, contribute—with AI acceleration.
3
Build What You Need
When nothing fits, build it in hours/days—not weeks/months. AI makes this viable.
Key insight: You're not avoiding change—you're controlling it. See value in a market trend? Capture it quickly in your own library. You can use external libraries if you find and trust them—but you don't have to. That's optionality, not dependency.
ROI Analysis
Case study: 12 libraries built in 10 days
Traditional Estimate
$467,500 - $765,000
Actual Cost
~$7,500
ROI
6,133% - 10,100%
For every $1 invested: $62-$102 in value
Risk Analysis
Perceived risks (and reality):
"Can't hire Eiffel developers"
Reality: Existing community (dozens to hundreds) + 5-day onboarding for OOP developers
"No library ecosystem"
Reality: Tiered approach—stable core, community libs, and fast custom builds
"Single point of failure"
Reality: Reference docs capture institutional knowledge
"Unproven approach"
Reality: Eiffel is 40 years old. DBC is battle-tested.
Security Advantage
Industry data on AI-generated code:
- 45% contains security flaws (Veracode 2024 ↗)
- 10,000+ new security findings/month (Apiiro 2025 ↗)
With Design by Contract:
- Preconditions validate all inputs
- Postconditions verify all outputs
- Invariants ensure consistent state
- Violations caught at runtime, not production