EFLib is a tool for programmers. It is the result of years of experiments in the area of software reuse versus flexibility. EFLib provides you with a set of fundamental classes for your applications. You can use the same classes for all of your applications. This give them a standardized design. Some day your program may need to adjust to new demands and changed requirements. EFLib is prepared for changes!

EFLib helps you with many fundamental programming issues. The framework provides a set of classic data structures implemented with high-performance algorithms, a number theoretic system with generic arithmetics, mathematical functions, generic numerical solvers, text processing and converting, fast searching, parsing, abstract graphics classes, a meta-engine with support for a distributed object model, database support, image processing and so on.

EFLib focuses on flexibility
EFLib is an application framework which is more than a common class library. In a class library, classes are more or less independent. You select some of them and build your application bottom-up. On the other hand, classes in a framework are strongly tied to each other. Their relation are much more complex, and the user of the framework is not expected to know how they interact. When you build your application you combine micro architectures into a working whole in a top-down sense.

Mature frameworks allow a reduction in the application source code of up to 90% compared to applications developed with conventional libraries (see for example [Gamma89]). Expect a similar reduction of the development cost. Frameworks standardize applications, thus decreasing the cost of maintenance. All applications developed with the same framework look and behave in the same way. Therefore, many programmers will understand them.

Frameworks are much more powerful than conventional class libraries. Mature frameworks hide a lot of details from the user. Indeed this makes it easier to develop programs, but it also have a very important consequence: the framework isolate some decisions about the structure of the application. The framework can easily change the behavior of the application.