Re: Languages don't matter. A mathematical refutation

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Thu, 2 Apr 2015 08:58:41 -0700 (PDT), Jean François Martinez wrote:

> On Thursday, April 2, 2015 at 3:36:02 PM UTC+2, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>>> To change the subject a bit, is there any possibility of using
>>> the probabilistic approach to estimating the long-term cost of
>>> maintenance given a history of errors with a particular language?
>> 
>> I don't think so. Errors do not occur, they are present or introduced. The
>> only probabilistic model could be random selection of a given error from
>> the pool of errors. This is not related to the language choice. All
>> difference here is in the pools, since errors made in C are different from
>> errors made in Ada. You change the language, you get *other* errors, no
>> statistics across to compare.
> 
> Really?  Errors occur because of progarmmer quality, physical shape (had a
> bad night), distracting events, use of alcohol and drugs and plenty,
> plenty of factors.   One of them being that a bird has just landed  in
> front of your window.  Random.  

You are describing the process of programming. This is another model, which
is certainly not random. If that were random, the same programmer asked to
design the same program several times would randomly introduce any possible
errors. That is not the case. People have memory, they learn, decision
making process is nowhere random. In general, only typo errors could be
considered random. Anything above simple motoric functions is not random.
 
-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de