Re: Languages don't matter. A mathematical refutation

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

On Thu, 2 Apr 2015 05:59:03 -0700 (PDT), brbarkstrom@gmail.com 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.

Or taking another path, considering "probabilities" of same error made in C
and Ada. Again, there would be no statistics of same errors, as each error
is singular and either present or not. Thus the model of "same" error, must
be a random choice of a program from a pool of programs verifying if this
error is in there. This is methodically questionable, as there is no metric
to measure "sameness" of errors in different programs. Furthermore, this
requires the programs in the pools being equivalent in the sense that
"same" errors would have same chances to be present. But errors do not
occur, as I said. The reasons for errors be made are non-probabilistic. So
you have a problem of having the pools of "equivalent" programs and even
bigger problem of having "equivalent" pools of Ada and C programs.

> I'm thinking here of the statistical record of revisions to TeX
> that Knuth maintained [see Knuth, D. E., 1999: Digital Typography,
> Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University,
> pp. 655-662.]
> 
> It seems reasonable to suppose that there are two costs to long-term
> maintenance once a particular project has completed development:
> correcting errors and adding features.  Part of the cost is due to
> having maintainers climb the learning curve.

It does not fit either of the models, notwithstanding how questionable
those are.

Apples and oranges all the way.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de