From: Alan Brain <aebrain@dynamite.com.au>
Subject: Experiment Proposal re Languages
Date: 1996/10/24
Date: 1996-10-24T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <32702431.DE6@dynamite.com.au> (raw)
Re Language Wars.
It's my contention that not all languages are created equal. That some
have definite advantages over others, all other things being equal. For
example, and to be non-contraversial, programming in binary is likely to
be less productive than in C, in general. And a language specifically
tailored to a problem domain is likely to be better than any
general-purpose language.
So I'd like to try an experiment.
Basically, a central authority would make up a task with a reasonable
number of FPs of complexity, and write the Requirements. The task can't
be too big, as the programming would have to be done gratis - would 40
hours work be enough (implementation, that is)?
Then, via Internet, solicit a large number of suckers - um -
professional software engineers, to write a program suite which
accomplished the task. As my wife's into model railways, something
simple could be done here as regards a genuine honest-to-Ghod target
test suite.
My questions are:
What would be useful metrics? ( SLOCs, Person-Hours, etc)
What would be a reasonable upper bound to the size of the task?
Remember, this will have to be done gratis, I can't pay a cent.
What other variables should I measure? Experience, Environment, tools,
compilers?
How many victims would be required to be statistically valid, and/or
plausible?
I'd appreciate some feedback on others about this. Would it be
worthwhile? What analysis would be useful?
As I'm an Ada afficionado, I'd really like someone of the C pursuasion
to join me in designing the requirements, to eliminate unconscious bias.
Maybe even a braod spectrum of people.
I figure that I might just get a reasonable response if I could
challenge those who were barrackers for C, C++, Ada-83, Ada-95, Eiffel,
PL-I or whatever to PROVE their contentions in an experiment.
Comments, please?
I've put this only on comp.lang.ada. Apart from comp.lang.c,
compl.lang.eiffel, what other newsgroups should this be run on?
---------------------- <> <> How doth the little Crocodile
| Alan & Carmel Brain| xxxxx Improve his shining tail?
| Canberra Australia | xxxxxHxHxxxxxx _MMMMMMMMM_MMMMMMMMM
---------------------- o OO*O^^^^O*OO o oo oo oo oo
By pulling Maerklin Wagons, in 1/220 Scale
next reply other threads:[~1996-10-24 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 8+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1996-10-24 0:00 Alan Brain [this message]
1996-10-24 0:00 ` Experiment Proposal re Languages Larry Kilgallen
1996-10-24 0:00 ` Jonas Nygren
1996-10-24 0:00 ` Franklin Chen
1996-10-26 0:00 ` Michiel Perdeck
1996-10-26 0:00 ` Mark Eichin
1996-10-26 0:00 ` Michiel Perdeck
1996-10-28 0:00 ` Matthew M. Lih
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