Re: "Density" of Ada 95 vs. Ada 83

[bdl@mda.ca (Bruce Link)]

Michael F Brenner (mfb@mbunix.mitre.org) wrote:
: I made the minimal changes necessary, and measured them in
: both function points and source code bytes (I did not measure them in 
: less meaningful lines of code). 

What tool did you use to measure function points?  All of the tools I am
aware of count lines and use a conversion factor (which is somewhat arbitrary).
I would be quite interested in a tool which will count function pints, as one
of the problems I had with function points (aside from their being primarily
oriented to MIS systems) was that they could only be estimated, even after the
code was written.

Does your tool also measure feature points?

Re the original question, Capers Jones (modern proclaimer of function points)
claims that The average number of statements per function point for some 
popular languages is as follows (see http://www.spr.com/library/langtbl.htm):

Ada 83     71
Ada 95     49
C         128
C++        53

This would imply that Ada 95 should be 31% "denser" than Ada 83, 
62% "denser" than C, and 8% "denser" than C++.  Of course, as always,
your mileage may vary.
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce Link                         |Team OS/2
bdl@mda.ca                         |Team Ada