Re: memory leakages with Ada?

["Pat Rogers" <progers@classwide.com>]

Sorry to follow up to my own post...

> > So, where are the metrics?
>
> The  "Programming Languages and Lifecycle Cost" study shows metric data
strongly
> in favor of Ada over C, and of course the "Zeigler Paper" does as well.
>
> The same issue of Crosstalk has an article by Peter Amey entitled "Correctness
> by Construction: Better Can Also Be Cheaper".  On page 25 in that article, he
> quotes a study in which Ada only had 10 percent the residual errors on code
> written in C. Besides showing that in practice it does indeed matter what
> language one uses, it also shows the cost advantage of Ada over C for that
> domain.

An October 1998 letter to the editor of Crosstalk from Capers Jones is also
intersting in the context of Don's article:

"Software Metrics Hazards

     Elizabeth Starrett's article, "Measurement 101," Crosstalk, August 1998,
was interesting and well written, but it left out a critical point. Metrics
based on "source lines of code" move backward when comparing software
applications written in different programming languages. The version in the
low-level language will look better than the version in the high-level language.
     In an article aimed at metrics novices, it is very important to point out
some of the known hazards of software metrics. The fact that lines of code can't
be used to measure economic productivity is definitely a known hazard that
should be stressed.
     In a comparative study of 10 versions of the same period using 10 different
programming languages (Ada 83, Ada95, C, C++, Objective C, PL/I, Assembler,
CHILL, Pascal, and Smalltalk), the lines of code metric failed to show either
the highest productivity or best quality. Overall, the lowest cost and fewest
defects were found in Smalltalk and Ada95, but the lines of code metric favored
assembler. Function points correctly identified Smalltalk and Ada95 as being
superior, but lines of code failed to do this.
Capers Jones
Software Productivity Research "

> > Has anyone collected them in one place?
>
> I wonder about the ARA site...

Definitely has some material:

http://www.adaic.org/whyada/index.html

could use more.