On 11 Dec last I wrote:

> In the midst of a fairly long diatribe, Sam Kumar wrote:
> 
> > good 'Gotcha!'.  I should have said that programming languages
> > based on the Dykstra/Wirth bandwagon haven't proven to be any
> > safer than good Fortran 77.
> 
> Les Hatton ([log in to unmask]) has studied an enormous pile of
> codes in C++, C, Fortran 77 and Ada 83.
> 
> He's observed that densities of defects detectable by static analysis
> are all over the map, but for C, Fortran 77 and Ada 83 they appear,
> statisticlly, to be drawn from the same population.  Defect densities
> averaged 5-10 per 1000 lines of code, but were over 100 in a few
> isolated cases -- the most frightening being a Japanese nuclear
> reactor control code written in Fortran 77.
> 
> Defect densities observed in C++ programs appear, statistically, to
> come from a population with larger mean.
> 
> Given this, it was quite frightening to learn that there is apparently
> a project to re-write the high-defect Japanese nuclear reactor control
> program in C++.
> 
> Lifetime costs of equivalent programs in C, Fortran 77 and Ada 83
> appear, statistically, all to be drawn from the same population.
> Lifetime costs of C++ programs equivalent to programs developed in
> C, Fortran 77 or Ada 83 appear, statistically, to be drawn from a
> population with a mean about 3 times as large as the mean of the
> population from which comparable C, Fortran 77 and Ada 83 programs
> were drawn.
> 
> Measured by critera of safety, correctness, or lifetime cost, it's a
> mystery why anybody uses C++.

In this same category of study, one may be interested in a paper by
Stephen Ziegler entitled "Comparing Development Costs of C and Ada,"
available at http://www.rational.com/support/techpapers/c_and_ada.html.

Unfortunately, the text of the paper refers to several graphs that aren't
included, but the message is nonetheless clear:  In a study of comparable
projects, encompassing roughly 2 million lines each of C and Ada, C has
roughly twice the cost of Ada.

This doesn't say anything about _Fortran_ but it does show that such
studies _can_ be done, and that they can be informative.

Best regards,
Van Snyder


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