On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Isaac Gouy wrote: | | Are there studies that attempt to measure the complexity of | a PL?
I discovered a few recently, although not as many as one might like: CORC -- The Cornell computing language http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/366604.366651 DITRAN -- a compiler emphasizing diagnostics http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/363018.363060 CORC and DITRAN had some limited statistical analysis performed on the usage of the language and tools, although the studies were not ... not about the language _per se_. In some respects, they represent some very early software metrics work. Automatic program analysis and evaluation http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=807668&dl=GUIDE&coll=GUIDE&CFID=12216299&CFTOKEN=69028465 In the same vein, but not as early, and (perhaps) less interesting from a historical perspective. The impact of language design on the production of reliable software http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=808420&dl=GUIDE&coll=GUIDE&CFID=12216299&CFTOKEN=69028465 Gannon eventually moved into software metrics, but he has two early papers that are spot on for langauge complexity analysis from a user perspective. This one looked at TOPPS (a teaching language used at the University of Toronto) and some focused/targeted evolution into TOPPS II. Programming factors - language features that help explain programming complexity http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=810091&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=12216299&CFTOKEN=69028465 A comparison between errors made by students using NT (non-typed) and ST (statically typed), two little pedagogical languages. The two Gannon papers are probably the most pertinent to your question. Or, the two most pertinent I know of at the moment. Some of the other papers I dug up while working on a lit review may be of interest. I acknowledge at the moment that these were mostly culled by pounding CiteSeer and the ACM DL; I only did some cursory searches through the IEEE library, and haven't fully explored the references of all of these papers. That is to say, I have another year or so's worth of work to do. http://www.cs-ed.org/blogs/mjadud/archives/000237.html Hope that's even vaguely related to what you're looking for, Matt PS - The whole field of software metrics involves the measuring of the complexity of programs expressed in one language or another; I don't know how much work has been done on the languages themselves. http://www.google.com/search?q=software+metrics+language+complexity&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 might get you started... ________________________________________________________________________ Matt Jadud http://www.cs-ed.org/blogs/mjadud/ Canterbury Weather: High 59 F / 15 C, Low 53 F / 12 C, Light rain ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
