begin quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED] as of Thu, Feb 03, 2005 at 08:03:34PM -0800: > ----- Forwarded message from Gabriel Sechan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- > >Are you saying that experts in any language pretty much develop things > >at the same rate? > > Yes.
I was under the impression[1] that LOC/day didn't really vary from language to language for a given programmer. Thus, the argument for high-level languages. > >Are you saying that it is impossible to > >have a language automate some tedious task (memory management, > >variable typing) without introducing new problems that are just as > >bad? > > Yes. I'd also point out that typing is a bad example. There's a damn good > reasons for types- it supplies information to the programmer/maintainer > about what the variable is. Languages that eliminate type also eliminate > this information. A bad tradeoff for a half dozen keystrokes. I've been playing in typed languages and untyped (well, lacking compile-time type checking) languages, and I see the benefit of both. When I'm trying to figure out what's going on, or track down certain sorts of bugs, I really like types. When I'm noodling around or trying to write generic code, I like typeless. I don't think there is an "optimal" choice. Both approaches have their upsides and their downsides. > As for memory management- it just isn't a problem. I can't remember when > the last time I had a memory pointer problem. You eliminate a negligible s/had/discovered/ ;-P > percentage of bugs at the cost of a lot of flexibility. Worse, in my > experience, the problems are only partially eliminated at best, as explained > previously. Well, asserted, anyway. > Experience and observation. About all you can. The tricky part of all this > is its a very hard thing to test empirically. You can't have one person > write the code in 2 languages, he learns how to write the program on trial > one. And having two separate experts write in their prefered language > leaves questions as to thge relative capabilites of the two programmers, as > well as the environment they program under. I think you have to approach it statistically; lots of programmers, lots of different problems, over a significant period of time. Repeatedly. -Stewart "Or figure out how to inspect parallel worlds" Stremler [1] From reports and summaries of various studies. -- KPLUG-List mailing list [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
