In a real world application, who cares whether a particular routine takes 100 ms or 500 ms?
Ostensibly the test is part of an evaluation to compare tools for a given project. If the speed of this one core algorithm were indeed critical then using the industry standard 3GL, C, would yield faster results and possibly in fewer lines of code than a more verbose and characteristically slower 3GL like Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
It is precisely for cases such as this that an externals mechanism exists in most modern 4GLs, so that the other 90% of the development cycle is not encumbered with the sort of bit-counting tedium that radically lowers overall productivity.
By relying on a single factor to the ommission of others which directly affect development ROI, the comparison is not of the caliber one would use to evaluate tools for professional work.
I found some references on the subject that might be helpful if other relevant criteria were to be considered:
Choosing Software Development Products <http://archive.adaic.com/docs/reports/lawlis/6.htm>
Rapid Application Development (RAD) Studies of Differences in Productivity <http://sysdev.ucdavis.edu/WEBADM/document/radmanage-studies.htm>
Overview of interactive GUI development environments <http://www.metacard.com/ide1.html>
Software Metrics <http://hebb.cis.uoguelph.ca/~dave/27320/new/metrics.html>
A Software Metrics Primer <http://www.processimpact.com/articles/metrics_primer.html>
Software Metrics: Ten Traps to Avoid <http://www.processimpact.com/articles/mtraps.html>
Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21st Century <http://dev.scriptics.com/doc/scripting.html>
The cost of poor quality software <http://www.ispw.com/articles/Computer%20Finance.htm>
What Is A "Fourth-Generation Programming Language" And Why Should I care? <http://www.dexterchaney.com/showpage.asp?page=108>
-- Richard Gaskin Fourth World Media Corporation ___________________________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.FourthWorld.com _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
