A Complexity Metric for High-Level Software Languages

Warfield designs a numerical measurement to designate complexity and usability of three computer languages (ADA, Pascal and ALGOL 60) and demonstrates the relative benefits of the three. Presented at 1987 IEEE International Conference on Systems Man and Cybernetics, 21-23 October in Alexandria, Virginia/Washington, D.C.



(The proceedings version was published without the appendices) By designing a numerical measurement to designate complexity and usability of three computer languages (ADA, Pascal and ALGOL 60) the author demonstrates the relative benefits of the three. Warfield's comments on this paper, written in his l987 "Integrative Sciences. . . " manuscript. "A paper in which structural analysis shows the relative complexity associated with ADA, Pascal, and ALGOL60. It is concluded that ADA is ten orders of magnitude more complex than Pascal, which is two orders of magnitude more complex that ALGOL 60, when considering only the structure of the syntax of these languages." The original manuscript contained appendices giving a printout of the actual syntax for Pascal and Algol 60; these appendices were not in the printed proceedings version which also, in other ways, is a much abridged document when compared with the original.




Additional Info

  • Category: Applications, Software, Teaching Materials
  • Size: 20 p;57 p
  • Description: Transparency printouts w cover
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