A Controlled Experiment to Assess the Benefits of Procedure Argument Type Checking
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Tagung:
Zeitschriftenartikel
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Summary
Type checking is considered an important mechanism for detecting programming errors, especially interface errors. This report describes an experiment to assess the defect-detection capabilities of static, inter-module type checking.
The experiment uses ANSI C and Kernighan&Ritchie (K&R) C. The relevant difference is that the ANSI C compiler checks module interfaces (i.e., the parameter lists of calls to external functions), whereas K&R C does not. The experiment employs a counterbalanced design in which each of the 40 subjects, most of them CS Ph.D. students, writes two non-trivial programs that interface with a complex library (Motif). Each subject writes one program in ANSI C and one in K&R C. The input to each compiler run is saved and manually analyzed for defects.
Results indicate that delivered ANSI C programs contain significantly fewer interface defects than delivered K&R C programs. Furthermore, after subjects have gained some familiarity with the interface they are using, ANSI C programmers remove defects faster and are more productive (measured in both delivery time and functionality implemented).
Bibtex
@article{,
author={Lutz Prechelt, Walter F. Tichy},
title={A Controlled Experiment to Assess the Benefits of Procedure Argument Type Checking},
year=1998,
month=Apr,
volume={24},
url={http://ps.ipd.kit.edu/downloads/za_1998_controlled_experiment_assess_benefits_procedure_argument.pdf},
abstract={Type checking is considered an important mechanism for detecting programming errors, especially interface errors. This report describes an experiment to assess the defect-detection capabilities of static, inter-module type checking.The experiment uses ANSI C and Kernighan&Ritchie (K&R) C. The relevant difference is that the ANSI C compiler checks module interfaces (i.e., the parameter lists of calls to external functions), whereas K&R C does not. The experiment employs a counterbalanced design in which each of the 40 subjects, most of them CS Ph.D. students, writes two non-trivial programs that interface with a complex library (Motif). Each subject writes one program in ANSI C and one in K&R C. The input to each compiler run is saved and manually analyzed for defects.Results indicate that delivered ANSI C programs contain significantly fewer interface defects than delivered K&R C programs. Furthermore, after subjects have gained some familiarity with the interface they are using, ANSI C programmers remove defects faster and are more productive (measured in both delivery time and functionality implemented).},
number={4},
pages={302-312},
journal={IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering},
}
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Jahr:
1998
- Links:
| Titel Vorname Nachname |
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| Prof. Dr. Lutz Prechelt |
| Prof. em. Dr. Walter F. Tichy |