Programmers' performance on structured versus nonstructured function definitions

Berg van den, K.G. and Broek van den, P.M. (1996) Programmers' performance on structured versus nonstructured function definitions. Information and Software Technology, 38 (7). pp. 477-491. ISSN 0950-5849

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Abstract:	A control-flow model for functional programs is used in an experimental comparison of the performance of programmers on structured versus nonstructured Miranda function definitions. The performance is taken as a measure of the comprehensibility of functional programs. The experimental set-up is similar to the Scanlan study (1989). However, in the present study, a two-factor repeated measures design is used in the statistical analysis. The control-flow model appears to be useful in the shaping of the experiment. A significantly better performance has been found for structured function definitions on both dependent variables: the time needed to answer questions about the function definitions and the proportion correct answers. Moreover, for structured function definitions, a counter-intuitive result has been obtained: there are significantly fewer errors in larger definitions than in smaller ones.
Item Type:	Article
Copyright:	© 1996 Elsevier Science
Faculty:	Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS)
Research Group:	Software Engineering (SE)
Link to this item:	http://purl.utwente.nl/publications/57290
Official URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0950-5849(95)01085-8
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