Re:Smalltalk’s Productivity
by lispm on Monday January 01, 2018 @01:06AM
(#16044930)
Unfortunately much of the data about function points in programming languages is more or less random, because the 'data' was just a guess decades ago or based on obscure measurements done with unknown projects decades ago.
Take the number in table 16 from the cited paper for LISP. There is no explanation what this LISP actually is and what projects the 'data' comes from. One finds the same data in papers from two or more decades ago. There FLAVORS, an OO system from Lisp Machine Lisp from the 80s, gets a much different value. CLOS, the OO system of Common Lisp, gets another one.
These tables were in part computed/guesses from language variants which were looked at decades ago.
Thus without qualifying the numbers, the tables are for many languages just nonsense. The data behind it is weak and the conclusions are on shaky ground. This amounts to pseudo science.
Take the number in table 16 from the cited paper for LISP. There is no explanation what this LISP actually is and what projects the 'data' comes from. One finds the same data in papers from two or more decades ago. There FLAVORS, an OO system from Lisp Machine Lisp from the 80s, gets a much different value. CLOS, the OO system of Common Lisp, gets another one.
These tables were in part computed/guesses from language variants which were looked at decades ago.
Thus without qualifying the numbers, the tables are for many languages just nonsense. The data behind it is weak and the conclusions are on shaky ground. This amounts to pseudo science.