Abstract
This paper presents the results of a study comparing pairs of functionally equivalent programs written in the FORTRAN and Ada languages. We found the Ada programs to require more lines of code than their functionally equivalent FORTRAN counterparts. However, we also observed that the overhead for Ada diminishes as program size increases. Our limited data suggested that there may be a cross-over point beyond which the size of an Ada program would be smaller than a functionally equivalent FORTRAN program. We explore some of the reasons for these economies of scale when using Ada. The implications of our findings on software cost estimating are also discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ANSI, 1978. American National Standard Programming Language FORTRAN 1978. New York: American National Standards Institute, Inc.
Boehm, B. 1981. Software Engineering Economics. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Giallombardo, R. 1992. Effort and Schedule Models for Ada Software Development. MTR 11303, Bedford, MA: MITRE Corporation.
IEEE 1993. Standard for Software Productivity Metrics. IEEE Std 1045–1992, New York: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
Jones, C. 1991. Applied Software Measurement. New York: McGraw-Hill, p. 76.
Kemerer, C. 1991. Software cost estimation models. Software Engineering Reference Handbook. Surrey, UK: Butterworth's Scientific Limited.
McGarry, F., and Agresti, W. 1989. Measuring Ada for software development in the software engineering laboratory. The Journal of Systems and Software 9: 149–159.
NASA, 1994. Conversations with SEL personnel at Computer Sciences Corporation in Greenbelt, Maryland, and estimates from Kaman Sciences personnel in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Press, W., Teukolsky, S., Vetterling, W., and Flannery, B. 1992. Numerical Recipes in FORTRAN, The Art of Scientific Computing. Second Edition, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
SPC 1991. Code Counting Rules and Category Definitions/Relationships. CODE_COUNT_RULES-90010-N, Version 02.00.04. Hendron, VA: Software Productivity Consortium Inc.
SPC 1992. Ada Quality and Style: Guidelines for Professional Programmers. SPC-91061-CM, Version 02.01.01, Herdon, VA: Software Productivity Consortium Inc.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Frazier, T.P., Bailey, J.W. & Corso, M.L. Comparing ada and FORTRAN lines of code: Some experimental results. Empir Software Eng 1, 45–59 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00125811
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00125811