Haskell v Ada v C++ v Awk... An Experiment in Software Prototyping Productivity

http://www.haskell.org/papers/NSWC/jfp.ps

by tikhonj • 13 years ago

7 23 13 years ago

haskell.org

dserban2• 13 years ago

This URL works for me:

http://haskell.cs.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Haskel...

agumonkey2• 13 years ago

another source, just in case http://webmail.cs.yale.edu/publications/techreports/tr1049.p...

dserban2• 13 years ago

Abstract (cut-and-pasted from the paper):

We describe the results of an experiment in which several conventional programming languages, together with the functional language Haskell, were used to prototype a Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) requirement for a Geometric Region Server. The resulting programs and development metrics were reviewed by a committee chosen by the Navy. The results indicate that the Haskell prototype took significantly less time to develop and was considerably more concise and easier to understand than the corresponding prototypes written in several different imperative languages, including Ada and C++.

gaius2• 13 years ago

... but the Navy went with C++ for the actual system, I'll wager.

ardz5• 13 years ago

Haskell vs Lisp, development time (h): 10 vs 3

This hard fact says more than thousand committee reviews.

lmm2• 13 years ago

Only once you've measured how buggy the software is, and how much maintenance costs over the full lifecycle.

ardz5• 13 years ago

I have no such problems. Think/hack/try first, code later - this is my advice to you.

Pen and paper are my debugging tools, not a type system.

TheCoelacanth3• 13 years ago

development times usually included documentation time

Most likely, the Haskell development time includes the time to write 465 lines of documentation, while the Lisp development time includes the time to write 12 lines of documentation. That makes it pretty obvious where the discrepancy in time comes from.

lispm3• 13 years ago

I would guess that the Lisp version was more descriptive (it had more program lines) and needed thus much less documentation than the Haskell version.

lispm3• 13 years ago

Since the Lisp developers were using 'Relational Lisp', I would guess that there were quite capable. Relational Lisp is another step up from a typical Lisp.

tempodox• 13 years ago

That link is dead.

agumonkey2• 13 years ago

These one are still alive https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7029857

tikhonj• 13 years ago

Particularly worth noting is how well a novice Haskeller performed. In particular, the novice's program took the second-least amount of time and was the second shortest. Here's a description:

The Haskell Report was given to a newly hired college graduate, who was then given 8 days to learn Haskell. This new hire received no formal training, but was allowed to ask an experienced Haskell programmer questions as issues came up during the self study. After this training period, the new hire was handed the geo-server specification and asked to write a prototype in Haskell.

A college student who had just started learning Haskell eight days ago managed to put out a very credible prototype! Clearly, Haskell is by no means impossible to learn.

gaius2• 13 years ago

Both Haskell and C++ have come a long way since 1994.

Haskell v Ada v C++ v Awk... An Experiment in Software Prototyping Productivity

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