COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF PL/I.
Abstract
Seven benchmark problems were each implemented twice by the same programmer, once in PL/I and once in another higher level language (COBOL, FORTRAN, or JOVIAL) appropriate to the application area represented by the problem. Overall, it was found that PL/I had advantages over both FORTRAN and JOVIAL and was about equal to COBOL for the respective application areas. The quantitative data obtained from the implementations generally indicated that the PL/I versions had fewer statements in the source programs and were coded more rapidly than their comparison-language counterparts but took longer to debug and had a higher frequency of errors. The qualitative, subjective opinions of the problem programmers and project analysis indicated that PL/I was generally superior to the comparison languages with regard to suitability for a wide range of problems, naturalness, generality, and ease of use. Inefficiencies observed in the language compilers and associated operating systems utilized for the benchmark problems indicated that improvements are required in these areas if the benefits obtainable from the use of higher level languages are to be fully realized. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0669096
Entities
People
- Laurel Bentley
- Raymond J. Rubey
- Richard C. Wick
- William J. Stoner