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Illustrating Client and Implementation Readability Tradeoffs in Ada and C++
Author(s) -
Parrish A.,
Cordes D.,
Borie R.,
Edara S.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-024x(199607)26:7<799::aid-spe36>3.0.co;2-y
Subject(s) - readability , computer science , implementation , class (philosophy) , software , programming language , object oriented programming , artificial intelligence
The relative merits of Ada and C++ have fostered numerous discussions among software developers. With the release of Ada 95 and its object‐oriented features, we expect these discussions to intensify, particularly given the increasing number of features for which there are implementations in both languages. In this paper, we compare Ada and C++ based on the readability of class and client implementations. We examine this issue using a case study. Our case study illustrates a partial tradeoff that exists between the readability of a class and the readability of its clients. This tradeoff depends on the degree to which overloading is used; extensive use of overloading adds to class complexity, although it increases client readability.