Experimental Evaluation of On-Line Program Construction.

Abstract : An experiment was conducted to assess the utility of complexity metrics for the prediction of programmer performance in the construction of software. After practicing on a preliminary program, each of the nine participants developed three experimental programs on-line. An English language description of each problem was presented in addition to one of the following specification formats: program design language, tree chart, and both of these techniques. No significant differences were found in the times to construct programs from these different types of specification formats. The software complexity metrics developed by Halstead and McCabe were found to be significantly better predictors of the time to complete the program than the number of statements. (Author)