3 ms·
I disagree that the combination of the two studies supports an effect of language choice on bug rate. Given that the original study showed a negative associatio
by scott_s 7y ago
I disagree that the combination of the two studies supports an effect of language choice on bug rate. Given that the original study showed a negative association for about half the languages; the replication has significant disagreement on about half of the original positive associations; and the extremely small associations across all languages, I think we're looking at noise.
- pron 7y agoBut if we consider as the main result that the total effect of language choice is less than 1%, even "looking at noise" means looking at an effect of 0, and either way, the effect is tiny to nonexistent. So if someone had the hypothesis that the effect of language choice is large, because lack of evidence of a big effect is evidence of lack of one, this study is some evidence against such a hypothesis. That this finding agrees with the observations in the industry lends it even more credence.
- jrumbut 7y agoIf I were sitting on a thing that could decrease bugs 1% I'd be really excited. The only reason this looks like a paltry reduction is that it's hugely expensive and difficult to change languages midstream. This is evidence against a shop retraining C++ devs in Haskell (which I'm sure someone somewhere wants to do). But if it was something like switching editor fonts? I'd do it for 1%.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]