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Characteristic errors in programming languages

Published: 01 January 1978 Publication History

Abstract

This paper examines the features of a small ALGOL-like language for characteristic errors. These errors occur in the general use of a language feature, rather than its use in a particular program. Language design and defensive programming are suggested as ways of dealing with these errors. Data collected in observing 33 subjects writing small (43-216 lines), but sophisticated programs demonstrate that these errors are both frequent and persistent in the development of programs.

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cover image ACM Conferences
ACM '78: Proceedings of the 1978 annual conference - Volume 2
January 1978
990 pages
ISBN:0897910001
DOI:10.1145/800178
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 January 1978

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Author Tags

  1. Characteristic errors
  2. Defensive programming
  3. Experimentation
  4. Language design
  5. Reliable software

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  • (1984)Semantics of algorithmic languagesJournal of Soviet Mathematics10.1007/BF0110165125:6(1558-1606)Online publication date: Jun-1984

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