Com S 541 -- Programming Languages I			January 20, 1993

	HOMEWORK 1: The Economic Impact of Programming Languages

Due: January 22, 1993

The owners of the same company liked your previous work, and have hired
you again!  But being hard-nosed business people, they want to know more
about the economic impact of their choice of programming languages.
Your task is to tell them

	a) whether programming languages make an economic difference,
	   (e.g., do different programming languages make a difference
	    in productity?  Do some make employees happier? etc.)
	b) if different programming languages do make a difference,
	   what kind of difference do they make, and how much of a difference
	   do they make.

This is a group project.  Your group is to make a roughly 5 minute
oral presentation. The style of presentation is up to you; you can allow one
person to talk, or several.  The audience for the presentation
is the owners and their employees of the company.

Again the focus is on logic and evidence, not unsupported assertions.
You are encouraged to present facts and opinions, if any,
from the literature that support your arguments.
You can argue from your own experience as well.

(If you need transparencies or copies made, let Gary know
far enough in advance to have them made in time for the class.)



			Alternative positions

If you find that the choice of programming languages does not
make a (substantial) economic difference in software, what does?
If you find that the choice of programming languages depends on
the particular type of work being done, describe that.


			Extra Credit
(If you or your group wishes to pursue these, we can allow you 2 minutes
for question 1 and 5 minutes for question 2.)

1. What are the biggest economic challenges in producing software?

2. Lots of businesses are talking about ``quality'' these days.
(For example, total quality management (TQM) is a buzzword.
More seriously, the work of W. Edwards Deming has had a broad impact in
statistical quality control.)  How can this be applied to software,
and what does it say about the programming language(s) a company should use?