Exploratory Study of the Impact of Value and Reference Semantics on Programming

dc.contributor.authorKhedekar, Neha N.en
dc.contributor.committeechairKulczycki, Gregory W.en
dc.contributor.committeememberFrakes, William B.en
dc.contributor.committeememberChen, Ing-Rayen
dc.contributor.departmentComputer Scienceen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:44:34Zen
dc.date.adate2007-10-03en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:44:34Zen
dc.date.issued2007-08-10en
dc.date.rdate2007-10-03en
dc.date.sdate2007-08-31en
dc.description.abstractIn this thesis, we measure the impact of reference semantics on programming and reasoning. We designed a survey to compare how well programmers perform under three different programming paradigms. Two of the paradigms, object-copying and swapping use value semantics, while the third, reference-copying, uses reference semantics. We gave the survey to over 25 people. We recorded number of questions answered correctly in each paradigm and the amount of time it took to answer each question. We looked at the overall results as well as the results within various levels of Java experience. Based on anecdotal evidence from the literature, we expected questions based on value semantics to be easier than questions based on reference semantics. The results did not yield differences that were statistically significant, but they did conform to our general expectations. While further investigation is clearly needed, we believe that this work represents an important first step in the empirical analysis of a topic that has previously only been discussed informally.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.identifier.otheretd-08312007-171923en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-08312007-171923/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/34871en
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartNeha_Khedekar_Masters_Thesis_2.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectsurveysen
dc.subjectaliasingen
dc.subjectjavaen
dc.subjectreference semanticsen
dc.subjectvalueen
dc.subjectempirical analysisen
dc.titleExploratory Study of the Impact of Value and Reference Semantics on Programmingen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineComputer Scienceen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

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