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U.S. Department of Energy
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The tyranny of the vital few : the Pareto principle in language design.

Conference ·
OSTI ID:1022997
Modern high-level programming languages often contain constructs whose semantics are non-trivial. In practice however, software developers generally restrict the use of such constructs to settings in which their semantics is simple (programmers use language constructs in ways they understand and can reason about). As a result, when developing tools for analyzing and manipulating software, a disproportionate amount of effort ends up being spent developing capabilities needed to analyze constructs in settings that are infrequently used. This paper takes the position that such distinctions between theory and practice are an important measure of the analyzability of a language.
Research Organization:
Sandia National Laboratories
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
1022997
Report Number(s):
SAND2010-5374C
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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