Does OO Sync with How We Think? IEEE Software, May/June 1998
Case study from two ~50kloc systems (program analysis tools), one written in C, the other C++. Detailed maintenance and development statistics were kept.
Same highly skilled staff, C++ version was “true ab initio OO designed parser”
Initial C++ defect rates 25% higher (although both were good: 2.9/kloc vs. 2.5/kloc).
60% of all fixes for C took less than 2 hours, only 30% of C++ fixes did
- The “time to fix” graph was shifted: all fixes of any complexity took longer in C++
- Overall, 1341 hours in fixing 94 C++ defects, 375 hours to fix 74 C defects