Are deeply nested conditionals less readable?

Technical Report

Public Deposited

Citeable URL: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/technical_reports/0p096f94m

Descriptions

Attribute Name	Values
Creator	Harrison, Warren Cook, Curtis R.
Abstract	There is some debate over the effect of using deeply nested control structures upon programmer comprehension. In order to test the effect of deeply nested IF-THEN-ELSE statements, we split 148 computer science students of varing backgrounds into two groups. One group received a listing of a program that made excessive use of deeply nested control structures. The other group received the listing of a functionally equivalent program that did not make use of deeply nested IF-THEN-ELSEs. Both groups answered the same list of questions about the program they were assigned. The results indicate no significant difference in the average performance on the questions between the two groups. Keywords: Program Comprehension; Program Complexity; Control Flow Complexity; Experimental Computer Science
Resource Type	Technical Report
Date Issued	1985
Academic Affiliation	Computer Science
Series	Technical report (Oregon State University. Department of Computer Science)
Rights Statement	In Copyright
Publisher	Oregon State University. Department of Computer Science
Peer Reviewed	No
Language	English [eng]

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