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The Effectiveness of Choice of Programming Language as a Diversity Seeking Decision

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Dependable Computing - EDCC 5 (EDCC 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 3463))

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Abstract

Software reliability can be increased by using a diverse pair of programs (1-out-of-2 system), both written to the same specification. The improvement of the reliability of the pair versus the reliability of a single version depends on the degree of diversity of the programs. The choice of programming language has been suggested as an example of a diversity seeking decision. However, little is known about the validity of this recommendation. This paper assesses the effect of language on program diversity.

We compare the effects of the choice of programming language as a diversity seeking decision by using programs written to three different specifications in the “UVa Online Judge”. Thousands of programs have been written to these specifications; this makes it possible to provide statistical evidence.

The experiment shows that when the average probability of failure on demand (pfd) of the programs is high, the programs fail almost independently, and the choice of programming language does not make any difference. When the average pfd of the pools gets lower, the programs start to fail dependently, and the pfd of the pairs deviates more and more from the product of the pfds of the individual programs. Also, we observe that the diverse C/Pascal or C++/Pascal pairs perform as good as or better than the other possible pairs.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Software Reliability, City University, London

    Meine J. P. van der Meulen

  2. Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Valladolid, Spain

    Miguel Revilla

Authors
  1. Meine J. P. van der Meulen
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  2. Miguel Revilla
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Computer Sciences III, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Martensstr. 3, 91058, Erlangen, Germany

    Mario Dal Cin

  2. UPS, INSA, INP, ISAE; LAAS-CNRS, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France

    Mohamed Kaâniche

  3. Department of Measurement and Information Systems, Budapest University of Technology and Economics,  

    András Pataricza

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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van der Meulen, M.J.P., Revilla, M. (2005). The Effectiveness of Choice of Programming Language as a Diversity Seeking Decision. In: Dal Cin, M., Kaâniche, M., Pataricza, A. (eds) Dependable Computing - EDCC 5. EDCC 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3463. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11408901_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11408901_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-25723-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32019-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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