another vantage point on usability
Raoul Duke
apologies if this is nothing new here.
sorry for bad paste formatting below.
Subrecursive Programming Languages, Part h Efficiency
and Program Structure
ROBERT L. CONSTABLE
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
AND
ALLAN B. BORODIN
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
ABSTRACT. The structural complexity of programming languages, and therefore of programs
as well, can be measured by the subrecursive class of functions which characterize the language.
Using such a measure of structural complexity, we examine the trade-off relationship between
structural and computational complexity.
Since measures of structural complexity directly related to high level languages interest us
most, we use abstract language models which approximate highly structured languages like
Algol.
KEY WORDS AND PHRASES: programming languages, universal machine, computational com-
plexity, complexity class, subrecursive hierarchy, program size, primitive recursive functions,
elementary functions, Loop language, Grzegorczyk hierarchy, speed-up theorem
CR CATEGORIES: 4.20, 4.22, 5.22, 5.24