An experiment on a new programming paradigm

In the development of any technology there is always a tendency to lose sight of the basic problems that stimulated its introduction. There is very little quantitative research regarding the question whether object-oriented programming really improves productivity. Many assume that object-oriented programming is more productive than traditional structured programming. The assumption lacks concrete empirical data that support the belief. In the previous paper, we introduced the principle of an alternative programming paradigm by Y. Kambayashi and H. F. Ledgard (2004). This paradigm, called the separation principle, separates the declaration of data structures from program executable instructions. In this paper we present the results of our empirical studies by comparing the understandability of an OOP program versus a corresponding version written using the separation principle. Our results give preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of using the separation principle.