Program Design Principles the Structured-Unstructured Program Study

Abstract

The sharply rising cost incurred in the production of quality software has brought with it the need for the development of techniques used during program design and implementation. The two most efficient techniques for the production of software are top-down design and structured programming. The differences of these techniques and other software production methods can be quantitatively measured using the concepts of software science. Conclusions can then be made based on these measures, regarding the efficiency and the economic advantages of such techniques. This paper is divided in two parts. The first part is dedicated to program design and structured programming. The second part introduces the concepts of software science and discusses in detail the structured-unstructured program study. This study has as an objective to measure the differences of structured and unstructured programs in regard to their size, amount of information contained, and programming effort.