Slashdot Mirror
Open-Source Python Code Shows Lowest Defect Density
cold fjord sends news that a study by Coverity has found open-source Python code to contain a lower defect density than any other language. "The 2012 Scan Report found an average defect density of .69 for open source software projects that leverage the Coverity Scan service, as compared to the accepted industry standard defect density for good quality software of 1.0. Python's defect density of .005 significantly surpasses this standard, and introduces a new level of quality for open source software. To date, the Coverity Scan service has analyzed nearly 400,000 lines of Python code and identified 996 new defects — 860 of which have been fixed by the Python community."
Python is readable and readable code is easier to fix.
Also smarter guy have tendency to use Python/Haskell/Erlang
Oh yeah? Well, I'm working on a readable Perl script to refute that statement. How long do they accept comments in these threads?
Most of Python isn't written in Python, smart ass. They're talking about the language interpreter itself, written in C/C++ etc.
TFA seems to be about the Python interpreter, also known as CPython (because it's implemented in C), rather than about code written in Python itself. So maybe it has nothing to do with the Python language, but everything to do with the fact that the Python authors are apparently awesome C programmers.
That's great, but most people interpret "Open Source Python Code" to mean code written in Python that is Open Source, not code written in C (to implement the Python interpreter) that is Open Source.
The Slashdot summary is confusing, as is the eweek.com headline. Reading the article, it is clear that it is about the code that powers the official Python interpreter, AKA CPython, AKA /usr/bin/python. When I clicked the link, I thought Coverity had surveyed the entire world of open source Python code and discovered that Python programmers as a whole publish higher quality code than people who e.g. program in Ruby. That's not what the article's about.
It'd be great if the headline in Slashdot were to be fixed to say, "Python interpreter has fewer code defects compared to other open source C programs, says Coverity."
|/usr/games/fortune
0.005 defects per thousand lines times 400,000 lines gives a total defect count of 2.
So where did the other 994 defects come from?
So a private, for-profit company named "Coverity" has released a report that shows that their "Coverity Scan" software finds the fewest vaguely-defined "defects" in a programming language whose community has added the "Coverity platform" product to their development process? I was about to say "excellent marketing" by writing a fluff piece for free Slashdot traffic, but it's really not even excellent marketing.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
Coverity sells software that does static analysis on source code and looks for patterns that suggest defects. E.G., a code sequence that allocates memory, followed later by something that de-allocates that memory, followed later by something that de-allocates the same memory again (a double-free).
The product is not open source software, but a number of open source software projects use it to scan their software to find defects: https://scan.coverity.com/ It's a win-win, in the sense that Coverity gets reports from real users using it on real code, as well as press for their product. The open source software projects get reports on potential defects before users have to suffer with them.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
The result in question tested the Python project's code, which is commonly known as CPython, which is the Python interpreter written in C.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"