Writability:

the ease with which a language can be used to create programs

• Most of the language characteristics that affect readability also affect writability.
• Simplicity and orthogonality
  • Few constructs, a small number of primitives, a small set of rules for combining them
• Support for abstraction
  • The ability to define and use complex structures  or operations in ways that allow details to be ignored
    A process abstraction will use a subprogram to implement a sort algorithm that is required several times in a program.  ex. sort data.
    A data abstraction: 
        FORTRAN77 use three parallel integer arrays to maintain a binary tree. 
        In C++ and Java use a simple class with two pointers and an integer to do it.
• Expressivity
  • A set of relatively convenient ways of specifying operations
    In C++,  COUNT++   is easier to write than   COUNT = COUNT + 1
  • Strength and number of operators and predefined functions
    ex. for loop is easier than while loop.