Writability:
the ease with which a language can be used to create programs
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Most of the language characteristics that affect readability
also affect writability.
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Simplicity and orthogonality
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Few constructs, a small number of primitives, a small set of rules for
combining them
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Support for abstraction
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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.
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Expressivity
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A set of relatively convenient ways of specifying operations
In C++, COUNT++ is easier to write than
COUNT = COUNT + 1
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Strength and number of operators and predefined functions
ex. for loop is easier than while loop.