I have been told that the average number of bugs/defects per line of code is "constant" for different programming languages. This argument is usually used to promote the use of expressive languages (think python/ruby over c++/assembly) since the number of lines to describe the same functionality would be smaller.

Does anybody know where this claim comes from? Does higher-level languages lead to fewer bugs?

I have been told that the average number of bugs/defects per line of code is "constant" for different programming languages. 10 KLOC of Ruby would have the same number of bugs as 10 KLOC of c++. The argument is usually used to promote the use of expressive languages (think python/ruby over c++/assembly) since the number of lines to describe the same functionality would be smaller.

Does anybody know where this claim comes from? Does higher-level languages lead to fewer bugs?

I have been told that the average number of bugs/defects per line of code is "constant" for different programming languages.

Does anybody know where this claim comes from?

I have been told that the average number of bugs/defects per line of code is "constant" for different programming languages. This argument is usually used to promote the use of expressive languages (think python/ruby over c++/assembly) since the number of lines to describe the same functionality would be smaller.

Does anybody know where this claim comes from? Does higher-level languages lead to fewer bugs?