Comparison of XAML and C# frorms using cognitive dimensions framework

Abstract

Many domain-specific languages arise in the past years, trying to bring feasible alternatives for existing solutions with purpose to simplify programmers work. Although these little languages seem to be easier to use, there is an open issue whether they bring advantages comparing to most commonly used implementation approach, application libraries. In this work we present an experiment, carried out to compare such domain-specific language with comparable application library. The experiment was conducted with 36 programmers, which were answering questions on more than 100 long pages on both implementation approaches. For domain-specific language and application library the same problem domain has been used { construction of graphical user interfaces. In terms of domain-specific language, XAML has been used and C# Forms for application library. For comparison of XAML and C# Forms cognitive dimension framework has been used.