A comparison of batch processing and instant turnaround

ABSTRACT

A study of the programming efforts of students in an introductory programming course is presented and the effects of having instant turnaround (a few minutes) as opposed to conventional batch processing with turnaround times of a few hours are examined. Among the items compared are the number of computer runs per trip to the computation center, program preparation time, keypunching time, debugging time, number of runs, and elapsed time from the first run to the last run on each problem. Even though the results are influenced by the fact that “bonus points” were given for completion of a programming problem in less than a specified number of runs, there is evidence to support “Instant” over “Batch”.

REFERENCES

• 1: W. C. Lynch, Description of a high capacity, fast turnaround university computing center, Communications of the ACM, v.9 n.2, p.117-123, Feb. 1966 [doi>10.1145/365170.365216]
• 2: E. T. Irons, A rapid turnaround multi-programming system, Communications of the ACM, v.8 n.3, p.152-157, March 1965 [doi>10.1145/363791.363803]
• 3: BECKER, H. B. Time-sharing: the next step. Comput. Autom. (Oct. 1966), 18.
• 4: SMITH, L. B. Part one: A comparison of batch processing and instant turnaround. Part two: A survey of most frequent syntax and execution-time errors. Stanford Computation Center, Feb. 1967.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION

General Terms:
Human Factors, Theory