Let me try that again (slap me, I tried to use '.' as a quote marker):

> Based on very few sample points. 10-20 overlaps 16-23 which is why I
> said "at least as" rather than "more than". I had [Jones'] paper in
> mind.  In my own experience, it is "more than", but without concrete
> numbers and a large sample space, my opinion is just that - Opinion.

Jones' numbers may be just that, too:

" The languages and levels in Table 2 were gathered in four ways.

    Counting Function Points and Source Code
    Counting Source Code
    Inspecting Source Code
    Researching Languages

  Counting Function Points And Source Code

  Actual counts of Function Points and source code statements were
  performed. Samples of counting Function Points and source code
  statements were done on Ada, several BASIC dialects, COBOL, PASCAL,
  and PL/I.   [dated 1997 - I doubt he had sufficient data for Ada-95]

  Counting Source Code

  Source code statements were counted, then compared to the size of the
  same program in languages of known levels. Assembly, APL, C, OBJECTIVE
  C, FORTH, FORTRAN, LISP, PILOT, and PROLOG are languages that produce
  the same source code count as COBOL. So code sizes were compared to the
  known quantity of COBOL source code.

  Inspecting Source Code

  Source code inspection for common applications was done. Then the volume
  of code for the application in a measured language was hypothesized.
  ACTOR, CLARION, and TRUE BASIC are examples of languages that were
  inspected and their levels hypothesized by subjective means.

  Researching Languages

  Research was done by reading descriptions and genealogies of languages
  and making an educated guess as to their levels. KL, CLOS, TWAICE, and
  FASBOL are examples of languages that were assigned tentative levels
  merely from descriptions of the language, rather than from actual
  counts.

" [end quote]

Clearly the third and fourth methods are highly susceptible to the
analyst's bias.  I wrote SPR and asked which methods were used for Ada-83,
Ada-95, perl, C++, Java, and Eiffel.  No answer.

They did answer another message in which I was asked about the study
Capers Jones cited in Crosstalk recently.  They sent me a copy of the
actual study.  Unfortunately, there were so many variables in the
comparison that no clear conclusion could be drawn.  (Although an
uncritical reading favored Smalltalk and Ada 95.)