Compiler error messages

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Compiler error messages: what can help novices?

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Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education archive
Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education table of contents

Portland, OR, USA

SESSION: Debugging table of contents

Pages 168-172

Year of Publication: 2008

ISBN:978-1-59593-799-5

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Authors

Marie-Hélène Nienaltowski	Birkbeck, University of London, London, United Kingdom
Michela Pedroni	ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
Bertrand Meyer	ETH, Zurich, Switzerland

Sponsors

ACM: Association for Computing Machinery
SIGACCESS: ACM Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing
SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

Publisher

ACM New York, NY, USA

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ABSTRACT

Novices find it difficult to understand and use compiler error messages. It is useful to refine this observation and study the effect of different message styles on how well and quickly students identify errors in programs. For example, does an increased level of detail simplify the understanding of errors and their correction? We analyzed messages produced by a number of compilers for five programming languages, and grouped them into three style categories from their level of detail and presentation format, and correlated the level of experience and error type with performance and speed of response. The study involved two groups of students taking an introductory programming course at two different institutions; they used messages in these three styles to debug erroneous code. The results indicate that more detailed messages do not necessarily simplify the understanding of errors but that it matters more where information is placed and how it is structured.

REFERENCES

Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only correct and linked references.

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