Take a look at the new version of this page: [ beta version ]. Tell us what you think.

ABSTRACT

Event-based programming has been studied little, yet recent work suggests that language paradigm can predict programming strategies and performance. A contextual inquiry of four expert programmers using the Alice 3D programming environment was performed in order to discover how event-based programming strategies might be supported in programming environments. Various programming, testing, and debugging breakdowns were extracted from observations and possible programming environment tools are suggested as aids to avoid these breakdowns. Future analyses and studies are described.

REFERENCES

• 1: Matthew Conway , Steve Audia , Tommy Burnette , Dennis Cosgrove , Kevin Christiansen, Alice: lessons learned from building a 3D system for novices, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.486-493, April 01-06, 2000, The Hague, The Netherlands [doi>10.1145/332040.332481]
• 2: Cynthia L. Corritore , Susan Wiedenbeck, An exploratory study of program comprehension strategies of procedural and object-oriented programmers, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.54 n.1, p.1-23, Jan. 2001 [doi>10.1006/ijhc.2000.0423]
• 3: Hugh Beyer , Karen Holtzblatt, Contextual design: defining customer-centered systems, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA, 1998
• 4: Pane, J. and Myers, J. Usability Issues in the Design of Novice Programming Systems, Carnegie Mellon University, School of Computer Science Technical Report CMU-CS-96-132, 1996, Pittsburgh, PA.
• 5: Raquel Navarro-Prieto , Jose J. Cañas, Are visual programming languages better? The role of imagery in program comprehension, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, v.54 n.6, p.799-829, June 2001 [doi>10.1006/ijhc.2000.0465]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Prototyping; User-centered design

Keywords:
contextual inquiry, event-based, programming environment