813
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
1 collections
    0
    shares

      Studying business & IT? Drive your professional career forwards with BCS books - for a 20% discount click here: shop.bcs.org

      scite_
       
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Conference Proceedings: found
      Is Open Access

      A Prototype Structured but Low–viscosity Editor for Novice Programmers

      Published
      proceedings-article
      The 26th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
      Human Computer Interaction
      12 - 14 September 2012
      Programming, Greenfoot, Java, Scratch, Alice, CogTool, viscosity, cognitive dimensions
      Bookmark

            Abstract

            This paper presents work in progress on a prototype programming editor that combines the flexibility of keyboard-driven text entry with a structured visual representation, and drag-and-drop blocks. Many beginners learn with Java, a traditional text-based language. While text entry is ideal for experts desiring speed and efficiency, there is evidence in the literature that a significant portion of novice errors are related to syntax. Some beginners learn with Scratch, Alice and Star Logo, all of which have drag-and-drop, “block” –based interfaces. Validation makes them less prone to syntax errors, but they are very “viscous” – there is resistance to changing or rearranging statements once they have been entered. The new system combines keyboard input with statements that can still be manipulated with the mouse as whole blocks. Standard text idioms can be used – highlighting code by dragging the mouse, copying & pasting (as text), etc. With CogTool cognitive/keystroke models, we show that the new system effectively overcomes the viscosity found in block-based languages, but it retains much of the error-proofing. Work is ongoing, but there are implications for the design of a new novice programming system.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Contributors
            Conference
            September 2012
            September 2012
            : 363-368
            Affiliations
            [0001]School of Computing, University of Kent

            Canterbury, UK. CT2 7NF
            Article
            10.14236/ewic/HCI2012.52
            d038fb8b-6aed-4345-b33b-44a6f2dcd459
            © Fraser McKay. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. The 26th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction, Birmingham, UK

            This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

            The 26th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction
            HCI
            26
            Birmingham, UK
            12 - 14 September 2012
            Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)
            Human Computer Interaction
            History
            Product

            1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

            Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2012.52
            Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/
            Categories
            Electronic Workshops in Computing

            Applied computer science,Computer science,Security & Cryptology,Graphics & Multimedia design,General computer science,Human-computer-interaction
            Java,Programming,Greenfoot,Scratch,Alice,CogTool,viscosity,cognitive dimensions

            Comments

            Comment on this article