Eddie Antonio Santos
Ioannis Karvelas
Brett A. Becker
ABSTRACT
Programming error messages (PEMs) have long been a hindrance to novice programmers. This work aims to establish a catalog of PEM anti-patterns--- common, reoccurring features of PEMs that make them unhelpful or actively harmful to programmers. The goal is for educators to be aware of, and actively teach concrete ways that PEMs can be misleading to students; to encourage language implementers to be cognizant of these; and avoid them when designing error feedback. A pilot study is being conducted to validate the presence of anti-patterns in error messages.
Supplemental Material
- Brett A. Becker, Paul Denny, Raymond Pettit, Durell Bouchard, Dennis J. Bouvier, Brian Harrington, Amir Kamil, Amey Karkare, Chris McDonald, and Peter-Michael Osera. 2019. Compiler Error Messages Considered Unhelpful: The Landscape of Text-Based Programming Error Message Research. In Proceedings of the Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education. ACM, NY, NY, USA, 177--210.Google Scholar
Digital Library
Index Terms
- Applying Software Engineering Anti-patterns to Programming Error Messages
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