An Empirical Investigation into Programming Language Syntax

Autor/inn/en	Stefik, Andreas; Siebert, Susanna
Titel	An Empirical Investigation into Programming Language Syntax
Quelle	In: ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 13 (2013) 4, Artikel 19 (40 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1946-6226
DOI	10.1145/2534973
Schlagwörter	Programming Languages; Syntax; Computer Science Education; Novices; Accuracy; College Students; Student Surveys; Online Surveys; Difficulty Level; Illinois + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Computer science lessons; Informatikunterricht; Collegestudent; Schülerbefragung; Schwierigkeitsgrad
Abstract	Recent studies in the literature have shown that syntax remains a significant barrier to novice computer science students in the field. While this syntax barrier is known to exist, whether and how it varies across programming languages has not been carefully investigated. For this article, we conducted four empirical studies on programming language syntax as part of a larger analysis into the, so called, programming language wars. We first present two surveys conducted with students on the intuitiveness of syntax, which we used to garner formative clues on what words and symbols might be easy for novices to understand. We followed up with two studies on the accuracy rates of novices using a total of six programming languages: Ruby, Java, Perl, Python, Randomo, and Quorum. Randomo was designed by randomly choosing some keywords from the ASCII table (a metaphorical placebo). To our surprise, we found that languages using a more traditional C-style syntax (both Perl and Java) did not afford accuracy rates significantly higher than a language with randomly generated keywords, but that languages which deviate (Quorum, Python, and Ruby) did. These results, including the specifics of syntax that are particularly problematic for novices, may help teachers of introductory programming courses in choosing appropriate first languages and in helping students to overcome the challenges they face with syntax. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10