Harnessing curiosity to increase correctness in end-user programming
- 5 April 2003
- proceedings article
- Published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
- p. 305-312
- https://doi.org/10.1145/642611.642665
Abstract
Despite their ability to help with program correctness, assertions have been notoriously unpopular--even with professional programmers. End-user programmers seem even less likely to appreciate the value of assertions; yet end-user programs suffer from serious correctness problems that assertions could help detect. This leads to the following question: can end users be enticed to enter assertions? To investigate this question, we have devised a curiosity-centered approach to eliciting assertions from end users, built on a surprise-explain-reward strategy. Our follow-up work with end-user participants shows that the approach is effective in encouraging end users to enter assertions that help them find errors.Keywords
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