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Automated web-based user interfaces for novice programmers

Author:

Nadeem Abdul HamidAuthors Info & Claims

ACMSE '12: Proceedings of the 50th annual ACM Southeast Conference

Pages 42 - 47

https://doi.org/10.1145/2184512.2184523

Published: 29 March 2012 Publication History

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Abstract

This paper presents the development of a library for introductory programming courses that automatically builds web forms based on a simple specification of parameter types (both primitive and complex, user-defined) and labels for a function. Upon invocation, the library launches a browser to display a page with a reasonably well laid-out form that allows entry of input values, browsing and recall of past inputs, and application of the underlying function to validated inputs. Novice programmers can thus develop programs focusing on design, implementation, and testing of their algorithm (realized as a function of appropriate parameters) and ignore the intricacies of handling user I/O. The web interface is more impressive than console I/O and is much less complicated to assemble than a traditional GUI, requiring no knowledge of web technologies to setup and launch.

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Cited By

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Luxton-Reilly ASimon Albluwi IBecker BGiannakos MKumar AOtt LPaterson JScott MSheard JSzabo CRößling GScharlau B(2018)Introductory programming: a systematic literature reviewProceedings Companion of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3293881.3295779(55-106)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3293881.3295779

Index Terms

Automated web-based user interfaces for novice programmers
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
      2. Model curricula
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Frameworks
      2. Language types
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Operating systems
        Communications management
        Input / output

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Reviews

Reviewer: Jesus Borrego

As technology permeates society, applications are expected to demonstrate impressive user interfaces. Beginning students learning programming languages have an expectation to program with user interfaces. Unfortunately, it is common for introductory courses to rely on console applications even in object-oriented languages such as Java and C++, which makes providing user interfaces with these languages difficult in early programming courses. The author of this paper proposes a library that allows simple programs to display user interaction via a Web browser. The library contains a set of modules that can be invoked from a simple program without much knowledge of Web or user interface implementation details. Students can visualize the interaction graphically, enhancing the learning experience. To use the library, students develop specifications for the interface, which can be complex. This requirement can be overwhelming to entry-level programming students, but Hamid states that the specification can be taught early in the course. A drawback is that the library is only supported by a limited number of languages. Nevertheless, the idea of having a library that provides access to a user interface in simple programs is appealing. This library could improve the retention rate of beginning programming students. Instructors developing a programming curriculum using the DrRacket integrated development environment (IDE) languages [1] will benefit from reading this paper. Online Computing Reviews Service

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

ACMSE '12: Proceedings of the 50th annual ACM Southeast Conference

March 2012

424 pages

ISBN:9781450312035

DOI:10.1145/2184512

Conference Chair:
Randy K. Smith
University of Alabama
,
Program Chair:
Susan V. Vrbsky
University of Alabama

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 March 2012

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ACM SE '12

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ACM SE '12: ACM Southeast Regional Conference

March 29 - 31, 2012

Alabama, Tuscaloosa

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ACMSE '12 Paper Acceptance Rate 28 of 56 submissions, 50%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 502 of 1,023 submissions, 49%

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Cited By

View all

Luxton-Reilly ASimon Albluwi IBecker BGiannakos MKumar AOtt LPaterson JScott MSheard JSzabo CRößling GScharlau B(2018)Introductory programming: a systematic literature reviewProceedings Companion of the 23rd Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education10.1145/3293881.3295779(55-106)Online publication date: 2-Jul-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3293881.3295779

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Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Towards virtualization of user interfaces based on UsiXML

Structural and conceptual user interfaces and their impact on learning

Developing and evaluating web multimodal interfaces - a case study with usability principles

Reviews

Access critical reviews of Computing literature here