Abstract:
Programming is inherently a problem-solving exercise: A programmer has to create an understanding of the situation, externalize and contextualize thoughts and ideas, develop strategies on how to proceed with the task, enact changes according to the most appropriate strategy, and reflect to learn from each problem. Therefore, programming is clearly more than just code input, testing, and maintenance. Current Integrated Development Environments (IDE), however, largely focus on the 'writing code' parts of programming. In this position paper, we revisit which activities and actions constitute programming, and highlight six challenges to supporting these activities. We then briefly describe a new paradigm of interacting with the IDE on which we are working to more directly support each of the six activities.
PPIG 2017 - 28th Annual Workshop
Towards an IDE to Support Programming as Problem-Solving