SPLASH 2014
Mon 20 - Fri 24 October 2014 Portland, Oregon, United States

The Fifth Workshop on Evaluation and Usability of Programming Languages and Tools (PLATEAU) at SPLASH 2014.

Theme

Programming languages exist to enable programmers to develop software effectively. But how efficiently programmers can write software depends on the usability of the languages and tools that they develop with. The aim of this workshop is to discuss methods, metrics and techniques for evaluating the usability of languages and language tools. The supposed benefits of such languages and tools cover a large space, including making programs easier to read, write, and maintain; allowing programmers to write more flexible and powerful programs; and restricting programs to make them more safe and secure.

PLATEAU gathers the intersection of researchers in the programming language, programming tool, and human-computer interaction communities to share their research and discuss the future of evaluation and usability of programming languages and tools.

Some particular areas of interest are:

  • empirical studies of programming languages
  • methodologies and philosophies behind language and tool evaluation
  • software design metrics and their relations to the underlying language
  • user studies of language features and software engineering tools
  • visual techniques for understanding programming languages
  • critical comparisons of programming paradigms
  • tools to support evaluating programming languages
  • psychology of programming

Accepted papers now available

Download each paper by clicking on the event title in the program, pushing the “view event page” button, and clicking the file attachment link. We strongly encourage you to read the papers in advance of the workshop.

Links

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Tue 21 Oct

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08:30 - 10:00
Invited Speaker: Josh BlochPLATEAU at Salon D
Chair(s): Craig Anslow University of Calgary, Thomas LaToza University of California, Irvine, Joshua Sunshine Carnegie Mellon University
08:30
30m
Other
Welcome and Introductions
PLATEAU

09:00
60m
Talk
Invited Speaker: A Brief, Opinionated History of the API
PLATEAU
10:30 - 12:00
Session 2PLATEAU at Salon D
Chair(s): Craig Anslow University of Calgary
10:30
22m
Talk
Asking and Answering Questions during a Programming Change Task in Pharo Language
PLATEAU
File Attached
10:52
22m
Talk
EUKLAS: Supporting Copy-and-Paste Strategies for Integrating Example Code
PLATEAU
Christian Doerner Senacor Technologies AG, Andrew Faulring Carnegie Mellon University , Brad A. Myers Carnegie Mellon University
File Attached
11:15
22m
Talk
Empirical Comparison of Visual to Hybrid Formula Manipulation in Educational Programming Languages for Teenagers
PLATEAU
Roxane Koitz-Hristov Graz University of Technology, Wolfgang Slany Institute of Software Technology, Graz University of Technology
File Attached
11:37
22m
Talk
Usability and Suitability Survey of Features in Visual IDEs for Non-Programmers
PLATEAU
Jean Michel Rouly George Mason University, Jonathan Orbeck University of Alabama, Eugene Syriani University of Montreal
File Attached
13:30 - 15:00
Session 3PLATEAU at Salon D
Chair(s): Joshua Sunshine Carnegie Mellon University
13:30
25m
Talk
How Developers Use Data Race Detection Tools
PLATEAU
File Attached
13:55
15m
Talk
Research.js: Evaluating Your Research on the Web
PLATEAU
Joel Galenson University of California, Berkeley and Qualcomm Research, Cindy Rubio-González University of California, Berkeley, Sarah E. Chasins University of California, Berkeley, Liang Gong University of California, Berkeley
File Attached
14:10
15m
Talk
Supporting Social Interactions and Awareness in Educational Programming Environments
PLATEAU
Adam Carter Washington State University, Christopher Hundhausen Washington State University
File Attached
14:25
35m
Talk
Invited Talk: How Do API Documentation and Static Typing Affect API Usability?
PLATEAU
S: Stefan Hanenberg University of Duisburg-Essen
15:30 - 17:00
Session 4PLATEAU at Salon D
Chair(s): Thomas LaToza University of California, Irvine
15:30
22m
Talk
Wyvern: Impacting Software Security via Programming Language Design
PLATEAU
Darya Melicher Carnegie Mellon University, Alex Potanin Victoria University of Wellington, Jonathan Aldrich Carnegie Mellon University
File Attached
15:52
22m
Talk
Considering Productivity Effects of Explicit Type Declarations
PLATEAU
Michael Coblenz Carnegie Mellon University, Jonathan Aldrich Carnegie Mellon University, Brad A. Myers Carnegie Mellon University, Joshua Sunshine Carnegie Mellon University
File Attached
16:15
22m
Talk
Usability Hypotheses in the Design of Plaid
PLATEAU
Jonathan Aldrich Carnegie Mellon University, Joshua Sunshine Carnegie Mellon University
File Attached
16:37
22m
Other
Group Activity
PLATEAU

Accepted Papers

Title
Asking and Answering Questions during a Programming Change Task in Pharo Language
PLATEAU
File Attached
Considering Productivity Effects of Explicit Type Declarations
PLATEAU
File Attached
Empirical Comparison of Visual to Hybrid Formula Manipulation in Educational Programming Languages for Teenagers
PLATEAU
File Attached
EUKLAS: Supporting Copy-and-Paste Strategies for Integrating Example Code
PLATEAU
File Attached
Group Activity
PLATEAU

How Developers Use Data Race Detection Tools
PLATEAU
File Attached
Invited Speaker: A Brief, Opinionated History of the API
PLATEAU
Invited Talk: How Do API Documentation and Static Typing Affect API Usability?
PLATEAU
Research.js: Evaluating Your Research on the Web
PLATEAU
File Attached
Supporting Social Interactions and Awareness in Educational Programming Environments
PLATEAU
File Attached
Usability and Suitability Survey of Features in Visual IDEs for Non-Programmers
PLATEAU
File Attached
Usability Hypotheses in the Design of Plaid
PLATEAU
File Attached
Welcome and Introductions
PLATEAU

Wyvern: Impacting Software Security via Programming Language Design
PLATEAU
File Attached

Call for Submissions

Download PLATEAU Call For Submissions (515KB PDF Document)

Submission deadline extended! Submissions due Wed, August 13.

Submission Details

PLATEAU papers should be submitted via EasyChair. PLATEAU encourages submissions of three types of papers:

Research and position papers: We encourage papers that describe work-in-progress or recently completed work based on the themes and goals of the workshop or related topics, report on experiences gained, question accepted wisdom, raise challenging open problems, or propose speculative new approaches. We will accept two types of papers: research papers up to 8 pages in length; and position papers up to 2 pages in length.

Hypotheses papers: Hypotheses papers explicitly identify beliefs of the research community or software industry about how a programming language, programming language feature, or programming language tool affects programming practice. Hypotheses can be collected from mailing lists, blog posts, paper introductions, developer forums, or interviews. Papers should clearly document the source(s) of each hypothesis and discuss the importance, use, and relevance of the hypotheses on research or practice. Papers may also, but are not required to, review evidence for or against the hypotheses identified. Hypotheses papers can be up to 4 pages in length.

Page Limits: The page limits listed above are recommendations, not hard limits. Please be considerate of reviewers’ time and exceed the limits with care.

Format: Submissions should use the SIGPLAN Proceedings Format, 10 point font. Note that by default the SIGPLAN Proceedings Format produces papers in 9 point font. If you are formatting your paper using LaTeX, you will need to set the 10pt option in the \documentclass command. If you are formatting your paper using Word, you may wish to use the provided Word template that supports this font size. Please include page numbers in your submission. Setting the preprint option in the LaTeX \documentclass command generates page numbers. Please also ensure that your submission is legible when printed on a black and white printer. In particular, please check that colors remain distinct and font sizes are legible.

All types of papers will be published in the ACM Digital Library at the authors’ discretion.

Here is a download of all the papers as part of the PLATEAU Proceedings.