The Usable Programming group designs and studies systems that improve the learnability, efficiency, and safety of software development. It replaces the User Interface Group (2002-2017).

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Programming Education

Constellation (2013-now) supports collaborative programming in the Eclipse IDE, particularly designed for active learning in the classroom -- like Google Docs for Eclipse.

Java Tutor (2016-now) is a programming language tutor embedded in the Eclipse IDE.

OverCode (2014-2016) visualizes and explores thousands of solutions to a programming problem. OverCode uses both static and dynamic analysis to cluster similar solutions, lets instructors further filter and cluster solutions based on different criteria, and supports grading and feedback of many solutions at once.

Foobaz (2014-2016) visualizes student variable name choices in a programming problem, and allows instructors to construct variable-name quizzes that are personalized for each student, to spur thinking about good and bad names.

Dear Beta and Dear Gamma (2014-2016) gather peer-authored hints about how to solve or optimize a programming problem, indexed by autograder test case failures or performance metrics.

Caesar (2011-2016) handles peer code review in large programming classes.

Software Development

CilkPride (2016-2017) is an IDE that integrates the performance profiler and race detector for the Cilk parallel programming language. CilkPride aims to make performance and safety information always-available and appropriately-visible in the code editor, in much the same way that syntax highlighting, autoindent, and background compilation make syntactic and semantic errors always visible to the programmer.

Theseus (2012-2014) is a new type of JavaScript debugger that makes dynamic information visible in the code editor. Novel features include real-time code coverage, retroactive breakpoints and stack inspection, and call trees that connect asynchronous callbacks.

Collabode (2009-2012) is a web-based Java software development environment designed to support close, synchronous collaboration between two or more programmers.

Codetrail (2007-2008) is a system that shares information between Eclipse and Firefox so that documentation and other web resources can be easily and automatically connected to source code.

Keyword programming (2005-2008), also known as sloppy programming, is a new programming paradigm that eschews rigid syntax and strives to parse suggestive and loosely grammatical expressions.