App Inventor is a web-based blocks programming environment that allows people of all ages and experiences to build mobile apps, introducing new programmers to fundamental programming concepts such as variables, conditionals, iterators, and procedures. Past studies however show that programmers do not use procedures, App Inventor’s key means of abstraction for avoiding duplicate code, very often, which could suggest that App inventor programmers, instead of using procedures, merely duplicate their code. This research focused on detecting duplicated event handlers in two datasets of App Inventor code. I found that at least 18% of App Inventor event handlers are duplicates. Surprisingly, over 49% of this code cannot be extracted into a procedure without using the rarely used blocks for manipulating generic components, which could be further preventing App Inventor programmers from using procedures as abstractions. Therefore, more work needs to be done to make programmers more aware of generics and how to use them.

Sun 4 Nov

Displayed time zone: Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey change

09:00 - 10:00
Limits People Reach & How to Get Past ThemBLOCKS+ at Beacon Hill
09:00
5m
Talk
Coding while Making: using Blocks Language in a Physical Computing Setting
BLOCKS+
Karen H. Jin University of New Hampshire
Pre-print
09:05
5m
Talk
Abstractionless Programming in App Inventor
BLOCKS+
Audrey Seo Wellesley College
Pre-print
09:10
5m
Talk
Beyond "I'm done": Encouraging deeper exploration of challenging computational concepts
BLOCKS+
Paulina Haduong Harvard Graduate School of Education, Karen Brennan Harvard Graduate School of Education
Pre-print
09:15
5m
Talk
The Example Guru: Suggesting Examples to Novice Blocks Programmers in an Artifact-Based Context Increases Use of New Blocks
BLOCKS+
Michelle Brachman University of Massachusetts Lowell, Caitlin Kelleher Washington University in St. Louis
Pre-print
09:20
5m
Talk
Research Tools for MIT App Inventor
BLOCKS+
Evan W Patton Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mark Sherman CERT, Michael Tissenbaum University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Pre-print
09:25
15m
Other
Themed Session 1: Whole Group Discussion
BLOCKS+

09:40
20m
Other
Themed Session 1: Break-out discussions
BLOCKS+