A More Natural Programming Language for Children

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Most children are not programmers but would like to create software that is similar to their favorite commercial applications, such as games and educational applications. Today's programming environments make this too difficult. The goals of this project are to study how children (fifth grade and older) reason about programming concepts, and then to create a new general-purpose programming language and environment for children that takes advantage of these findings. All aspects of the new system will be thoroughly analyzed with usability techniques such as Cognitive Dimensions and user tests with children. The language will be general-purpose, in that it will not be limited to creating a particular kind of program. It will be extensible, modular, scalable, and well-structured, so students can easily write programs that range from one line all the way up to many thousands of lines. Unlike most current environments for children, the system will support the creation of complete and sophisticated programs. The PI will exploit modern technologies to simplify the programming process, including direct manipulation and demonstrational techniques, programming environment technologies like structure editors, and mechanisms for extending programs by harnessing and reusing existing components. There has not been a successful new programming language for children in many years. Since the PI's system will be based on empirical studies of how children think, it should have an excellent chance of allowing the majority of children (and, by extension, the general public) to create interesting and useful applicationshttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~NatProg