Patterns in learning to program: an experiment?

Authors:
Ron Porter;Paul Calder
Affiliations:
Flinder University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia;Flinder University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia
Venue:
ACE '04 Proceedings of the Sixth Australasian Conference on Computing Education - Volume 30
Year:
2004

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Abstract

Learning to program involves the application of programming language features to the solving of novel problems, and the experience of educators suggests that it is this factor that causes novice programmers the most difficulty. Because software patterns are descriptions of common problems and their solution written in a standardised format that facilitates reuse, their use in the novice context is indicated. An earlier paper (Porter & Calder 2003) suggested and demonstrated a process for applying patterns to problems that derives from the relationships between patterns in a pattern language suitable for novice programmers. This paper reports on the feasibility of testing the idea.