PLIERS
Abstract
Programming language design requires making many usability-related design decisions. However, existing HCI methods can be impractical to apply to programming languages: languages have high iteration costs, programmers require significant learning time, and user performance has high variance. To address these problems, we adapted both formative and summative HCI methods to make them more suitable for programming language design. We integrated these methods into a new process, PLIERS, for designing programming languages in a user-centered way. We assessed PLIERS by using it to design two new programming languages. Glacier extends Java to enable programmers to express immutability properties effectively and easily. Obsidian is a language for blockchains that includes verification of critical safety properties. Empirical studies showed that the PLIERS process resulted in languages that could be used effectively by many programmers and revealed additional opportunities for language improvement.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Jul 23, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.1145/3452379
Entities
People
- Brad A. Myers
- Celeste Barnaby
- Gauri Kambhatla
- Jenna L. Wise
- Jonathan Erik Aldrich
- Joshua Sunshine
- Michael Coblenz
- Paulette Koronkevich
Organizations
- Carnegie Mellon University
- International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, NY)
- Meta
- National Science Foundation
- United States Department of Defense
- University of British Columbia
- University of Michigan