What does saying that 'programming is hard' really say, and about whom?
Abstract
Shifting the focus from the perceived difficulty of learning programming to making programming more universally accessible.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Programming error messages may contribute to the perception that programming is overly challenging.
“possibly to the extent that they contribute to the perception that programming is overly challenging [6].”
From Using Large Language Models to Enhance Programming Error Messages (2023) · cites this paper as [6]
Cites
Introductory programming: a systematic literature review
Luxton-Reilly, A., Simon, Al-Bluwi, I., Becker, B. A., Giannakos, M. N., Kumar, A. N., Ott, L. M., Paterson, J. H., Scott, M., Sheard, J., et al. (2018) · doi:10.1145/3293881.3295779 · Cited by 511 · see citing works
Self-citationLearner-Centered Design of Computing Education: Research on Computing for Everyone
Guzdial, M. (2015) · Synthesis lectures on human-centered informatics · doi:10.2200/s00684ed1v01y201511hci033 · Cited by 252 · see citing works
Becker, B. A., Denny, P., Pettit, R., Bouchard, D., Bouvier, D. J., Harrington, B., Kamil, A., Karkare, A., McDonald, C., Osera, P.-M., et al. (2019) · Proceedings of the Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education · doi:10.1145/3344429.3372508 · Cited by 199 · see citing works
Self-citationLuxton-Reilly, A. (2016) · ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE) · doi:10.1145/2899415.2899432 · Cited by 159 · see citing works
Structuring the programmer's task
Sime, M. E., Arblaster, A., & Green, T. R. G. (1977) · Journal of Occupational Psychology · doi:10.1111/j.2044-8325.1977.tb00376.x · Cited by 76 · see citing works
Nguyen, A., & Lewis, C. M. (2020) · ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) · doi:10.1145/3328778.3366805 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
From a Black Art to a School Subject
Tedre, M. (2020) · ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE) · doi:10.1145/3341525.3394983 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The Robots Are Here: Navigating the Generative AI Revolution in Computing Education
Prather, J., Denny, P., Leinonen, J., Becker, B. A., Albluwi, I., Craig, M., Keuning, H., Kiesler, N., Kohn, T., Luxton-Reilly, A., et al. (2023) · Proceedings of the 2023 Working Group Reports on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education · doi:10.1145/3623762.3633499 · Cited by 396 · see citing works
Self-citationMy AI Wants to Know if This Will Be on the Exam: Testing OpenAI’s Codex on CS2 Programming Exercises
Finnie-Ansley, J., Denny, P., Luxton-Reilly, A., Santos, E. A., Prather, J., & Becker, B. A. (2023) · Proceedings of the 25th Australasian Computing Education Conference · doi:10.1145/3576123.3576134 · Cited by 186 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Becker, B. A.
- Affiliations
- University College Dublin (IE)
- Corresponding author
- Becker, Brett A.
- ORCID
- Becker, Brett A.
- Venue
- Communications of the ACM
- Published
- 2021-07-26
- Volume
- 64
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 27-29
- ISSN
- 0001-0782 (ISSN-L)
- 1557-7317
- OpenAlex
- W3184791513
- Cited by
- 33
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 5.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Communications of the ACM (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Teaching and Learning Programming
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Technology in Education
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Software › Spreadsheets and End-User Computing
- Keywords
- programming problems, programming learning, universal access, programming education
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
