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Cited by 172

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A Goal/Plan Analysis of Buggy Pascal Programs

Spohrer, James C., Soloway, Elliot, Pope, Edgar·1985·Human–Computer Interaction
DOI 10.1207/s15327051hci0102_4
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Abstract

In this paper, we present a descriptive theory of buggy novice programs and a bug categorization scheme that is based on this theory. Central to this theory is the cognitively plausible knowledge - goals and plans - that underlies programming. The bug categorization scheme makes explicit problem-dependent goal and plan knowledge at many different levels of detail. We provide several examples of how the scheme permits us to focus on bugs in a way that facilitates generating plausible accounts of why the bugs may have arisen. In particular, our approach has led us to one explanation of why some novice programs are buggier than others. A basic part of this explanation is the notion of merged goals and merged plans in which a single integrated plan is used to achieve multiple goals.

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Metadata

Authors
Spohrer, J. C., Soloway, E., & Pope, E.
Venue
Human–Computer Interaction
Publisher
Informa UK Limited
Published
1985-06
Volume
1
Issue
2
Pages
163-207
ISSN
  • 0737-0024 (ISSN-L)
  • 1532-7051
DOI
10.1207/s15327051hci0102_4
OpenAlex
W2014132843
Cited by
172
References
0
FWCI
23.18
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: A Goal/Plan Analysis of Buggy Pascal Programs. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1207/s15327051hci0102_4
The paper
Spohrer, J. C., Soloway, E., & Pope, E. (1985). A Goal/Plan Analysis of Buggy Pascal Programs. Human–Computer Interaction. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327051hci0102_4

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.