In this essay, we explore a new pedagogical framing ofway of pedagogically and teaching the Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP). In addition to, or perhaps even in place of, teaching the specifics of the rule itself, we advocatepropose teaching an operationalised version of the rule: that a subtype must pass its supertype’s black box tests for each of its overriding methods. We leverage the fact that black box tests should be written to capture conformance to a specification without overfitting or checking implementation internalsdetails (as would be checked by glass box tests). A type that violates the rules of substitutability will also fail a potential corresponding black box test for the supertype. Additionally, we argue that the over-strict nature of the classical LSP Postcondition Rule (which has been improved in subsequent work) can be a source of confusion for both instructors and for students learning this crucial concept for the first time. Pleasingly, many of the technical subtleties of this nuanced but important concept drop out naturally when thinking of substitutability via black box tests. Thus we put forward We propose that this test-oriented means of teaching substitutability is a valuable alternative to the classical sense of checking the LSP, with the benefit of being intuitively accessible to students.
{"title":"Reframing the Liskov substitution principle through the lens of testing","authors":"E. Baniassad, Alexander J. Summers","doi":"10.1145/3484272.3484965","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3484272.3484965","url":null,"abstract":"In this essay, we explore a new pedagogical framing ofway of pedagogically and teaching the Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP). In addition to, or perhaps even in place of, teaching the specifics of the rule itself, we advocatepropose teaching an operationalised version of the rule: that a subtype must pass its supertype’s black box tests for each of its overriding methods. We leverage the fact that black box tests should be written to capture conformance to a specification without overfitting or checking implementation internalsdetails (as would be checked by glass box tests). A type that violates the rules of substitutability will also fail a potential corresponding black box test for the supertype. Additionally, we argue that the over-strict nature of the classical LSP Postcondition Rule (which has been improved in subsequent work) can be a source of confusion for both instructors and for students learning this crucial concept for the first time. Pleasingly, many of the technical subtleties of this nuanced but important concept drop out naturally when thinking of substitutability via black box tests. Thus we put forward We propose that this test-oriented means of teaching substitutability is a valuable alternative to the classical sense of checking the LSP, with the benefit of being intuitively accessible to students.","PeriodicalId":159099,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on SPLASH-E","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126489284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
As Scratch has become one of the most popular educational programming languages, understanding its common programming idioms can benefit both computing educators and learners. This understanding can fine-tune the curricular development to help learners master the fundamentals of writing idiomatic code in their programming pursuits. Unfortunately, the research community's understanding of what constitutes idiomatic Scratch code has been limited. To help bridge this knowledge gap, we systematically identified idioms as based on canonical source code, presented in widely available educational materials. We implemented a tool that automatically detects these idioms to assess their prevalence within a large dataset of over 70K Scratch projects in different experience backgrounds and project categories. Since communal learning and the practice of remixing are one of the cornerstones of the Scratch programming community, we studied the relationship between common programming idioms and remixes. Having analyzed the original projects and their remixes, we observed that different idioms may associate with dissimilar types of code changes. Code changes in remixes are desirable, as they require a meaningful programming effort that spurs the learning process. The ability to substantially change a project in its remixes hinges on the project's code being easy to understand and modify. Our findings suggest that the presence of certain common idioms can indeed positively impact the degree of code changes in remixes. Our findings can help form a foundation of what comprises common Scratch programming idioms, thus benefiting both introductory computing education and Scratch programming tools.
{"title":"The common coder’s scratch programming idioms and their impact on project remixing","authors":"Xingyu Long, Peeratham Techapalokul, E. Tilevich","doi":"10.1145/3484272.3484959","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3484272.3484959","url":null,"abstract":"As Scratch has become one of the most popular educational programming languages, understanding its common programming idioms can benefit both computing educators and learners. This understanding can fine-tune the curricular development to help learners master the fundamentals of writing idiomatic code in their programming pursuits. Unfortunately, the research community's understanding of what constitutes idiomatic Scratch code has been limited. To help bridge this knowledge gap, we systematically identified idioms as based on canonical source code, presented in widely available educational materials. We implemented a tool that automatically detects these idioms to assess their prevalence within a large dataset of over 70K Scratch projects in different experience backgrounds and project categories. Since communal learning and the practice of remixing are one of the cornerstones of the Scratch programming community, we studied the relationship between common programming idioms and remixes. Having analyzed the original projects and their remixes, we observed that different idioms may associate with dissimilar types of code changes. Code changes in remixes are desirable, as they require a meaningful programming effort that spurs the learning process. The ability to substantially change a project in its remixes hinges on the project's code being easy to understand and modify. Our findings suggest that the presence of certain common idioms can indeed positively impact the degree of code changes in remixes. Our findings can help form a foundation of what comprises common Scratch programming idioms, thus benefiting both introductory computing education and Scratch programming tools.","PeriodicalId":159099,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on SPLASH-E","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130818344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on SPLASH-E","authors":"","doi":"10.1145/3484272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3484272","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":159099,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on SPLASH-E","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132724418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}