252 papers · page 13 of 13
Error messages are one of the most important tools that a language offers its programmers. For novices, this feed-back is especially critical. Error messages typically contain both a textual description of the problem and an indication of where in the code the error occurred. Thi…
Although programming is one of the most creative things that one can do with a computer, there is currently no way to make programs on an increasingly popular class of tablet computers. Tablets appear unable to support capable (proficient) programming experiences because of their…
This paper presents Emerson, a new programming system for scripting objects in user-extensible virtual worlds such as Second Life, Active Worlds, and Open Wonderland. Emerson's primary goal is to make it easy for novice programmers to write and deploy interesting applications. Sc…
There are times during the normal execution flow of programs, when an object of a class wishes to be notified about some special event which may take place in a method it calls. Some other times, this event might not happen in the directly called method, but in another one, deepe…
Programming language design, The Four Rs, Domainspecific languages "I can learn the poor things reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, and counting as far as the rule of three, which is just as much as the likes of them require;" Lawrie Todd: Or the Settlers in the Woods, Galt (1832) …
Along with the associated film, this paper presents an approach to individually controlling home and office fixtures such as lights, window blinds, cooling and ventilation units with an 'intuitive gesture-based controller' using a smart phone. The implementation of the gesture co…
It has become extraordinarily difficult to write software that performs close to optimally on complex modern microarchitectures. Particularly plagued are domains that are data intensive and require complex mathematical computations such as information retrieval, scientific simula…
As Social Computing has increasingly captivated the general public, it has become a popular research area for computer scientists. Social Computing research focuses on online social behavior and using artifacts derived from it for providing recommendations and other useful commun…
This paper proposes a new approach to experimental computer systems research, which we call Literate Experimentation. Conventionally, experimental procedure and writeup are divided into distinct phases: i.e. setup (the method), data collection (the results) and analysis (the eval…
The world is experiencing a technology shift. In 2011, more touchscreen-based mobile devices like smartphones and tablets will be sold than desktops, laptops, and netbooks combined. In fact, in many cases incredibly powerful and easy-to-use smart phones are going to be the first …
In biology, evolution is usually seen as a tinkering process, different from what an engineer does when he plans the development of his systems. Recently, studies have shown that even in biology, there is a part of good engineering. As computer scientists, we have much more diffi…