Computer and Information Science 2011

Abstract

This study investigates programming habits based on keystrokes, software quality, code format, and their correlation. We conducted an experiment by asked ten undergraduate students and one graduate student to complete a programming request in a controlled environment. We used a software tool to record the keystroke frequency, designed criteria to evaluation program quality, and conducted a survey after the experiment. The experiment results demonstrate that while novice programmers are diverse in terms of programming styles, good ones tend to control execution in finer granularity. Source code format can be a flag of programming performance. It seems that there is no direct correlation between the frequency of keystrokes and the quality of programs. We think monitoring low-level keystrokes could provide a way to study cognitive activity of programmers. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.