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Omnicode: A Novice-Oriented Live Programming Environment with Always-On Run-Time Value Visualizations

Authors:

Philip J. GuoAuthors Info & Claims

UIST '17: Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

Pages 737 - 745

https://doi.org/10.1145/3126594.3126632

Published: 20 October 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Visualizations of run-time program state help novices form proper mental models and debug their code. We push this technique to the extreme by posing the following question: What if a live programming environment for an imperative language always displays the entire history of all run-time values for all program variables all the time? To explore this question, we built a prototype live IDE called Omnicode ("Omniscient Code") that continually runs the user's Python code and uses a scatterplot matrix to visualize the entire history of all of its numerical values, along with meaningful numbers derived from other data types. To filter the visualizations and hone in on specific points of interest, the user can brush and link over the scatterplots or select portions of code. They can also zoom in to view detailed stack and heap visualizations at each execution step. An exploratory study on 10 novice programmers discovered that they found Omnicode to be useful for debugging, forming mental models, explaining their code to others, and discovering moments of serendipity that would not have been likely within an ordinary IDE.

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Cited By

Goldstein HTao JHatfield-Dodds ZPierce BHead A(2024)Tyche: Making Sense of PBT EffectivenessProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676407(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676407
Hähnlein FBernstein GSchulz A(2024)Understanding and Supporting Debugging Workflows in CADProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676353(1-14)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676353
Ferdowsi KHuang RJames MPolikarpova NLerner S(2024)Validating AI-Generated Code with Live ProgrammingProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642495(1-8)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642495
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Index Terms

Omnicode: A Novice-Oriented Live Programming Environment with Always-On Run-Time Value Visualizations
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

UIST '17: Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

October 2017

870 pages

ISBN:9781450349819

DOI:10.1145/3126594

General Chair:
Krzysztof Gajos
Harvard University
,
Program Chairs:
Jennifer Mankoff
Carnegie Mellon University
,
Chris Harrison
Carnegie Mellon University

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 20 October 2017

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UIST '17

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UIST '17: The 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

October 22 - 25, 2017

QC, Québec City, Canada

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UIST '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 73 of 324 submissions, 23%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 561 of 2,567 submissions, 22%

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UIST '25

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The 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

September 28 - October 1, 2025

Busan , Republic of Korea

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Cited By

Goldstein HTao JHatfield-Dodds ZPierce BHead A(2024)Tyche: Making Sense of PBT EffectivenessProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676407(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676407
Hähnlein FBernstein GSchulz A(2024)Understanding and Supporting Debugging Workflows in CADProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676353(1-14)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676353
Ferdowsi KHuang RJames MPolikarpova NLerner S(2024)Validating AI-Generated Code with Live ProgrammingProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642495(1-8)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642495
Jalalitabar MWang YHu Q(2024)Teaching Programming Concepts with Visualization: A Systematic Overview and Lessons Learned2024 IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC)10.1109/ISEC61299.2024.10665100(1-7)Online publication date: 9-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISEC61299.2024.10665100
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Jiang PSun FXia H(2023)Log-it: Supporting Programming with Interactive, Contextual, Structured, and Visual LogsProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581403(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Hayatpur DWigdor DXia H(2023)CrossCode: Multi-level Visualization of Program ExecutionProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581390(1-13)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Mcnutt AOutkine AChugh R(2023)A Study of Editor Features in a Creative Coding ClassroomProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3580683(1-15)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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Shrestha NChopra BHenley AParnin C(2023)Detangler: Helping Data Scientists Explore, Understand, and Debug Data Wrangling Pipelines2023 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VL-HCC57772.2023.00031(189-198)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2023
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Manesh DLuu AKhalid MLi JOkonkwo CAkanmu AAwolusi IMurzi HLee S(2023)Octave: An End-User Programming Environment for Analysis of Spatiotemporal Data for Construction Students2023 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VL-HCC57772.2023.00014(51-59)Online publication date: 3-Oct-2023
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