Article

End-user software engineering with assertions in the spreadsheet paradigm

Authors:

Margaret Burnett,

Gregg Rothermel,

Chris WallaceAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '03: Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 93 - 103

Published: 03 May 2003 Publication History

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Abstract

There has been little research on end-user program development beyond the activity of programming. Devising ways to address additional activities related to end-user program development may be critical, however, because research shows that a large proportion of the programs written by end users contain faults. Toward this end, we have been working on ways to provide formal "software engineering" methodologies to end-user programmers. This paper describes an approach we have developed for supporting assertions in end-user software, focusing on the spreadsheet paradigm. We also report the results of a controlled experiment, with 59 end-user subjects, to investigate the usefulness of this approach. Our results show that the end users were able to use the assertions to reason about their spreadsheets, and that doing so was tied to both greater correctness and greater efficiency.

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Cited By

Corno FDe Russis LMonge Roffarello ABrewster SFitzpatrick GCox AKostakos V(2019)Empowering End Users in Debugging Trigger-Action RulesProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300618(1-13)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290605.3300618
Reiss S(2019)IoT end user programming modelsProceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering Research & Practices for the Internet of Things10.1109/SERP4IoT.2019.00008(1-8)Online publication date: 27-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SERP4IoT.2019.00008
Tzafilkou KProtogeros NKaragiannidis CKoumpis A(2017)Gender-based behavioral analysis for end-user development and the `RULES' attributesEducation and Information Technologies10.5555/3123587.312359522:4(1853-1894)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3123587.3123595
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Index Terms

End-user software engineering with assertions in the spreadsheet paradigm
1. Applied computing
  1. Computers in other domains
    1. Personal computers and PC applications
      1. Spreadsheets
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software development process management
      1. Software development methods
    2. Software verification and validation
      1. Formal software verification
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Software functional properties
      1. Formal methods

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE '03: Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 2003

841 pages

ISBN:076951877X

General Chair:
Lori Clarke
University of Massachusetts
,
Program Chairs:
Laurie Dillon
Michigan State University
,
Walter Tichy
University of Karlsruhe, Germany

Copyright © Copyright (c) 2003 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Sponsors

IEEE Computer Society Technical Council on Software Engineering
SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering

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IEEE Computer Society

United States

Publication History

Published: 03 May 2003

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ICSE03

Sponsor:

SIGSOFT

ICSE03: 25th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 3 - 10, 2003

Oregon, Portland

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ICSE '03 Paper Acceptance Rate 42 of 324 submissions, 13%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 276 of 1,856 submissions, 15%

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Cited By

Corno FDe Russis LMonge Roffarello ABrewster SFitzpatrick GCox AKostakos V(2019)Empowering End Users in Debugging Trigger-Action RulesProceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3290605.3300618(1-13)Online publication date: 2-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3290605.3300618
Reiss S(2019)IoT end user programming modelsProceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering Research & Practices for the Internet of Things10.1109/SERP4IoT.2019.00008(1-8)Online publication date: 27-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/SERP4IoT.2019.00008
Tzafilkou KProtogeros NKaragiannidis CKoumpis A(2017)Gender-based behavioral analysis for end-user development and the `RULES' attributesEducation and Information Technologies10.5555/3123587.312359522:4(1853-1894)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3123587.3123595
Horry Y(2017)Financial information description language and visualization/analysis toolsComputer Languages, Systems and Structures10.1016/j.cl.2017.05.00550:C(31-52)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.cl.2017.05.005
Almeida LCirilo EBarbosa E(2016)SS-BDDProceedings of the 1st Brazilian Symposium on Systematic and Automated Software Testing10.1145/2993288.2993296(1-10)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2993288.2993296
Booth TStumpf SBird JJones SKaye JDruin ALampe CMorris DHourcade J(2016)Crossed WiresProceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2858036.2858533(3485-3497)Online publication date: 7-May-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2858036.2858533
Wu BKnoblock CNichols JMahmud JO'Donovan JConati CZancanaro M(2016)Maximizing Correctness with Minimal User Effort to Learn Data TransformationsProceedings of the 21st International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces10.1145/2856767.2856791(375-384)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2016
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Burlet GHindle APenta MPinzger MRobbes R(2015)An empirical study of end-user programmers in the computer music communityProceedings of the 12th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories10.5555/2820518.2820554(292-302)Online publication date: 16-May-2015
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Burnett MMyers BHerbsleb JDwyer MHerbsleb J(2014)Future of end-user software engineering: beyond the silosFuture of Software Engineering Proceedings10.1145/2593882.2593896(201-211)Online publication date: 31-May-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2593882.2593896
Dorn BStankiewicz ARoggi CBouthillier FJu B(2013)Lost while searchingProceedings of the 76th ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Beyond the Cloud: Rethinking Information Boundaries10.5555/2655780.2655801(1-11)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2013
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