Effects of Programming Semantic Errors Experience in Debugging

This paper presents the results of a controlled experiment comparing debugging abilities of novice, intermediate, and skilled student programmers. Debugging-performance dif-ferences were studied using two single-page Pascal pro-grams: a binary search program and a median calculation program. Two types of semantic errors, array bounds and undefined variable, and two types of error messages, with and without line number, were varied within the two programs. Subjects were asked to find and correct a single error in each program. Results demonstrate skill-level differences, show the importance of error and message interaction, and support previous research claiming that programmers can almost always correct an error once it is located. 1