End-user programming as translation: An experimental framework and study," available at http://eecs.wsu.edu/~hundhaus/veupl/pub/hcc03f.pdf

One of the reputed advantages of end-user programming languages is that they support a given problem domain with a set of programming abstractions that are “just right ” for the end-users who need to program within that domain. Green and Petre’s [1] Cognitive Dimensions Framework accounts for this advantage in terms of the “closeness of mapping ” dimension: the closer the programming domain is to the problem domain, the easier the programming task. This suggests that programming might be conceptualized as a process of translation, with “close ” translations being more efficient and error-free than “distant ” ones. While there appears to be a strong intuitive basis for this view, there presently exists little direct empirical evidence. To that end, we present an experimental framework for systematically exploring the “closeness of mapping ” dimension within the programming domain of college-level textbook algorithms and data structures. A pilot study we conducted within that framework provides preliminary evidence in support of one of our hypotheses. 1