Research in Progress

Computer Scaence Department Yale University THE COGNITION AND PROGRAMMING PROJECT (CAPP) in the Computer Science Department at Yale University is an interdisciplinary group exploring a wide range of issues in programming. 'This project is currently being funded by NSF RISE, under grant number SED-81-12403 'This project is currently being funded by NSF IST, under grant number IST-81-14840 We have also shown that when the language construct, agrees with people's natural problem solving strategies they can learn to use such constructs effectively. The implication is that language dcsigners should be more sensitive to cognitive capabilities which people bring to programming and that computing educators should be aware of the systematic misconceptions which arise due to cognztively poor programming language constructs. Using our theory of programming plans, we are developing measures of program complexity that are based on the underlying mental effort needed to understand programs. This approach is in contrast to typical measures of program complexity which are sensitive to only surface features of programs.