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Structure Editors: Old Hat or Future Vision?

  • Conference paper
Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE 2011)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 275))

Abstract

Structure editors emphasise a natural representation of the underlying tree structure of a program, often using a clearly identifiable 1-to-1 mapping between syntax tree elements and on-screen artefacts. This paper presents layout and behaviour principles for structure editors and a new structure editor for Lisp. The evaluation of the editor’s usability reveals an interesting mismatch. Whereas by far most participants of a questionnaire intuitively favour the structure editor to the textual editor, objective improvements are measurable, yet not significant.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hochschule Darmstadt - University of Applied Sciences, Haardtring 100, 64295, Darmstadt, Germany

    Andreas Gomolka & Bernhard Humm

Authors
  1. Andreas Gomolka
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  2. Bernhard Humm
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing, Macquarie University, 2109, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Leszek A. Maciaszek

  2. Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W. Campbell Road, Texas 75080-3021, Richardson, USA

    Kang Zhang

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Gomolka, A., Humm, B. (2013). Structure Editors: Old Hat or Future Vision?. In: Maciaszek, L.A., Zhang, K. (eds) Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering. ENASE 2011. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 275. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32341-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32341-6_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32340-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32341-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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