Most programming languages have been designed by committees or individuals. What happens if, instead, we throw open the design process and let lots of programmers weigh in on semantic choices? Will they avoid well-known mistakes like dynamic scope? What do they expect of aliasing? What kind of type-checking behavior will they choose? We investigate this issue by posing questions to programmers on Amazon Mechanical Turk. We examine several language features, in each case using multiple-choice questions to explore programmer preferences. We check the responses for consensus (agreement between people) and consistency (agreement across responses from one person). In general we find low consistency and consensus, potential confusion over mainstream features, and arguably poor design choices. In short, this preliminary evidence does not argue in favor of designing languages based on programmer preference.
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10:30 - 12:00: Language DesignOnward! Papers at Regency B Chair(s): Zachary TatlockUniversity of Washington, Seattle | |||
10:30 - 11:00 Talk | Can We Crowdsource Language Design? Onward! Papers Preston Tunnell WilsonBrown University, Justin PombrioBrown University, USA, Shriram KrishnamurthiBrown University, USA | ||
11:00 - 11:30 Talk | Assessing User Preferences in Programming Language Design Onward! Papers Roger ChamberlainWashington University in St. Louis | ||
11:30 - 12:00 Talk | Replacing Phrase Structure Grammar with Dependency Grammar in the Design and Implementation of Programming Languages Onward! Papers Friedrich SteimannFernuniversität |