Contextualized Programming Language Documentation - Enhancing Learning with Adaptive Explanations

Explore the concept of contextualized programming language documentation in this 29-minute ACM SIGPLAN conference talk. Dive into the challenges learners face when acquiring new programming languages and examine existing functional language documentation approaches. Learn about ExplainThis, an innovative system that generates tailored language documentation based on specific code contexts. Discover how this tool integrates with the Hazel live functional environment, utilizing color as secondary notation to correlate explanations with program terms. Gain insights from a formative user study on syntactic and explanatory specificity, uncovering learners' preferences for documentation tailored to specific code syntax while allowing for adaptive levels of specificity in code examples. Consider the implications and future directions for improving programming language learning experiences through contextualized documentation.

Motivation
Outline
Existing Approaches - Documentation
Existing Approaches - Ask an Expert
Contextualized Documentation Tools
Syntactic Form and Code Explanation
Formative Study Goals
Methodology
Specificity of Explanations
Specificity of Examples
Use of Terminology
Use of Examples
Specificity Slider UI
Formative Study Results
Future Directions
Contextualized Programming Language Documentation