Probing the Design Space: Parallel Versions for Exploratory Programming

Abstract: Exploratory programming involves open-ended tasks. To evaluate their progress on these, programmers require frequent feedback and means to tell if the feedback they observe is bringing them in the right direction. Collecting, comparing, and sharing feedback is typically done through ad-hoc means: relying on memory to compare outputs, code comments, or manual screenshots. To approach this issue, we designed Exploriants: an extension to example-based live programming. Exploriants allows programmers to place variation points. It collects outputs captured in probes and presents them in a comparison view that programmers can customize to suit their program domain. We find that the addition of variation points and the comparisons view encourages a structured approach to exploring variations of a program. We demonstrate Exploriants' capabilities and applicability in three case studies on image processing, data processing, and game development. Given Exploriants, exploratory programmers are given a straightforward means to evaluate their progress and do not have to rely on ad-hoc methods that may introduce errors.