A Survey on Computer Programming Learning Environments

Abstract

We are assisting the rise of online coding environments as a strategy to promote youth tech employment. With the growing importance of the technology sector, these type of technical training programs give learners emergent tech skills with a big impact and relevance to the current professional market needs. In this realm, MOOCs (massive open online courses) and online coding bootcamps are two increasingly popular options for learners to improve their code development skills and find work within a relatively short amount of time. Among all the features available on these environments, one stands out, which is the code generation. This chapter aims to detail and compare the most popular solutions for both learning contexts based on several criteria such as impact and maturity, user groups, and tools and features. In the features field, the authors highlight the code generation feature as an efficient way to enhance exercise resolution.

Key Terms in this Chapter

Gamification: Conceptual model that aims to bring game mechanics to non-game contexts.

Application Programming Interface (API): A set of uniform programming interfaces for building software and applications.

MOOC: Massive open online courses.

Game Backend as a Service (GBaaS): Is a subset of a BaaS that includes cross-platform solutions for the typical game concepts.

Backend as a Service (BaaS): Cloud computing service model acting as a middleware component that allows developers to connect their applications to cloud services via API and SDK.