MODELS AND THEORIES OF PROGRAMMING STRATEGY

Much of the literature concerned with understanding the nature of programming skill has focused explicitly upon the declarative aspects of programmers' knowledge. This literature has sought to describe the nature of stereotypical programming knowledge structures and their organization. However, one major limitation of many of these knowledge-based theories is that they often fail to consider the way in which knowledge is used or applied. Another strand of literature is less well represented. This literature deals with the strategic elements of programming skill and is directed towards an analysis of the strategies commonly employed by programmers in the generation and the comprehension of programs. In this paper an attempt is made to unify various analyses of programming strategy. This paper presents a review of the literature in this area, highlighting common themes and concerns, and proposes a model of strategy development which attempts to encompass the central findings of previous research in this area. It is suggested that many studies of programming strategy are descriptive and fail to explain why strategies take the form they do or to explain the typical strategy shifts which are observed during the transitions between different levels of skill. This paper suggests that what is needed is an explanation of programming skill that integrates ideas about knowledge representation with a strategic model, enabling one to make predictions about how changes in knowledge representation might give rise to particular strategies and to the strategy changes associated with developing expertise. This paper concludes by making a number of brief suggestions about the possible nature of this model and its implications for theories of programming expertise. © 1993 Academic Press. All rights reserved.