2026-09-19T14:27:28Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1515442023-08-01T04:02:19Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Miller, Robert C.
Leyva, Mario
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
2023-07-31T19:47:32Z
2023-07-31T19:47:32Z
2023-06
2023-06-06T16:35:28.183Z
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/151544
Refactoring code is an important skill to become a competent software engineer, however it is usually never explicitly taught in coding intensive courses. Even though engineers in academia and industry agree refactoring is important, most novice programmers are unaware of the code smells they should avoid when writing code. This thesis discusses a novel tutoring system to assist novice programmers with refactoring. This tool provides refactoring exercises to students in an introductory programming class. The tutor exposes students to various types of code smells and has them deliberately practice how to refactor. The tutor infrastructure has proven to be robust to several refactoring exercises. Based on a user study involving the students and the staff members from 6.1010: Fundamentals of Programming, the tutor infrastructure has shown to be robust to bugs and staff feedback. The tutor shows promise, but further studies with more students are necessary to evaluate its effectiveness on teaching student refactoring.
M.Eng.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
Copyright retained by author(s)
https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/
Refactoring Tutor: An IDE Integrated Tool for
Practicing Key Techniques to Refactor Code
Thesis
application/pdf
Master
Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Publication
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>Refactoring code is an important skill to become a competent software engineer, however it is usually never explicitly taught in coding intensive courses. Even though engineers in academia and industry agree refactoring is important, most novice programmers are unaware of the code smells they should avoid when writing code. This thesis discusses a novel tutoring system to assist novice programmers with refactoring. This tool provides refactoring exercises to students in an introductory programming class. The tutor exposes students to various types of code smells and has them deliberately practice how to refactor. The tutor infrastructure has proven to be robust to several refactoring exercises. Based on a user study involving the students and the staff members from 6.1010: Fundamentals of Programming, the tutor infrastructure has shown to be robust to bugs and staff feedback. The tutor shows promise, but further studies with more students are necessary to evaluate its effectiveness on teaching student refactoring.</Abstract>
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