Algot: An Educational Programming Language with Human-Intuitive Visual Syntax

Empirical research suggests that programming language syntax is a common impediment for beginners, a concern that is mitigated to a varying degree by visual programming. In this paper, we introduce a novel visual programming language that is founded on program synthesis and the programming-by-demonstration paradigm. By using an intuitive visual syntax, we show how we can meet our primary goal of providing support to computer programming novices in exploring foundational programming concepts. We present the language's current and planned use in computer science education, provide preliminary evidence for its effectiveness, and discuss its future possibilities.