Leveraging Continuous Feedback in Education to Increase C Code Quality

This paper presents a framework for students learning C programming. CoFee is a modular framework focusing on code security and code robustness by using state-of-the-art software analyzers. Further, error messages are supplemented by meaningful hints suited for novice students. It also follows the theory of situated learning by exposing students to typical software engineering workflows using Gitlab for version control, continuous integration and code quality reports. To check code quality CoFee supports well-established open-source tools which were tested on a purpose build test suite. Its modular architecture allows easy integration of future analyzers. The evaluation within an operating systems course shows that CoFee enhances the code quality of the students' submissions and that it is well-suited for novice students.