Programming Paradigms and Program Comprehension by Novices

Research into how programs are constructed has shown that an important factor is the programmer's ability to construct mental models of the system and translate them into a program. In novices, the translation ability is often reduced. Programming success can be enhanced if the programming language is closer to the novice's concept of system operation. However, novices are usually advised to start with an imperative language such as Basic or Pascal regardless of suitability. We are investigating which programming paradigms are best for novices in the context of multimedia. This paper describes a pilot experiment comparing the serial/polling style of programming with the parallel/reactive style for multimedia programs. The results seem to indicate that under certain conditions novices do better with the reactive style.