Breaking Down Terminology of Clojure Error Messages for Beginner Programmers

The Clojure programming language has educational potential for beginner programmers due to its clean, simple syntax and its strong focus on functional programming, an important aspect of CSci education. However, one weakness of Clojure lies in its error messages, which are messages that programmers receive when a program goes wrong. The terminology and shorthands used to convey necessary information for understanding the error are often confusing to novices. The issue is exacerbated by the fact that the error messages are phrased in terms of the underlying programming language – Java – which beginner programmers may typically be unfamiliar with. A research group at UMN Morris is developing a tool, called Babel, that replaces the language’s default error messages with less jargon-heavy forms. This year, we started utilizing a graphical interface for viewing Clojure data to highlight the important details and terminology via context-based formatting choices, designed to make it possible for users to easily explore the reasons for the error and get access to relevant resources. We present our work-in-progress design of displaying error messages and discuss its potential benefits for new learners.