A great deal of program comprehension research deals with matters of scale and complexity, because these create difficulties for programmers and therefore deserve support. However, what is difficult is a matter of perception and experience; furthermore, there are many neglected areas of comprehension—especially for students—that are important, difficult, and fascinating. In this talk I will distill several years of research in computing education into three PC’s for this IC: plan comprehension, performance comprehension, and problem comprehension. (With apologies, sometimes the C’s will also refer to construction and composition.)

I am the Vice President for Programming Languages at Brown University in Providence, RI, USA. I’m not, really, but that’s what it says on my business card.

I believe tropical fruit are superior to all other kinds. I’d probably rather be out riding a bike up a mountain (slowly). I am terrified of success, because I may be forced to buy a suit. You can learn other things about me from my very serious Web site.

I am also known to interrogate my audiences to ensure they’re paying attention. So, be alert. You can read email later.