Exploring exploratory programming

TL;DR: This work provides an organized description of what exploratory programming has meant historically and a framework of four dimensions for studying exploratory Programming tasks: applications, required code quality, ease or difficulty of exploration, and the exploratory process.

Abstract: In open-ended tasks where a program's behavior cannot be specified in advance, exploratory programming is a key practice in which programmers actively experiment with different possibilities using code. Exploratory programming is highly relevant today to a variety of professional and end-user programmer domains, including prototyping, learning through play, digital art, and data science. However, prior research has largely lacked clarity on what exploratory programming is, and what behaviors are characteristic of this practice. Drawing on this data and prior literature, we provide an organized description of what exploratory programming has meant historically and a framework of four dimensions for studying exploratory programming tasks: (1) applications, (2) required code quality, (3) ease or difficulty of exploration, and (4) the exploratory process. This provides a basis for better analyzing tool support for exploratory programming.