Learning with Style: Improving Student Code-Style Through Better Automated Feedback

ccheck, a lenient automatic grader and C style-checker, to guide students to improve their coding practices. Many computing classes rely heavily on autograders--software that automates grading and alleviates staff workload in classes with large enrollments. At best, autograders offer timely and consistent feedback to students. However, existing autograders primarily judge on functional correctness---they are generally strict and inflexible in marking beginner programming assignments. They tend not to provide feedback on programming style and structure, which instead requires delayed, tedious manual assessment. ccheck, the tool we introduce, aims to address this gap and provide more meaningful, real-time feedback with a pedagogical focus.