Mind your language

Error messages are one of the most important tools that a language offers its programmers. For novices, this feed-back is especially critical. Error messages typically contain both a textual description of the problem and an indication of where in the code the error occurred. This paper reports on a series of studies that explore beginning students' inter-actions with the vocabulary and source-expression high-lighting in DrRacket. Our findings demonstrate that the error message significantly fail to convey information accurately to students, while also suggesting alternative designs that might address these problems.