Immediate visual feedback is becoming a common feature in direct-manipulation programming systems of all kinds-from demonstrational macro builders to spreadsheet packages to visual programming languages featuring direct manipulation. But does immediate visual feedback actually help in the domain of programming? We previously reported on an empirical study to determine whether the inclusion of immediate visual feedback into a direct-manipulation programming system helps with one particular task: debugging. In that study, subjects debugged programs with and without immediate visual feedback. We found that although immediate visual feedback did not significantly help with debugging in general, it did significantly help with debugging in some circumstances.
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Cook et al. (1997) studied this question.