Eastwood-Tidy: C Linting for Automated Code Style Assessment in Programming Courses

Abstract

Computer Science students receive significant instruction towards writing functioning code that correctly satisfies requirements. Auto-graders have been shown effective at scalably running student code and determining whether the code correctly implements a given assignment or project. However, code functionality is only one component of "good" code, and there are few studies on the correlation between code style and code quality. There are even fewer studies contributing a tool equivalent to auto-graders for code style checking and grading. We put forth two contributions. First, a style guide for the C programming language focused on readability for student programs. Second, an automated linting tool Eastwood-Tidy providing on-demand style violation and fix feedback for students and automated style grading for course staff. Finally, we survey students and find a positive response to both a code standard and an automated tool to support the standard and make recommendations for the inclusion of both in programming focused courses based on these results.