Swipe-and-Tap Functional Programming

Abstract

Programming on touch-screen devices is notoriously difficult, with conventional programming affordances typically unavailable or unhelpful. Here we present a novel touch-screen programming environment for a style of functional programming that more closely matches typical touch-screen needs, where all editing operations are driven by concrete data values and selected by swipe and tap gestures. The environment provides live editing and supports exploratory programming, with direct display of all calculation values and earlier phases of development always available to edit in-place.