2023/09/08 by Will Crichton, Gavin Gray, G R Gray +1 · 2 voices · 1 citation
Computer Science · #Software Engineering Research #Software Testing and Debugging Techniques #Teaching and Learning Programming #cs.HC #cs.PL
paper · pdf · doi:10.1145/3622841
openalex publication_date 2023/10/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Programmers learning Rust struggle to understand ownership types, Rust’s core mechanism for ensuring memory safety without garbage collection. This paper describes our attempt to systematically design a pedagogy for ownership types. First, we studied Rust developers’ misconceptions of ownership to create the Ownership Inventory, a new instrument for measuring a person’s knowledge of ownership. We found that Rust learners could not connect Rust’s static and dynamic semantics, such as determining why an ill-typed program would (or would not) exhibit undefined behavior. Second, we created a conceptual model of Rust’s semantics that explains borrow checking in terms of flow-sensitive permissions on paths into memory. Third, we implemented a Rust compiler plugin that visualizes programs under the model. Fourth, we integrated the permissions model and visualizations into a broader pedagogy of ownership by writing a new ownership chapter for The Rust Programming Language , a popular Rust textbook. Fifth, we evaluated an initial deployment of our pedagogy against the original version, using reader responses to the Ownership Inventory as a point of comparison. Thus far, the new pedagogy has improved learner scores on the Ownership Inventory by an average of 9