{"id":161097,"date":"2011-03-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/msr-research-item\/pex-for-fun-engineering-an-automated-testing-tool-for-serious-games-in-computer-science\/"},"modified":"2018-10-16T20:11:05","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T03:11:05","slug":"pex-for-fun-engineering-an-automated-testing-tool-for-serious-games-in-computer-science","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/pex-for-fun-engineering-an-automated-testing-tool-for-serious-games-in-computer-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Pex for Fun: Engineering an Automated Testing Tool for Serious Games in Computer Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"asset-content\">\n<p>Although there are various emerging serious games developed for education and training purposes, there exist few serious games for practitioners or students to improve their programming or problem-solving skills in the computer science domain. To provide an open platform for creating serious games in learning computer science, we have developed a web\u2010based serious gaming environment called Pex for Fun, in short Pex4Fun (http:\/\/www.pexforfun.com\/), for learning critical computer science skills such as problem solving skills and abstraction skills. It works on any web\u2010enabled device, even a smart phone. It comes with an auto\u2010completing code editor, providing a user with instant feedback similar to the code editor in Microsoft Visual Studio. It is a cloud application with the data in the cloud, enabling a user to use it anywhere where an Internet connection is available. New learners of programming can play games there created by us to master basic programming concepts such as arrays, loops, and exception handling. In fact, any user can create new games for others to play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .asset-content --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although there are various emerging serious games developed for education and training purposes, there exist few serious games for practitioners or students to improve their programming or problem-solving skills in the computer science domain. To provide an open platform for creating serious games in learning computer science, we have developed a web\u2010based serious gaming environment [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":null,"msr_publishername":"","msr_publisher_other":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_edition":"","msr_editors":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_issue":"","msr_journal":"","msr_number":"MSR-TR-2011-41","msr_organization":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_page_range_start":"","msr_page_range_end":"","msr_series":"","msr_volume":"","msr_copyright":"","msr_conference_name":"","msr_doi":"","msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_mag_id":"","msr_pubmed_id":"","msr_other_authors":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_award":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_institution":"","msr_host":"","msr_version":"","msr_duration":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_s2_match_type":"","msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_published_date":"2011-03-01","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_notes":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_conference_url":"","msr_journal_url":"","msr_s2_pdf_url":"","msr_year":2011,"msr_citation_count":0,"msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_s2_match_confidence":0,"msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":true,"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_pub_ids":[],"msr_hide_image_in_river":0,"footnotes":""},"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13560],"msr-publication-type":[193718],"msr-publisher":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-161097","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-programming-languages-software-engineering","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2011-03-01","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"MSR-TR-2011-41","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"220534","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","title":"pexforfun-engineering.pdf","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pexforfun-engineering.pdf","id":220534,"label_id":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_citation_count":0,"msr_citation_count_updated":"","msr_s2_paper_id":"","msr_influential_citations":0,"msr_reference_count":0,"msr_arxiv_id":"","msr_s2_author_ids":[],"msr_s2_open_access":false,"msr_s2_pdf_url":null,"msr_attachments":[{"id":220534,"url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/pexforfun-engineering.pdf"}],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"nikolait","user_id":33102,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=nikolait"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"jhalleux","user_id":32253,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=jhalleux"},{"type":"text","value":"Tao Xie","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[],"msr_project":[171432,171156,170993,169746],"publication":[],"video":[],"msr-tool":[],"msr_publication_type":"techreport","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":171432,"post_title":"Code Hunt","post_name":"code-hunt","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2015-02-04 16:56:12","post_modified":"2020-03-13 16:57:52","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/code-hunt\/","post_excerpt":"Code Hunt is a serious gaming platform for coding contests and practicing programming skills. It is based on the symbolic white box execution engine, Pex. Code Hunt is unique as an online coding platform in that each puzzle is presented with test cases only, no specification. Players have to first work out the pattern and then code the answer. Code Hunt has been used by over 350,000 players as of August 2016. Data from the&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/171432"}]}},{"ID":171156,"post_title":"Pex4Fun","post_name":"pex4fun","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2013-06-06 16:19:35","post_modified":"2017-06-02 11:25:43","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/pex4fun\/","post_excerpt":"Pex4Fun is a browser-based teaching and learning environment targeting teachers and students for introductory to advanced programming or software engineering courses. At the core of the platform is an automated grading engine based on symbolic execution. In Pex4Fun, teachers can create virtual classrooms, customize existing courses, and publish new learning material including learning games. Try it out on the web Go to www.pex4fun.com, and click Learn to start tutorials.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/171156"}]}},{"ID":170993,"post_title":"Tools for Software Engineers","post_name":"tools-for-software-engineers","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2012-06-29 06:20:39","post_modified":"2021-11-12 09:09:39","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/tools-for-software-engineers\/","post_excerpt":"The mission of Microsoft's One Engineering System (formerly known as Tools for Software Engineers) team is to enable the world's best product engineering teams with world-class tools and systems that help them ship products their customers love. 1ES provides tools and services to cover the full spectrum of the engineering life-cycle, from the developer desktop to product deployment. 1ES focuses on engineering solutions that mitigate the unique scale challenges that Microsoft teams face, both in&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/170993"}]}},{"ID":169746,"post_title":"Pex and Moles - Isolation and White Box Unit Testing for .NET","post_name":"pex-and-moles-isolation-and-white-box-unit-testing-for-net","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2007-02-21 17:06:41","post_modified":"2017-06-02 11:21:12","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/pex-and-moles-isolation-and-white-box-unit-testing-for-net\/","post_excerpt":"Pex automatically generates test suites with high code coverage using automated white box analysis. Pex is a Visual Studio add-in for testing .NET Framework applications. Moles supports unit testing by providing isolation by way of detours and stubs. The Moles framework is provided with Pex, or can be installed by itself as a Microsoft Visual Studio add-in. NEW: IntelliTest in Visual Studio 2015 is the evolution of Pex. 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