There are countless reasons cited in scientific studies to explain the difficulties in programming learning. The reasons range from the subject's complexity, the ineffective teaching and study methods, to psychological aspects such as demotivation. Still, learning programming often boils down to practice on exercise solving. Hence, it is essential to understand that the nature of a programming exercise is an important factor for the success and consistent learning. This paper explores different approaches on the creation of a programming exercise, starting with realizing how it is currently formalized, presented and evaluated. From there, authors suggest variations that seek to broaden the way an exercise is solved and, with this diversity, increase student engagement and learning outcome. The several types of exercises presented can use gamification techniques fostering student motivation. To contextualize the student with his peers, we finish presenting metrics that can be obtained by existing automatic assessment tools.

中文翻译：

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关于编程练习的性质

科学研究中引用了无数理由来解释编程学习的困难。究其原因，既有学科的复杂性，也有教学方法和学习方法的不力，也有心理方面的消极因素。尽管如此，学习编程通常归结为练习解决问题。因此，必须了解编程练习的性质是成功和持续学习的重要因素。本文探讨了创建编程练习的不同方法，首先了解它目前是如何形式化、呈现和评估的。从那里，作者提出了旨在拓宽解决练习方式的变化，并通过这种多样性提高学生的参与度和学习成果。提供的几种类型的练习可以使用游戏化技术来培养学生的积极性。为了将学生与其同龄人联系起来，我们完成了可以通过现有自动评估工具获得的指标。