Work

Why Beginners Abandon Quantum Programming: Barriers to Developer Experience and a Scaffolding Approach to Development Environment Setup

Year: 2026

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Quantum software engineering (QSE) has sparked worldwide interest due to its potential to transform classical software engineering tasks, unlock breakthroughs across fields and industries, and optimize the development of solutions for everyday practice. As an emerging area of study focused on equipping developers with the tools to design and build quantum programs and applications, QSE faces significant challenges in retaining new developers. Similarly to what happens in classical high-performance computing, quantum programming tools and frameworks can fail to provide an effective developer experience for beginners. Chief among the barriers is the fragmentation of libraries, backend interfaces, languages, and development tools (e.g., compilers, debuggers) that entails additional configuration effort and limits interoperability across quantum software ecosystems, architectures, and models deployed on virtual machines within cloud computing infrastructures. To address the nontrivial setup overhead that beginners often face when configuring a new quantum computing programming project, this work proposes a graphical user interface (GUI)-based solution that streamlines installation and configuration through customizable, pre-built settings. By doing so, the solution is intended to lower the barrier to entry for users without a strong computer science background so that they can start coding and running quantum programs with minimal manual setup.

Source: International Congress on Human-Computer Interaction, Optimization and Robotic Applications (ICHORA)

DOI: 10.1109/ichora69329.2026.11537005

Authors: Eduard Ciriaco, Vlad Stirbu, António Correia

Institution: University of Jyväskylä

Language: English

Topic: Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: Academy of Finland, Business Finland

Awards: Co-Innovation, tutkimusosallistuja — Jyväskylän yliopisto (155/31/2024), Developer Experience in Iterative Quantum Software Engineering (DEQSE)