Sajaniemi J. (2002)
Visualizing Roles of Variables to Novice Programmers
Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG 2002) (eds. J. Kuljis, L. Baldwin, R. Scoble), London, U.K., June 2002, 111-127.
Abstract: Many students learning to write computer programs encounter considerable difficulties. For novices, one of the key problems is in understanding how the very basic programming constructs work. In this paper, we concentrate on visualizing the role of a variable, i.e., the dynamic character of a variable embodied by the sequence of its successive values as related to other variables. We present a classification of roles and introduce an animation system, PlanAni, that uses this approach.
Last updated: August 1, 2005