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Principles for the design of dynamic tracing environments for novice programmers

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Abstract

This paper describes the principled design of a computational environment which depicts an animated story of the execution of programs for novice programmers. The design principles are aimed at solving the problems that novice programmers face when learning new programming languages, and are embodied in an Animated Program Tracer (APT) for Prolog. The goal of this research is to develop a more systematic, if not yet scientific, basis for the design of animated tracing tools.

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  1. Human Cognition Research Laboratory, Open University, MK7 6AA, Milton Keynes, U.K.

    Tim Rajan

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  1. Tim Rajan
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Rajan, T. Principles for the design of dynamic tracing environments for novice programmers. Instr Sci 19, 377–406 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00116446

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