Visual Programming of Program Visualizations

Abstract

Program animation has a growing role to play in software engineering. After all, “an algorithm must be seen to be believed, and the best way to learn what an algorithm is all about is to try it.”⁽¹⁾ The perceptual endowments of people are strongly optimized for real-time image processing, and the medium of interactive graphics is simply a broader channel than, say, text by which to communicate information about the internal state of a complex dynamic process. As computer technology matures, it is becoming possible, and therefore increasingly important, for new systems to accommodate their users’ idiosyncrasies, as opposed to the traditional situation which required users to assimilate all the peculiarities of the system. In this respect, animation can be seen as an integral part of a software design and development environment, with particular utility for debugging, process monitoring, and documentation.