Abstract
The poster presents a method of visualizing the program state as a diagram of data elements that can both include nested elements and reference other elements. It differs from the known methods because it allows nested objects and arrays; the method also acknowledges high-level data structures like containers and iterators. Layout methods for graphs of this complexity are discussed, and examples of the resulting graphs are provided. The approach was used in computer science courses; the survey showed that it was popular among middle- and low-performing students while high-performing students preferred a professional tool, giving more compact images. Educational uses of the generated diagrams are discussed.
The reported study was funded by RFBR, project number 20-07-00764.
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Sychev, O. (2021). Visualizing Program State as a Clustered Graph for Learning Programming. In: Basu, A., Stapleton, G., Linker, S., Legg, C., Manalo, E., Viana, P. (eds) Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Diagrams 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12909. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86062-2_41
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