A Visual Notation for Declarative Behaviour Specification

Logical programming has many merits that should appeal to modellers. It enables declarative specifications that are free from implementation details and even (mostly) abstracts away from control flow specification. However, the textual syntax of, for example PROLOG, most likely represents a barrier to the adoption of such languages in the modelling community. The visual notation presented in this paper aims to facilitate the understanding of behaviour specifications based on logic programming. I anticipate that the dataflow-like nature of the resulting diagrams will appeal to modellers. I believe the visual notation to be an improvement over the traditional textual syntax for the purpose of specifying PROLOG programs as such, but the ultimate hope is to have found a vehicle to make declarative logic programming a commonplace activity in multi-paradigm modelling

A Visual Notation for Declarative Behaviour Specification

Abstract: Logical programming has many merits that should appeal to modellers. It enables declarative specifications that are free from implementation details and even (mostly) abstracts away from control flow specification. However, the textual syntax of, for example PROLOG, most likely represents a barrier to the adoption of such languages in the modelling community. The visual notation presented in this paper aims to facilitate the understanding of behaviour specifications based on logic programming. I anticipate that the dataflow-like nature of the resulting diagrams will appeal to modellers. I believe the visual notation to be an improvement over the traditional textual syntax for the purpose of specifying PROLOG programs as such, but the ultimate hope is to have found a vehicle to make declarative logic programming a commonplace activity in multi-paradigm modelling

An investigation into student reactions towards rad versus traditional programming environments for novice developers

The traditional approach to programming using text editors is widely used in many institutions to teach introductory programming. These types of traditional programming environments provide fundamental programming concepts for learning, especially in the context of novice developers. In recent years, teaching institutions have seen a trend towards the introduction of visual drag-and-drop rapid application development (RAD) environments for teaching novice programmers. These \u27environments capture student interest in programming by allowing the construction of workable programs within a short time frame based on minimal pre-existing coding knowledge. However, some have argued that these visual RAD environments might not be suitable for providing fundamental programming concepts and syntax to novice developers. This research examines student perceptions towards visual RAD environments in comparison to traditional environments for learning programming for novice developers, mainly focusing on the novice developer\u27s first programming environment. To gather student reactions towards these programming environments, surveys, interviews and workshops were conducted with novice, intermediate and expert level student programmers. The results indicate that while visual RAD environments managed to capture the majority of the participants\u27 interest, the traditional approach was largely accepted as the most appropriate first environment for novice developers. Another finding from this research is the participants\u27 perceptions of the key aspects of learning programming, which also formed part of the deciding factors for the first environment. Understanding the underlying concepts, syntax and logic of the program seem to be the most important aspects followed by interest level and the ability to build workable programs quickly. The majority of participants perceived that traditional programming environments could help novice developers with understanding underlying concepts and syntax better than visual RAD environments. Although visual RAD environments do not require a traditional programming environment at the early stage of programming, the latter would become necessary as the program grows and more complex functions are required. Overall, the visual RAD environment was still the preferred environment for development despite the lack of pedagogical benefits compared with traditional environments

Four approaches to teaching programming

Based on a survey of literature, four different approaches to teaching introductory programming are identified and described. Examples of the practice of each approach are identified representing procedural, visual, and object-oriented programming language paradigms. Each approach is then further analysed, identifying advantages and disadvantages for the student and the teacher. The first approach, code analysis, is analogous to reading before writing, that is, recognising the parts and what they mean. It requires learners to analyse and understand existing code prior to producing their own. An alternative is the building blocks approach, analogous to learning vocabulary, nouns and verbs, before constructing sentences. A third approach is identified as simple units in which learners master solutions to small problems before applying the learned logic to more complex problems. The final approach, full systems, is analogous to learning a foreign language by immersion whereby learners design a solution to a non-trivial problem and the programming concepts and language constructs are introduced only when the solution to the problem requires their application. The conclusion asserts that competency in programming cannot be achieved without mastering each of the approaches, at least to some extent. Use of the approaches in combination could provide novice programmers with the opportunities to acquire a full range of knowledge, understanding, and skills. Several orders for presenting the approaches in the classroom are proposed and analysed reflecting the needs of the learners and teachers. Further research is needed to better understand these and other approaches to teaching programming, not in terms of learner outcomes, but in terms of teachers’ actions and techniques employed to facilitate the construction of new knowledge by the learners. Effective classroom teaching practices could be informed by further investigations into the effect on progression of different toolset choices and combinations of teaching approache

Web and Semantic Web Query Languages

A number of techniques have been developed to facilitate powerful data retrieval on the Web and Semantic Web. Three categories of Web query languages can be distinguished, according to the format of the data they can retrieve: XML, RDF and Topic Maps. This article introduces the spectrum of languages falling into these categories and summarises their salient aspects. The languages are introduced using common sample data and query types. Key aspects of the query languages considered are stressed in a conclusion