Testador Automático de Classes: uma ferramenta para avaliar programas em Java

Atividades práticas são fundamentais no aprendizado de umalinguagem de programação. Muitas vezes, elas não ocorrem com freqüência devido à dificuldade existente para a avaliação dos exercícios: no caso de uma linguagem orientada a objetos, é necessário que cada classe seja submetida a uma série de casos de teste e, para cada um deles, a correção dos resultados deve ser verificada. Por isso, desenvolveu-se uma ferramenta queautomatiza o teste e a avaliação de programas feitos na linguagem Java - o Testador Automático de Classes. Assim, pode-se aumentar a qualidade no ensino dessa linguagem de programação.

C++ exam methodology

The C++ programming language supports multiparadigm programming. We can write programs in procedural, object-oriented, generic way at the same time. However, it is difficult to figure out exercises for the terminal examinations since not easy to separate the algorithmic cogitation from the knowledge of the programming language. There are some basic elements that programmer students have to know: constructors, parameter passing, objects, inheritance, standard library, handling constants, copying objects, functions and member functions, etc. Exercises must be multiparadigm according to the C++ language. Using only one paradigm in C++ is not enough. This results in that we have to distinguish the different linguistic constructs on the basis of its complexity. Many questions are arisen in connection with the exercises of terminal examinations. How can we gauge the procedural, the object-oriented, and the generic paradigms at the same time? How can we gauge students’ C++ knowledge when we do not lay stress on the algorithmic cogitation? What kind of exercises may be interesting by the Standard Template Library? Which C++ constructs are reckoned to be more difficult and which ones considered to be easier? What are the most important ones? In this paper we give answers to the previous questions, we describe our methodology to assessment of students’ C++ knowledge in a semi-automatic grading way. We also present exercise examples that worked out according to our methodology. We take stock of students’ results in the paper