Development of ViewJ - a Visualization Builder for Object Oriented Programming Development Environment

Abstract

Abstract: We are developing ViewJ, a tool that creates pictures/visualizations so that the student can see and study what their program is actually doing. ViewJ is an interactive tool. The user interface provides VCR-like control of the program trace allowing the viewer to replay, stop and play in slow motion. We have created this tool for Java, and plan to extend it to other popular object oriented programming languages. This tool is intended to ease the process of learning how to program in an object-oriented language. It is our goal to provide a learning tool that will enable students to more successfully learn how to write object-oriented programs. ViewJ will provide visualizations of the running program. Another important goal of this project is to supplement the classroom teaching methods in our computer programming classes.