Concurrency, objects and visualisation

ABSTRACT

Object-oriented programming and concurrency are increasingly popular in computing education. Both are difficult topics in themselves, and the combination of both introduces subtle interactions that are not easily understood. We propose the development of a visualisation tool to illustrate both object-orientation as well as concurrency issues.

Designing such a tool is a challenging task. It has been shown that visualisation tools are not always as effective as their authors had hoped, and the issues to be illustrated by our potential tools are not yet well defined.

In this paper, we investigate both the visualisation aspect and the functionality that such a tool may have and we develop some guidelines for the design of a concurrent object visualisation tool.

REFERENCES

• 1: Java TM Platform Debugger. Architecture, web document at http'J/java.sun.com/products/jpda/, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• 2: Michael Bedy , Steve Carr , Xianlong Huang , Ching-Kuang Shene, A visualization system for multithreaded programming, Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.1-5, March 07-12, 2000, Austin, Texas, United States
• 3: Mordechai Ben-Ari, Distributed algorithms in Java, Proceedings of the 2nd conference on Integrating technology into computer science education, p.62-64, June 01-05, 1997, Uppsala, Sweden
• 4: Bloom, B.S.E. Taxonomy of educational objectives : The classification of educational goals, Handbook 1: Cognitive domain, David McKay Company, New York, 1959.
• 5: Marc H. Brown, Exploring Algorithms Using Balsa-II, Computer, v.21 n.5, p.14-36, May 1988 [doi>10.1109/2.56]
• 6: Byrne, M.D., Catramhone, R. and Stasko, J. T. Do Algorithm Animations Aid Learning?, Georgia Institute of Technology, Technical Report GIT-GVU-96-18, August 1996.
• 7: Sung-Eun Choi , E. Christopher Lewis, A study of common pitfalls in simple multi-threaded programs, Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.325-329, March 07-12, 2000, Austin, Texas, United States
• 8: Edsger W. Dijkstra, Letters to the editor: go to statement considered harmful, Communications of the ACM, v.11 n.3, p.147-148, March 1968 [doi>10.1145/362929.362947]
• 9: Michael B. Feldman , Bruce D. Bachus, Concurrent programming CAN be introduced into the lower-level undergraduate curriculum, ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, v.29 n.3, p.77-79, Sept. 1997
• 10: J. Haajanen , M. Pesonius , E. Sutinen , J. Tarhio , T. Terasvirta , P. Vanninen, Animation of user algorithms on the Web, Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages (VL '97), p.356, April 23-26, 1997
• 11: Duane J. Jarc , Michael B. Feldman , Rachelle S. Heller, Assessing the benefits of interactive prediction using Web-based algorithm animation courseware, Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.377-381, March 07-12, 2000, Austin, Texas, United States
• 12: Doug Lea , Douglas Lea, Concurrent Programming in Java. Second Edition: Design Principles and Patterns, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 1999
• 13: Satoshi Matsuoka , Akinori Yonezawa, Analysis of inheritance anomaly in object-oriented concurrent programming languages, Research directions in concurrent object-oriented programming, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1993
• 14: Thomas L. Naps , James R. Eagan , Laura L. Norton, JHAVÉ—an environment to actively engage students in Web-based algorithm visualizations, Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.109-113, March 07-12, 2000, Austin, Texas, United States
• 15: Guido Rößling , Bernd Freisleben, Experiences in using animations in introductory computer science lectures, Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.134-138, March 07-12, 2000, Austin, Texas, United States
• 16: John Stasko , Albert Badre , Clayton Lewis, Do algorithm animations assist learning?: an empirical study and analysis, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.61-66, April 24-29, 1993, Amsterdam, The Netherlands [doi>10.1145/169059.169078]
• 17: John Stasko, Animating algorithms with XTANGO, ACM SIGACT News, v.23 n.2, p.67-71, Spring 1992 [doi>10.1145/130956.130959]