Mini-languages: a way to learn programming principles

  • Authors:

  • Peter Brusilovsky;Eduardo Calabrese;Jozef Hvorecky;Anatoly Kouchnirenko;Philip Miller

  • Affiliations:

  • School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA;Dipartimento di Ingegneria deli‘ Informazione, University of Parma, 43100 Parma Italy;University of Economics, 83220 Bratislava Slovakia;Department of Mathematics, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802 USA;School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA

  • Venue:
  • Education and Information Technologies
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

Mini-languages are a visuallyintuitive, simple and powerful way to introduce students toprogramming. They are a good foundation for general computerscience instruction, provide insight into programming for thegeneral population, and teach algorithmic thinking. The goal ofthe paper is to provide an extensive review of the mini-languageapproach to teaching programming. For different audiences and indifferent countries, the authors have extensive experience indesign and application of mini-languages. We outline the problemsthat motivate the application of this approach, present a briefhistory, review several existing mini-languages, and providediscussion of lessons learned. In particular, we discuss how tochoose a mini-language for a particular group of students andlist some requirements for a successful application of a mini-language. We conclude with a discussion of possible futuredirections of the mini-language approach development