Interactive educational simulations for promoting the comprehension of basic compiler construction concepts
Daniel Rodríguez-Cerezo, Mercedes Gómez-Albarrán, José Luis Sierra · 2013
Evaluators 2.0 is an educational software system that lets instructors in introductory compiler construction courses generate interactive simulators from batteries of exercises concerning basic concepts in attribute grammars. The system also makes it possible to analyze the activities of the students who use these simulators. Students interact with the simulators generated to decide the evaluation order of semantic attributes in the attributed syntax trees, and they receive immediate feedback about the actions performed. Thus, these simulations help students to understand the fundamental concepts of the formalism of attribute grammars and of its underlying computational model. This paper describes the different software tools that constitute Evaluators 2.0 as well as the nature of the simulators generated, and also reports on different assessments of the system involving both instructors and students.