Exploring expression-level program visualization in CS1
Teemu Sirkiä · 2014
Currently, most of the existing program visualization systems use line-based visualization. Another option is to have expression-level visualization which uses finer granularity to provide more details about the execution. This helps novice programmers to understand the integral role of the expression evaluation and the correct execution model. Expression-level visualization can be useful, for example, to demonstrate function calls and object-oriented programming among the other basic features. However, creating program visualizations at expression-level is difficult because there are few suitable means to generate all the required information they need. Static code analysis combined with the line-based tracing information may offer new ways to solve the technical problems in creating expression-level visualizations.