Algorithmic Transparency of Large-Scale *AIDA Programs

Abstract

Programming in pictures is an approach where pictures and moving pictures are used as super-characters to represent the features of computational algorithms and data structures, as well as for explaining the models and application methods involved. *AIDA is a computer language that supports programming in pictures. This language and its environment have been developed and promoted as a testbed for various innovations in information technology (IT) research and implementation, including exploring the compactness of the programs and their adaptive software systems, and obtaining better understanding of information resources. In this paper, new features of the environment and methods of their implementation are presented. They are considered within a case study of a large-scale module of a nuclear safety analysis system to demonstrate that *AIDA language is appropriate for developing efficient codes of serious applications and for providing support, based on folding/unfolding techniques, enhancing the readability, maintainability and algorithmic transparency of programs. Features of this support and the code efficiency are presented through the results of a computational comparison with a FORTRAN equivalent.