Self-reference is an illustrative essential

AstrachanOwen,

doi:10.1145/191033.191131

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…; ' totalLetters = 0; I for(iter.first();!iter.isDone();iter.next()) 1 totalWords++; totalLetters += current().length(); I tout c-z 'average word'length = a X-Z double(tiotalLetters)/totalWords -CC e I We use the Iterator pattern with the same names for member functions in a class that returns the entries in a directory, either files or subdirectories. Students use this class to practice recursion in a naturally recursive context: e.g., subdirectories of subdirectories as described in [5]. Students are accustomed to the iterator pattern and have little difficulty in applying the functions in a new context.…”

Section: Lteratorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design patterns

et al. 1998

Self Cite

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The field of software patterns has seen an explosion in interest in the last three years.. Work to date has been on the recognition, cataloging, and finding of patterns with little attention to the use of patterns, especially by students and practitioners not well-versed in object-oriented technologies. . This project addresses pattern use through the development of several programming and pedagogical frameworks that supply support for using patterns throughout a computer science curriculum. Although we do not claim that patterns are Brooks' silver bullet [lo], their use can help cope with the accidental complexity of software development and, we argue, their use is essential for a successful adoption of object-oriented techniques in academic computer science programs. This project addresses practical concerns of the computer science and software engineering communities in using, teaching, and learning patterns. In this paper we argue that patterns are an essential programming and pedagogical tool and report on our work in making them accessible to the educational community.

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Section: Lteratorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design patterns

et al. 1998

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“…Even though the opinion of Dijkstra (1974Dijkstra ( ) (1975 varied, recursion proved a powerful means for expressing algorithms (Dijkstra, 1999) (Reingold, 2012), especially on recursive data structures like lists, i.e., stacks, and trees. With the legacy of LISP and ALGOL, together with the rise and spread of personal computers, recursion became a common feature of modern programming languages, and arguably an essential one (Papert, 1980, Ford, 1982, Astrachan, 1994.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey on Teaching and Learning Recursive Programming

Rinderknecht¹

2014

Informatics in Education

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We survey the literature about the teaching and learning of recursive programming. After a short history of the advent of recursion in programming languages and its adoption by programmers, we present curricular approaches to recursion, including a review of textbooks and some programming methodology, as well as the functional and imperative paradigms and the distinction between control flow vs. data flow. We follow the researchers in stating the problem with base cases, noting the similarity with induction in mathematics, making concrete analogies for recursion, using games, visualizations, animations, multimedia environments, intelligent tutoring systems and visual programming. We cover the usage in schools of the Logo programming language and the associated theoretical didactics, including a brief overview of the constructivist and constructionist theories of learning; we also sketch the learners' mental models which have been identified so far, and non-classical remedial strategies, such as kinesthesis and syntonicity. We append an extensive and carefully collated bibliography, which we hope will facilitate new research.

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“…Since it is generally accepted that recursion is one of the most complicated and difficult-to-learn concepts for novice programmers [10,17], much of the research into the learning of recursion takes place within the framework of learning to program, whether within the FP paradigm or other programming paradigms [1,3,19]. Much less emphasis has been put, however, on studying how learners see recursion as an interdisciplinary concept, how they speak about recursive phenomena and how they describe such phenomena using their own language.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared terminology, private syntax

LevyDalit

LapidotTami

2002

SIGCSE Bull.

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This paper reports a study in which 11th grade students were observed, while engaged in several learning activities that address general aspects of recursion. One of these learning activities focused on the creation of recursive descriptions using natural language. The class discourse was recorded and analyzed, in order to locate patterns of students' expressions and ways of thinking. The present finding is two-fold. On the one hand, a class genre was created and used to refer to recursive phenomena and to describe them verbally. On the other hand, although they used a shared set of some agreedupon terms, the students tended to individually construct their unique recursive descriptions. These individual methods of assembly are labeled hereafter as "private syntax". It is concluded that learners' and educators' awareness of both the "building blocks" of any recursive description and the several possibilities for assembling these blocks, might help in the process of understanding recursion in general and in further construction of recursive functions in particular.

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Self-reference is an illustrative essential

Cited by 6 publications

References 3 publications

Design patterns

Design patterns

A Survey on Teaching and Learning Recursive Programming

Shared terminology, private syntax

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