In this thesis, I explore how design scaffolds, or (i.e., intellectual supports) can assist learners engaging with computational making processes. Computational making combines programming with artifact production. Due to the complexity of tasks involved in computational making, there is an increasing need to explore and develop support systems for learners engaging with computational making. With $3,000 funding from Utah State University’s College of Education and Human Services, an undergraduate researcher and I, who both have experience with youth and computational making research, explored how design scaffolds impact youth engaging with computational making processes. To do so, we held a workshop where 11 learners (11 female, ages 11-16) used ARIS, a platform designed for non-programmers to create mobile games. In addition, we interviewed five ARIS designers who were able to evaluate our design scaffolds. We provide insights for improving the use of design scaffolds in computational making with ARIS specifically that also apply broadly to computational making processes. Moreover, we developed an ARIS course that teaches educators to use a design scaffold tool for ARIS. This research provides immediate benefits for educators who access the ARIS course and researchers seeking to improve upon design scaffold research for computational making processes.

<p>In an ever faster changing environment, software developers not only need agile methods, but also agile programming paradigms and tools. A paradigm shift towards declarative programming has begun; a clear indication of this is Microsoft's substantial investment in functional programming. Moreover, several attempts have been made to enable visual programming. We believe that software development is ready for a new paradigm which goes beyond any existing declarative paradigm: visual compositional-relational programming. Compositional-relational programming (CRP) is a purely declarative paradigm -- making it suitable for a visual representation. All procedural aspects -- including the increasingly important issue of parallelization -- are removed from the programmer's consideration and handled in the underlying implementation. The foundation for CRP is a theory of higher-order combinatory logic programming developed by Hamfelt and Nilsson in the 1990's. This thesis proposes a model for visualizing compositional-relational programming. We show that the diagrams are isomorphic with the programs represented in textual form. Furthermore, we show that the model can be used to automatically generate code from diagrams, thus paving the way for a visual integrated development environment for CRP, where programming is performed by combining visual objects in a drag-and-drop fashion. At present, we implement CRP using Prolog. However, in future we foresee an implementation directly on one of the major object-oriented frameworks, e.g. the .NET platform, with the aim to finally launch relational programming into large-scale systems development.</p>

Spreadsheet languages are the most commonly used end-user programming paradigm, yet spreadsheets commonly contain errors. Research shows that a significant number of spreadsheets (20%-40%) created by end users contain errors. In an attempt to reduce this error rate, this work presents an assertion propagation system for an end-user spreadsheet programming language, along with proofs of correctness, and complexity analysis. In addition to the traditional benefits of assertions (dynamic error checking and the documentation of programmer assumptions) this system deductively propagates the implications of assertions. This propagation adds two benefits, the cross-checking of program logic, and additional immediate visual feedback about the range of behavior of the program code for the end-user. / Graduation date: 2002

Researchers in the Forms/3 group have previously developed the WYSIWYT methodology, exploring a way of systematically testing spreadsheet languages. The previous work presented the WYSIWYT methodology for individual spreadsheet cells, and later partially extended it to large grids in which some cells share the same formula. The Forms/3 spreadsheet language supports not only operations of individual cells but also some advanced programming features such as homogeneous grids, recursive programs, and user-defined abstract data types. Therefore, it is important for the testing methodology to support even these more powerful features of the language, not just the "easy parts". In this document, we present extensions to the WYSIWYT methodology for these advanced features. We optimized the visual aspects of testing spreadsheet grids and collected experimental information about scalability. We also developed two possible ways the WYSIWYT methodology could be extended to accommodate recursion in terms of their testing theoretic aspects, implementation strategies, algorithms and time complexities. Since the ultimate goal is to help the people using these languages, we also conducted an empirical study and used its results to inform our choice as to which of these two approaches to adopt. Finally, we developed an approach of testing user-defined abstract data types; here we present design, implementation issues, algorithms and time complexities. / Graduation date: 2002

E-commerce has begun to evolve beyond simple web pages to more sophisticated ways of conducting e-business transactions, such as through electronic advertising, negotiation, and delivery. However, to participate in these advances requires the skills of professional programmers, and end-user owners of small businesses often cannot justify this expense. In this thesis, we present FAR, an end-user language to offer and deliver e-services. The novel aspects of FAR are its support of small e-services and its multiparadigm approach to combining ideas from spreadsheets and rule-based programming with drag-and-drop web page layout devices. / Graduation date: 2002

How can rigorous forms of testing be supported in a way that is both compatible with the visual aspect of visual programming languages, and usable by the audiences using those languages - even when the audience has no background in software engineering? Visual programs are likely to contain at least some errors, and supporting a visual form of testing would give users a way to spot those errors early in the program's life. In previous work, we have developed a visual testing methodology known as WYSIWYT, for use in visual spreadsheet languages, and in this work, we show formally that this methodology can be generalized to screen transition diagrams. The algorithms and accompanying proof of the coverage equivalence that they ensure provide the mechanisms needed for the screen transition paradigm to incorporate WYSIWYT testing for both professional and end-user programming audiences. / Graduation date: 2004 / Best scan available for figures. Original is blurry.

No description available.

Formal methods using text to specify abstract data types (ADTs) are powerful, but they require great effort and a high level of expertise. Visual programming languages present an alternative way of programming but are limited to building small programs. This research presents an approach for specifying ADTs using a combination of text and visual objects. Furthermore, it presents two algorithms to map those specifications into imperative code. DataLab, a computer program for the MacintoshTM computer, is an implementation model for this approach. DataLab consists of two major components: a graphical editor and a source code generator. The graphical editor allows the user to build a specification consisting of an interface part and an implementation part for each ADT. The interface of the ADT is specified textually in a window that is part of the graphical editor. The implementation part of the ADT includes the operations, which are specified in Data Lab as a set of "Condition/Action" transformations. These transformations describe the behavior of the operations and are built by selecting graphical objects from a palette and placing them on the screen. The source code generator takes the specification of the ADT as an input and generates an encapsulated Pascal code. It consists of two algorithms: the first maps the specification into its semantics, and the second maps the semantics into Pascal modules. / Graduation date: 1990

No description available.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-93). Also available via the World Wide Web.