A scalable infrastructure for teaching concepts of programming languages in Scala with WebLab: An experience report

Tim Van Der Lippe; Thomas Smith; Daniël Pelsmaeker; Eelco Visser

doi:10.1145/2998392.2998402

A scalable infrastructure for teaching concepts of programming languages in Scala with WebLab: An experience report

Tim Van Der Lippe, Thomas Smith, Daniël Pelsmaeker, Eelco Visser

Programming Languages

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

388 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

In this paper, we report on our experience in teaching a course on concepts of programming languages at TU Delft based on Krishnamurthi's PAPL book with the definitional interpreter approach using Scala as meta-language and using the WebLab learning management system. In particular, we discuss our experience with encoding of definitional interpreters in Scala using case classes, pattern matching, and recursive functions; offering this material in the web-based learning management system WebLab; automated grading and feedback of interpreter submissions using unit tests; testing tests to force students to formulate tests, instead of just implementing interpreters; generation of tests based on a reference implementation to reduce the effort of producing unit tests; and the construction of a product line of interpreters in order to maximize reuse and consistency between reference implementations.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	SCALA 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 7th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Scala
Place of Publication	New York
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages	65-74
Number of pages	10
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450346481
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2998392.2998402
Publication status	Published - 30 Oct 2016
Event	7th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Scala, SCALA 2016 - Amsterdam, Netherlands Duration: 30 Oct 2016 → 31 Oct 2016

Conference

Conference	7th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Scala, SCALA 2016
Country/Territory	Netherlands
City	Amsterdam
Period	30/10/16 → 31/10/16

Keywords

Concepts of programming languages
Definitional interpreters
Scala
Teaching
Testing
WebLab

Access to Document

10.1145/2998392.2998402

scala16main-main24-p-4a5fcc5-29103-preprintAccepted author manuscript, 307 KBLicence: Other

Cite this

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title = "A scalable infrastructure for teaching concepts of programming languages in Scala with WebLab: An experience report",

abstract = "In this paper, we report on our experience in teaching a course on concepts of programming languages at TU Delft based on Krishnamurthi's PAPL book with the definitional interpreter approach using Scala as meta-language and using the WebLab learning management system. In particular, we discuss our experience with encoding of definitional interpreters in Scala using case classes, pattern matching, and recursive functions; offering this material in the web-based learning management system WebLab; automated grading and feedback of interpreter submissions using unit tests; testing tests to force students to formulate tests, instead of just implementing interpreters; generation of tests based on a reference implementation to reduce the effort of producing unit tests; and the construction of a product line of interpreters in order to maximize reuse and consistency between reference implementations.",

keywords = "Concepts of programming languages, Definitional interpreters, Scala, Teaching, Testing, WebLab",

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booktitle = "SCALA 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 7th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Scala",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)",

address = "United States",

note = "7th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Scala, SCALA 2016 ; Conference date: 30-10-2016 Through 31-10-2016",

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Van Der Lippe, T, Smith, T, Pelsmaeker, D & Visser, E 2016, A scalable infrastructure for teaching concepts of programming languages in Scala with WebLab: An experience report. in SCALA 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 7th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Scala. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York, pp. 65-74, 7th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Scala, SCALA 2016, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 30/10/16. https://doi.org/10.1145/2998392.2998402

A scalable infrastructure for teaching concepts of programming languages in Scala with WebLab: An experience report. / Van Der Lippe, Tim; Smith, Thomas; Pelsmaeker, Daniël et al.
SCALA 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 7th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Scala. New York: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2016. p. 65-74.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review

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A scalable infrastructure for teaching concepts of programming languages in Scala with WebLab: An experience report

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