This short video (3:24) is about an idea I have for an automated tool that would tutor and assess students on fundamental skills in computer programming. I call it the ‘codeTutor’. I find that students that need a lot of practice on rudiments are often not willing or not confident enough to create their own exercises, and I don't have the time to keep them inundated with practice problems. So here's my idea:
If you think this is a {useful,great,dumb,old,…} idea, leave a comment or get in touch by email. If you'd like to participate in building or testing, even better. I'd want the tool to run as some kind of {Flash,Java} applet, or maybe Java WebStart program, just to lower the barrier to running it. Since it will do some non-trivial manipulation of syntax trees (and for a variety of other good reasons), I may write it in Scala instead of just Java. I've been toying with Scala for a few days, even producing little Swing (GUI) apps, and I'm fairly pleased.
