Miracle, An Environment for Teaching Programming

编程就是解决问题！在计算机上解决问题的本质是产生一个可行的求解算法。然后是将算法转换成机器可识别指令的例行公事，通常是乏味的。该项目的目标是教学生用一些流行的语言编程，而不是陷入复杂的句法网络。该项目将开发一个称为“奇迹”的编程环境，在该环境中，面向目标的高级工具可以绕过不必要的繁琐翻译。然后，学生可以专注于培养解决问题的技能和编程逻辑，而一旦他们产生了算法，Mirail将为他们生成所需的代码。虽然语法对于专业程序员来说是一项有用的技能，但对于大多数学生来说，它并不是最重要的技能，他们只需要对编程有一些了解，作为他们一般的“计算机流利性”的一部分。已经构建了一个编程环境Mirail的原型，它将学生的伪代码转换为JavaScript代码，并允许学生获得他/她的结果。这个原型远不够强大，也不够通用。在这个项目中，原型将得到增强(1)以处理更复杂的编程逻辑，以及(2)除了提供JavaScript之外，还提供多种目标语言，如Visual Basic和Java。向非计算机科学专业的学生教授程序设计的这种方法的优势是：(1)学生解决问题和分析推理的能力得到提高，因为他们可以花更多的时间在课程的这些方面，而不是在句法结构上；(2)学生感到满意，因为他们知道他们可以使用Mirail解决他们的问题，并用许多流行的编程语言生成代码。

Programming is problem solving! The essence of solving a problem on the computer is the production of a viable solution algorithm. This is then followed by a routine and often tedious translation of the algorithm into machine recognizable instructions. The project goal is to teach students to program in some popular languages, without becoming entangled in a web of syntactic complications. The project will develop a programming environment called "Miracle," in which high-level goal-oriented tools circumvent the unnecessary tedium of translation. Students can then focus on developing problem-solving skills and programming logic, while Miracle will generate the desired code for them once they have produced the algorithm. Although syntax is a useful skill for professional programmers, it is not the most important skill for most students who only need some idea about programming as part of their general "computer fluency." A prototype of the programming environment Miracle has been built, which translates the student's pseudocode into a JavaScript code and allows the student to get his/her results. This prototype is not nearly powerful enough nor general enough. In this project, the prototype will be enhanced (1) to handle more sophisticated programming logic and (2) to offer, in addition to JavaScript, a variety of target languages, such as Visual Basic and Java. The advantages of this approach to teaching programming to students not majoring in computer science are (1) the problem-solving and analytic reasoning skills of students are sharpened because more time can be spent on these aspects of the course than on syntactic structure, and (2) students have the satisfaction of knowing that they can solve their problems and produce code in many popular programming languages using Miracle.