Reports from Educators

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Reports from Educators on Dr. Pascal

Authors of major computer science textbooks

Elliot Koffman, Professor, Temple University, author of Problem Solving and Structured Programming in Pascal: "By enabling students to observe their program's execution, Dr. Pascal helps them visualize new concepts and provides them with an excellent debugging facility that is easy to use."

Doug Cooper, author of Oh! Pascal!: "Dr. Pascal literally opens a window into the program as it executes--even on old-style character terminals. Dr. Pascal is a good learning environment because it runs Standard Pascal and is consistent across platforms."

Walter Savitch, Professor at U. C. San Diego, author of Pascal: Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming: "The Dr. Pascal system from Visible Software is one good example of a Pascal that consists of the core language augments with some very well-done environment features to aid its use as a teaching language. It is not however, cluttered up with features superfluous to teaching and learning."

Instructors who have been teaching with Dr. Pascal

Zab Warren, Phillips Academy, Andover (using Dr. Pascal on a site-licensed PC network): "Being able to watch code and watch the variables change values--those are great resources for helping students understand how programs work. .... Also, the "Pascal Keys' in Dr. Pascal are very important. The kids who aren't good typists can rip right through programs quickly."

Clay Breshears, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (using VAX/VMS): "Dr. Pascal's visible execution is a powerful instructional tool... Students used the visible features if they had a problem with a program. Or, if they wanted to follow examples from the text, they would type in textbook examples and run them visibly. I'd hear comments like 'Oh, yea, now I see how it does that.' ... It was quite wonderful."

Dennis Goldenson, Carnegie Mellon University (using MS-DOS version): "We selected Dr. Pascal for the simplicity of its user interface, which makes it easy to learn. Also .... the visualizations of data, including structured variables, clarify areas that otherwise typically give students a great deal of trouble. Partly because the "Pascal Key" macros remove concern for many tedious low-level syntax details, we're able to cover more material in the course than we would otherwise. The approach of this runtime system is just not widely available at all, where you can easily see concrete representation of some of the problematic areas for students. ... The concepts of what we mean by a call stack and parameter binding are much clearer to students because there is a concrete representation. [In class] it's much easier to convey the concepts than scribbling on the blackboard."

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