Integrated Algorithm-Program Visualization: a Novel Approach of Software Visualization Development

Software visualization (SV) as introductory programming learning-aid tool has been a very popular area of research since early 1980’s and numerous visualization systems have been developed. However, after three decades of research and work, most of system treated the programming as a product rather than as a process. This situation has led coding become a dominant activity in programming cycle and student spend more time dealing with issues related to the syntax than solving problem or evaluating the logical flow of the program. 3De’s – synergetic program visualization– tool is a prototype of visual programming environment intended to help novice students in order to understand programming cycle starting from designing problem-solving, developing code and validating logical flow of the program through visualizing multi level of program abstraction. In this paper, study will compare 3De’s with some representative sample of current visualization system tools. This has led to a novel approach in understanding program using SV tool for novice students