LaST: Language Study Tool

LaST (Language Study Tool) is a personal project I took part in together with a colleague and co-worker at Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires. At that time we were both working as teaching assistants for the module "Comparative Study of Programming Languages", in which we taught the theory behind programming languages and programming paradigms. We developed an application which simulates the behaviour of a program dynamically and interactively, displaying the processes which take place in a computer when a program is run.

The tool offers a visual representation of the processes taking place in a virtual computer while running a program, coded by the user in any of the four languages it provides: 1) a static "fortran-like" lanuage, 2) a "c-like" stack-based language, 3) an "Algol-type" block structured language and 4) a "Heap-based" language providing dynamic arrays among other features. Also, more languages/compilers can be developed and added to the environment using the API it provides, which makes it also interesting for compiler design and implementation students.

The student can run, step-execute, set breakpoints, and observe the way each hight-level statement affects the stack or heap in the virtual computer's memory.

Our work has been published and presented during a workshop dedicated to Information Technology Applied to Education at the University of La Matanza in Argentina.

Note: you can click on the screenshot at the top-right corner of this page to see LaST running. Also, LaST has its own website - click here to go there.