Varphi: a description language for Turing machines

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Názov: Varphi: a description language for Turing machines
Autori: El-Sheikha, Hassan, Mahmoud, Mohammad A.
Informácie o vydavateľovi: Western Canada Conference of Computing Education, 2025.
Rok vydania: 2025
Predmety: Computer science--Study and teaching, Turing machines, Programming languages (Electronic computers), Computable functions
Popis: Conventional representations of Turing machines often overwhelm students of computability theory and obscure fundamental computational ideas. Varphi is a domain-specific language designed to streamline Turing machine specification with a minimalist syntax and integrated debugging tools. In preliminary classroom trials involving 184 participants tackling deliberately challenging tasks, 88% of students successfully completed them using Varphi, highlighting the tool’s potential utility. This paper presents a technical overview of Varphi and analyzes its pedagogical benefits.
Druh dokumentu: Article
Jazyk: English
DOI: 10.60770/wzt9-s649
Rights: CC BY
Prístupové číslo: edsair.doi...........5513e5778af8e4978f0945e30bd691e6
Databáza: OpenAIRE
Popis
Abstrakt:Conventional representations of Turing machines often overwhelm students of computability theory and obscure fundamental computational ideas. Varphi is a domain-specific language designed to streamline Turing machine specification with a minimalist syntax and integrated debugging tools. In preliminary classroom trials involving 184 participants tackling deliberately challenging tasks, 88% of students successfully completed them using Varphi, highlighting the tool’s potential utility. This paper presents a technical overview of Varphi and analyzes its pedagogical benefits.
DOI:10.60770/wzt9-s649