The paper I wrote with the help of my advising professor from the summer has been accepted to the MCURCSM 2007 conference. The paper is titled “SCALES: Learning Multimedia in a Mixed-Paradigm Language.” I have a week to make a few edits to improve the paper before it is published, and then another week to create a presentation because I have to give a talk on the paper on November 3rd. In light of all the other stuff I have to do, it’s a mixed blessing. Now I have a publication to help with graduate school applications, but I also have yet another task to commit time towards that I don’t have. Here’s the abstract for the paper:
Learning functional programming is difficult, especially with the sparse amount of software assistance available. Text editors and command line compilers are frequently the tools provided for the most popular languages. We believe a better Integrated Development Environment (IDE) with built-in multimedia features would help a student learn functional programming in a more efficient and productive manner. For this reason, we have started development of an Eclipse plugin named SCALES to provide such a system. We explain the development of the IDE thus far, and show library functionality by providing examples of Sierpinski’s Triangle, the Towers of Hanoi, and Frère Jacques.