Description
The hardest thing to teach in programming is control flow: where the loop ends, where that break jumps to, which if belongs to which else three levels down. Drawing arrows on plain text only gets students so far. jGRASP draws a Control Structure Diagram inside the editor itself, marking every loop and branch with a bracket down the left of the source, redrawn as the code changes so nesting is visible at a glance.
Other visualisations follow the same idea: UML class diagrams generated from the source to show dependencies, object viewers that draw linked lists, trees and stacks in their real shape during debugging instead of printing fields, an interactions pane where a single Java expression is evaluated immediately, and a workbench where objects can be kept around and poked at.
It comes from Auburn University, is small and quick to start, compiles and runs out of the box, and also handles C, C++, Python, Ada and VHDL. A JDK must be installed. Free.
Control Structure Diagrams: Brackets drawn beside the source for every loop and branch, updated live as code changes.
UML class diagrams: Generated from source to show inheritance and dependencies between classes.
Object viewers: Debug-time views that draw linked lists, trees and stacks in their actual structure.
Interactions pane: Evaluate a Java expression immediately without writing a full main method.
Workbench: Keep objects and classes around to call methods on them interactively.
Integrated debugger: Breakpoints, stepping and variable inspection tied to the visual views.
Other languages: Editing and compiling for C, C++, Python, Ada and VHDL alongside Java.
Lightweight: Under 8 MB to install and quick to start, suited to teaching labs and beginners.
Other visualisations follow the same idea: UML class diagrams generated from the source to show dependencies, object viewers that draw linked lists, trees and stacks in their real shape during debugging instead of printing fields, an interactions pane where a single Java expression is evaluated immediately, and a workbench where objects can be kept around and poked at.
It comes from Auburn University, is small and quick to start, compiles and runs out of the box, and also handles C, C++, Python, Ada and VHDL. A JDK must be installed. Free.
Features
Control Structure Diagrams: Brackets drawn beside the source for every loop and branch, updated live as code changes.
UML class diagrams: Generated from source to show inheritance and dependencies between classes.
Object viewers: Debug-time views that draw linked lists, trees and stacks in their actual structure.
Interactions pane: Evaluate a Java expression immediately without writing a full main method.
Workbench: Keep objects and classes around to call methods on them interactively.
Integrated debugger: Breakpoints, stepping and variable inspection tied to the visual views.
Other languages: Editing and compiling for C, C++, Python, Ada and VHDL alongside Java.
Lightweight: Under 8 MB to install and quick to start, suited to teaching labs and beginners.
