any / any
Representation
Collected by Johan Jeuring — Interview; used by Frans Wiering, source Roelof van Zwol in a course at Utrecht University in 2005.
The spreadsheet shows how input is transferred to output in several steps. It shows the core of the functionality that students need to implement. It allows students to experiment with changing input and functionality, and it provides students test cases.
| PL | NM |
|---|---|
| function | cell transforming input to output |
It shows the students how output depends on input and calculation. It shows the different steps in the calculation.
This is used when students start implementing their first slightly larger software system (an information retrieval system).
Creating such a spreadsheet is usually half a day to a day's work. Students appreciate it, but it involves a different computation paradigm than the programming language the students learn in the course.
Detailed screenshot of example spreadsheet:
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A notional machine is a pedagogic device to assist the understanding of some aspect of programs or programming.
