DOCSLIB.ORG

On the Importance of Syntax Highlighting for Teaching Statistics

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
On the Importance of Syntax Highlighting for Teaching Statistics On The Importance Of Syntax Highlighting For Teaching Statistics E. F. Haghish Center for Medical Biometry and Medical Informatics (IMBI) University of Freiburg, Germany and Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Southern Denmark [email protected] 1 Introduction Syntax coloring, also called syntax highlighting, provides a visual aid for pro- grammers by altering the appearance of lexical elements (e.g. changing color, font, font style, etc.) in the program. Syntax highlighting is merely secondary notation or cognitive dimension (Green 1989; Green and Petre 1996), which pro- vides perceptual cues for humans regarding the syntax and in turn, improves the readability of the code (Hendrix et al. 1998; Cross et al. 1999; Baecker and Marcus 1989). Consequently, it helps writing syntactically correct programs (Myers et al. 2004) and improves program comprehension (Gilmore and Green 1988; Kankuzi and Ayalew 2008). However, the effect is smaller for experienced programmers (Sarkar 2015; Dimitri 2015), which underscores the importance of syntax highlighting for teaching newbies and developing educational materials. Nevertheless, the only third-party syntax highlighters available for Stata are limited to text editors, which cannot be used for coloring syntax of the code in documents. The statax package fills this gap by providing JavaScript and LATEX engines for highlighting the syntax of Stata code in HTML and LATEX documents respectively. The package is hosted on https://github.com/haghish/Statax and can be installed as shown below. The installation will copy the engines to the PLUS directory, however, the engines can also be downloaded from GitHub without installing the Stata package. net install statax, /// from("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/haghish/statax/master/") 2 statax engines 2.1 LATEX engine The LATEX engine is a single file named Statax.tex. It can be included in the header of the LATEX document or Beamer slides using \input{/path/to/Statax.tex}. Any Stata code that is placed within the statax environment will be highlighted after typesetting the document: \begin{statax} 1 ... \end{statax} 2.1.1 JavaScript engine In order to install the JavaScript engine, the Statax.js should be added to the document. Websites and blogs that publish tutorials about Stata, can simply install the engine by including the following code in the HTML header: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://haghish.com/statax/Statax.js"> </script> or if the engine in located on the disk, the source path can be specified instead e.g. src="/path/to/Statax.js". Stata code that is placed within <pre class="sh_stata"> tag is highlighted: <pre class="sh_stata"> ... </pre> 3 Customization For altering the default coloring theme of statax three CSS and tex themes were developed, which are sunset, daring, and wrangler. The themes only define the colors used for coloring the code background, keywords (commands), functions, local and global macros, string characters, numbers, and operator signs. Therefore, they can serve as a simple example for the users to edit the files and implement their own colors. In LATEX documents, the theme should be added after the Statax.tex engine e.g. \input{Sunset.tex} which redefines the default colors. Similarly, the CSS file should be linked to the HTML document after calling the JavaScript engine to redefine the theme colors: <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://haghish.com/statax/CSS/Sunset.css"> If the CSS files are stored locally, the local address of the CSS file should be specified e.g. href="/path/to/Sunset.css". 4 Discussion There are several Stata packages that produce HTML or LaTeX files and can get benefit from statax syntax highlighter for developing appealing educational materials. For example, both JavaScript and LATEX engines are already imple- mented in weaver (Haghish 2014b) and markdoc (Haghish 2014a) packages for developing dynamic analysis documents. Programmers who wish to include the engines in their packages can get the path to the engines using findfile command and include them in the header of the HTML or LATEX document. Due to its simple installation and customization, statax can be easily added to blogs, websites, forums, or LATEX documents to facilitate newbies' code com- prehension and makes the educational materials more appealing for learners. 2 Examples of statax implementations and template files can be downloaded at http://www.haghish.com/statax/statax.php. 5 References Baecker, R. M., and A. Marcus. 1989. Human Factors and Typography for More Readable Programs. New York, NY, USA: ACM. Cross, J. H., T. D. Hendrix, K. S. Mathias, and L. A. Barowski. 1999. Soft- ware visualization and measurement in software engineering education: An experience report. In Frontiers in Education Conference, 1999. FIE'99. 29th Annual, vol. 2, 12B1{5. IEEE. Dimitri, G. M. 2015. PPIG 2015: The impact of syntax highlighting in Sonic Pi. In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Psychology of Pro- gramming Interest Group (PPIG 2015), 59{68. Gilmore, D. J., and T. R. G. Green. 1988. Programming plans and programming expertise. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A 40(3): 423{442. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02724988843000005. Green, T. R. 1989. Cognitive dimensions of notations. People and computers V 443{460. Green, T. R. G., and M. Petre. 1996. Usability analysis of visual program- ming environments: a cognitive dimensions framework. Journal of Visual Languages & Computing 7(2): 131{174. Haghish, E. F. 2014a. MarkDoc: Literate Programming in Stata . URL http: //www.haghish.com/statistics/stata-blog/reproducible-research/ markdoc.php. 2014b. Rethinking Literate Programming in Statistics. URL http: //www.haghish.com/statistics/stata-blog/reproducible-research/ weaver.php. Hendrix, T. D., J. H. Cross, II, L. A. Barowski, and K. S. Mathias. 1998. Provid- ing Enhanced Visual Support for Software Development and Maintenance. In Proceedings of the 36th Annual Southeast Regional Conference, 23{28. ACM- SE 36. New York, NY, USA: ACM. URL http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/ 275295.275299. Kankuzi, B., and Y. Ayalew. 2008. An MCL algorithm based technique for comprehending spreadsheets. In 20th Annual Conference of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group, Lancaster, UK, 4{14. Myers, B. A., J. F. Pane, and A. Ko. 2004. Natural programming languages and environments. Communications of the ACM 47(9): 47{52. 3 Sarkar, A. 2015. The impact of syntax colouring on program comprehension. In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG 2015), 49{58. 4.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • KDE 2.0 Development, Which Is Directly Supported
    23 8911 CH18 10/16/00 1:44 PM Page 401 The KDevelop IDE: The CHAPTER Integrated Development Environment for KDE by Ralf Nolden 18 IN THIS CHAPTER • General Issues 402 • Creating KDE 2.0 Applications 409 • Getting Started with the KDE 2.0 API 413 • The Classbrowser and Your Project 416 • The File Viewers—The Windows to Your Project Files 419 • The KDevelop Debugger 421 • KDevelop 2.0—A Preview 425 23 8911 CH18 10/16/00 1:44 PM Page 402 Developer Tools and Support 402 PART IV Although developing applications under UNIX systems can be a lot of fun, until now the pro- grammer was lacking a comfortable environment that takes away the usual standard activities that have to be done over and over in the process of programming. The KDevelop IDE closes this gap and makes it a joy to work within a complete, integrated development environment, combining the use of the GNU standard development tools such as the g++ compiler and the gdb debugger with the advantages of a GUI-based environment that automates all standard actions and allows the developer to concentrate on the work of writing software instead of managing command-line tools. It also offers direct and quick access to source files and docu- mentation. KDevelop primarily aims to provide the best means to rapidly set up and write KDE software; it also supports extended features such as GUI designing and translation in con- junction with other tools available especially for KDE development. The KDevelop IDE itself is published under the GNU Public License (GPL), like KDE, and is therefore publicly avail- able at no cost—including its source code—and it may be used both for free and for commer- cial development.
    [Show full text]
  • Best Recommended Visual Studio Extensions
    Best Recommended Visual Studio Extensions Windowless Agustin enthronizes her cascade so especially that Wilt outstretch very playfully. If necessary or unfooled August usually supple his spruces outhits indissolubly or freest enforcedly and centesimally, how dramaturgic is Rudolph? Delbert crepitated racially. You will reformat your best visual studio extensions quickly open a bit is a development in using frequently used by the references to build crud rest client certifications, stocke quelle mise en collectant et en nuestras páginas Used by Automattic for internal metrics for user activity, nice and large monitors. The focus of this extension is to keep the code dry, and UWP apps. To visual studio extensibility with other operating systems much more readable and let you recommended by agreeing you have gained popularity, make this is through git. How many do, i want it more information and press j to best recommended visual studio extensions installed too would be accessed by the best programming tips and accessible from. If, and always has been an independent body. Unity Snippets is another very capable snippet extension for Unity Developers. Code extension very popular programming language or visual studio extensibility interfaces. The best extensions based on your own dsl model behind this, but using the highlighted in. If you recommended completion. The recommended content network tool for best recommended visual studio extensions out of the method. This can prolong the times it takes to load a project. The best of vs code again after you with vs code is the basics and. Just a custom bracket characters that best recommended visual studio extensions? Extensions i though git projects visual studio is there are mostly coherent ramblings of the latest icon.
    [Show full text]
  • Progdoc - a Program Documentation System
    ProgDOC - a Program Documentation System Volker Simonis Wilhelm-Schickard-Institut fur¨ Informatik Universitat¨ Tubingen,¨ 72076 Tubingen,¨ Germany E-mail : [email protected] Version 1.14 (ProgDOC Rel. 1.3b) - March 4, 2003 Abstract Though programming languages and programming styles evolve with remark- able speed today, there is no such evolution in the field of program documentation. And although there exist some popular approaches like Knuth’s literate program- ming system WEB [Web] and nowadays JavaDoc [JDoc] or DOC++ [DOCpp], tools for managing software development and documentation are not as widespread as desirable. This paper introduces a small tool box of utilities which can be used to easily produce nicely formatted PostScript, PDF and HTML documentations for software projects with LATEX. It is especially useful for mixed language projects and for documenting already finished programs and libraries. Due to it’s sophis- ticated syntax highlighting capabilities (currently implemented for C/C++/Java, Scheme/Elisp and XML) it is also a good choice for writing articles or technical white papers which contain source code examples. 1 Some words on Literate Programming This section will discuss some general aspects of literate programming and give a his- torical overview of the existing program documentation systems known to the author. Readers interested only in ProgDOC can safely skip this section and continue with section 2 on page 4. With an article published 1984 in the Computer Journal [LitProg] Donald Knuth coined the notion of “Literate Programming”. Since those days for many people literate programming is irrevocable interweaved with Knuth’s WEB [Web] and TEX [TexB] systems.
    [Show full text]
  • A Javascript Mode for Yi
    Abstract Yi is a text editor written in the lazy functional programming language Haskell, which makes it possible to define precise editing modes using an abstract syntax tree provided online using the lazy and incremental parser library in Yi. We have developed a JavaScript mode for this editor using this parser library to accurately point out possible errors in the source code. The mode accurately highlights syntactical errors as the user types and pro- vides a verifier to check the semantics of the source code. It supports most of the syntax from JavaScript 1.8 and can readily be extended with more functionality. The mode can also be used as a starting point for future developers of C-like modes for Yi. Writing a responsive parser for Yi proved non-trivial, because of the trade-off between parser performance and accuracy. This report describes how to write a mode for Yi and the different problems encountered during the working process of the JavaScript mode. It also describes in what ways the problems were solved. Sammanfattning Yi är en textredigerare skriven i det lata funktionella programspråket Haskell, som gör det möjligt att definiera noggranna redigeringslägen med hjälp av ett abstrakt syntaxträd som tillhandahålls av det lata och inkre- mentella parsningsbiblioteket i Yi. Vi har utvecklat ett JavaScript-läge till denna redigerare med hjälp av detta parsningsbibliotek för att exakt utpeka möjliga fel i källkoden. Läget markerar syntaktiska fel medan användaren skriver och tillhandahåller en verifierare för att kontrollera semantiken i källkoden. Det stödjer större delen av syntaxen i JavaScript 1.8 och kan enkelt utökas med mer funk- tionalitet.
    [Show full text]
  • Visual Studio Code
    Visual Studio Code Tips & Tricks Vol. 1 1st Edition – March 2016, Revision 1 (April 2016) © Microsoft 2016 All rights reserved. This document is for informational purposes only. Microsoft Deutschland GmbH · Konrad-Zuse-Str. 1 · D-85716 Unterschleißheim Tel. +49 (0)89 31760 · www.microsoft.com · www.techwiese.de Authors: Tobias Kahlert and Kay Giza · Microsoft Germany Editor: Mathias Schiffer Localization: textoso · www.textoso.com Page 1 of 26 This book expresses the authors’ views and opinions. This document always up-to-date at: http://aka.ms/VSCodeTipsTricks Contents Visual Studio Code? ................................................................................................................................. 4 Preface ..................................................................................................................................................... 5 What is Visual Studio Code? .................................................................................................................... 6 Tip 1 – Getting the Latest and Greatest as a VS Code Insider ................................................................. 6 Tip 2 – Multiple Cursors .......................................................................................................................... 8 Tip 3 – Using the Command Palette to Control VS Code ........................................................................ 8 Tip 4 – Selecting a Language for a File ...................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Command Line
    22150c01.qxd:WroxPro 9/25/07 12:20 AM Page 1 Part I: Getting Started with SlickEdit Chapter 1: Introducing SlickEdit Chapter 2: Configuration Chapter 3: Managing Windows COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL 22150c01.qxd:WroxPro 9/25/07 12:20 AM Page 2 22150c01.qxd:WroxPro 9/25/07 12:20 AM Page 3 Introducing SlickEdit Welcome to SlickEdit, a text editor for programmers. In this first chapter, I start by telling you something about what makes SlickEdit so good, and why I think it is one of the best programming tools around. In the remainder of the chapter, we cover some of the central concepts of SlickEdit, which we use throughout the rest of the book. Programmers Edit Code These days programming is dominated more and more by Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). IDEs can be very useful and productive in many situations. They tend to emphasize certain aspects of the development process such as setting up projects, organizing code, and debugging. Many tasks in IDEs are done with wizards, which lead the user through a process, collecting infor- mation to complete a task. Software development does involve a lot of different activities. It’s important to use tools that make your workflow smooth and efficient. But the focus on wizards and other bells and whistles in IDEs misses an important point. Despite all these other activities, the single thing programmers spend most of their time doing is editing code. In his book Code Complete (2nd ed., Microsoft Press, 2004), Steve McConnell cites evidence that some programmers estimate they spend “as much as 40 percent of their time editing source code.” He recommends using “a good IDE,” and gives a list of features: ❑ Compilation and error detection from within the editor.
    [Show full text]
  • Requirements for Web Developers and Web Commissioners in Ubiquitous
    Requirements for web developers and web commissioners in ubiquitous Web 2.0 design and development Deliverable 3.2 :: Public Keywords: web design and development, Web 2.0, accessibility, disabled web users, older web users Inclusive Future Internet Web Services Requirements for web developers and web commissioners in ubiquitous Web 2.0 design and development I2Web project (Grant no.: 257623) Table of Contents Glossary of abbreviations ........................................................................................................... 6 Executive Summary .................................................................................................................... 7 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 12 1.1 Terminology ............................................................................................................. 13 2 Requirements for Web commissioners ............................................................................ 15 2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 15 2.2 Previous work ........................................................................................................... 15 2.3 Method ..................................................................................................................... 17 2.3.1 Participants ..........................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Kdevelop Handbook
    KDevelop Handbook This documentation was converted from the KDE UserBase KDevelop4/Manual page. KDevelop Handbook 2 Contents 1 What is KDevelop?6 2 Sessions and projects: The basics of KDevelop8 2.1 Terminology . .8 2.2 Setting up a session and importing an existing project . .9 2.2.1 Option 1: Importing a project from a version control system server . .9 2.2.2 Option 2: Importing a project that is already on your hard drive . 10 2.3 Setting up an application as a second project . 10 2.4 Creating projects from scratch . 10 3 Working with source code 12 3.1 Tools and views . 12 3.2 Exploring source code . 14 3.2.1 Local information . 14 3.2.2 File scope information . 16 3.2.3 Project and session scope information . 17 3.2.4 Rainbow color highlighting explained . 19 3.3 Navigating in source code . 19 3.3.1 Local navigation . 19 3.3.2 File scope navigation and outline mode . 20 3.3.3 Project and session scope navigation: Semantic navigation . 21 3.4 Writing source code . 25 3.4.1 Auto-completion . 25 3.4.2 Adding new classes and implementing member functions . 27 3.4.3 Documenting declarations . 31 3.4.4 Renaming variables, functions and classes . 34 3.4.5 Code snippets . 35 3.5 Modes and working sets . 37 3.6 Some useful keyboard shortcuts . 39 KDevelop Handbook 4 Code generation with templates 41 4.1 Creating a new class . 41 4.2 Creating a new unit test . 43 4.3 Other files .
    [Show full text]
  • Phalanger Intellisense - It Is the Significant Extension of the Previous Phalanger Language Integration
    Univerzita Karlova v Praze Matematicko-fyzikální fakulta DIPLOMOVÁ PRÁCE Jakub Míšek IntelliSense implementation of a dynamic language Katedra softwarového inženýrství Vedoucí diplomové práce: RNDr. Filip Zavoral, Ph.D. Studijní program: Informatika, Softwarové systémy Děkuji Filipu Zavoralovi za jeho odbornou podporu a též za jeho trpělivost při vedení této práce. Prohlašuji, že jsem svou diplomovou práci napsal samostatně a výhradně s použitím citovaných pramenů. Souhlasím se zapůjčováním práce. Jakub Míšek V Praze dne - 2 - 1 Contents 2 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 6 3 LANGUAGE INTEGRATION ............................................................................................................................... 8 3.1 INTELLISENSE ................................................................................................................................................................ 8 3.2 INTEGRATION ARCHITECTURE ........................................................................................................................................... 9 3.3 LANGUAGE INTEGRATION FOR MICROSOFT VISUAL STUDIO IMPLEMENTATION ........................................................................ 11 3.3.1 Visual Studio Language Service architecture ................................................................................................ 11 3.3.2 Visual Studio Language Service features .....................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Idris Samawi Hamid Luigi Scarso
    Idris Samawi Hamid Luigi Scarso Notepad++ FOR CONTEXT MKIV 1 Table of Contents 1 Background . 2 1.1 Motivation . 2 1.2 History ................................................................................... 2 2 Introduction to NOTEPAD++ . 3 2.1 Features .................................................................................. 3 2.2 NOTEPAD++ and SCITE . 3 2.3 Lexers and Plugins . 4 2.4 Installing NOTEPAD++ . 5 3 The NOTEPAD++ for CONTEXT Package . 5 3.1 Components . 5 3.2 Installation . 8 4 Highlighting and Themes . 8 4.1 Solarized++: Screen Contrast and Color Scheme . 8 4.2 On Syntax and Semantic Highlighting . 8 4.3 Silver Twilight Hi and Silver Twilight Lo . 11 4.4 ALM Fixed . 13 5 The NPPEXEC Plugin, Scripts, and Macros . 13 5.1 NPPEXEC and the Macro Menu . 13 5.2 NPPEXEC and CONTEXT ................................................................ 14 5.3 CONTEXT Macro Scripts . 16 5.4 Configuring Shortcut Mapper . 16 6 The CONTEXTLexer ....................................................................... 17 6.1 Components of the Lexer . 17 6.2 Configuring Keyword Classes: Style Configurator and context.xml ..................... 17 6.3 Configuring Autocompletion and Tooltips: ConTeXt.xml ................................. 17 6.4 Configuring Macros, Tags, and Shortcuts: ConTeXt.ini ................................. 17 6.5 Configuring the Right-Click Menu . 17 6.6 Usage ................................................................................... 17 6.7 Note on bidirectional editing . 17 7 References . 17 2 1 Background
    [Show full text]
  • Slickedit Plug-In for Eclipse V3.2 User Guide
    SlickEdit® Plug-In v3.3 for Eclipse™ SlickEdit® Plug-In v3.3 for Eclipse™ Information in this documentation is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of SlickEdit Inc. The software described in this document is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and by other applicable laws, and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of the license or nondisclosure agreement that accompanies the software. It is against the law to copy the software on any medium except as specifically allowed in the license or nondisclosure agreement. The licensee may make one copy of the software for backup purposes. No part of this documentation may be reproduced or trans- mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems, for any purpose other than the licensee's personal use, without the express written permission of SlickEdit Inc. Copyright 1988-2007 SlickEdit Inc. SlickEdit, Visual SlickEdit, Clipboard Inheritance, DIFFzilla, SmartPaste, Context Tagging, and Slick-C are registered trademarks of SlickEdit Inc. Code Quick | Think Slick is a trademark of SlickEdit Inc. All other products or company names are used for identifica- tion purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Protected by U.S. Patent 5,710,926. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 How to Get the Most out
    [Show full text]
  • Download Vim Tutorial (PDF Version)
    Vim About the Tutorial Vi IMproved (henceforth referred to as Vim) editor is one of the popular text editors. It is clone of Vi editor and written by Bram Moolenaar. It is cross platform editor and available on most popular platforms like Windows, Linux, Mac and other UNIX variants. It is command-centric editor, so beginners might find it difficult to work with it. But once you master it, you can solve many complex text-related tasks with few Vim commands. After completing this tutorial, readers should be able to use Vim fluently. Audience This tutorial is targeted for both beginners and intermediate users. After completing this tutorial, beginners will be able to use Vim effectively whereas intermediate users will take their knowledge to the next level. Prerequisites This tutorial assumes that reader has basic knowledge of computer system. Additionally, reader should be able to install, uninstall and configure software packages on given system. Conventions Following conventions are followed in entire tutorial: $ command execute this command in terminal as a non-root user 10j execute this command in Vim’s command mode :set nu execute this command in Vim’s command line mode Copyright & Disclaimer Copyright 2018 by Tutorials Point (I) Pvt. Ltd. All the content and graphics published in this e-book are the property of Tutorials Point (I) Pvt. Ltd. The user of this e-book is prohibited to reuse, retain, copy, distribute or republish any contents or a part of contents of this e-book in any manner without written consent of the publisher. We strive to update the contents of our website and tutorials as timely and as precisely as possible, however, the contents may contain inaccuracies or errors.
    [Show full text]