RAPTOR: Introducing Programming to Non-Majors with Flowcharts
Martin C. Carlisle, Terry A. Wilson, Jeffrey W. Humphries, Steven M. Hadfield
United States Air Force Academy
Department of Computer Science
2354 Fairchild Dr, Suite 6G149
USAFA, CO 80840-6234
{Martin.Carlisle,Jeffrey.Humphries,Steven.Hadfield}@usafa.af.mil

ABSTRACT
When students are learning to develop algorithms, they very often spend more time dealing with issues of syntax than solving the problem. Additionally, the textual nature of most programming environments works against the learning style of the majority of students. RAPTOR is a flowchart-based programming environment, designed specifically to help students visualize their algorithms and avoid syntactic …ver más…

Once the program is developed, the user can generate code for any one of five text-based languages (including Pascal and C++).

The FLINT program [3,11] eliminates the shortcoming of having to debug the textual code. Using FLINT, students create a top-down decomposition of their program, and then design flowcharts for each subgoal. These flowcharts are executed within FLINT. This forces the students into a waterfall model [7] of software engineering, whereas students may have more success with a more incremental or spiral approach.

RAPTOR has features that make it a superior teaching tool than these predecessors. As with FLINT, RAPTOR enables students to execute their algorithms within the environment, rather than having to separately compile and execute their programs. This means that debugging can be done on the visual representation of the algorithm, rather than the textual one. Unlike FLINT, RAPTOR does not force top-down decomposition, on the student, instead allowing the student to develop their code incrementally. Furthermore, RAPTOR adds one and two-dimensional arrays, files, strings and a graphics library. Students are therefore able to create more interesting programs than in the previous tools.

3. DESCRIPTION OF RAPTOR
RAPTOR is written in a combination of Ada, C# and C++, and runs in the .NET Framework. RAPTOR begins by opening a blank