Java Pedagogical Libraries for Code Analysis

VCU College of Engineering

Short Project Description

Adaptation of PEDAL (PEDAgogical Library) from Python to Java for syntactic analysis of student-submitted code.

Giving large amounts of timely and impactful feedback is difficult because instructor time in classrooms is becoming more limited as class sizes in Computer Science continue to grow larger. To address the scale of current classes and give students timely feedback, we develop tools for automated student feedback that targets specific conceptual misunderstandings that can be deployed at-scale and received immediately.

Project Structure

The directory structure in this GitHub is to allow the project to have all its resources self-contained. Open Source software should not just be a repository of code. There are a number of directories to help you and others who will follow in your footsteps. It'll also allow the Linux Foundation OMP Mentorship program to keep track of your project and get a better understanding of the problems you encountered during the development of this project.

Folder	Description
Documentation	All documentation the project team has created to describe the architecture, design, installation, and configuration of the project
Notes and Research	Relevant helpful information to understand the tools and techniques used in the project
Project Deliverables	Folder that contains final pdf versions of all Fall and Spring Major Deliverables
Status Reports	Project management documentation - weekly reports, milestones, etc.
src	Source code

Project Team

• Luke Gusukuma - Computer Science - Faculty Advisor
• Derek Chiou - Computer Science - Student Team Member
• Luca Doutt - Computer Science - Student Team Member
• Ghulam Mujtaba Qasimi - Computer Science - Student Team Member
• Kennedy Westry - Computer Science - Student Team Member

For future contributors

• Please see Luke Gusukuma's dissertation, section 4.2 (Matching Algorithm), for a high-level overview of the algorithm.
• The original Pedal source code may be of use, see also:
  • stretchy_tree_matching.py
  • test_cait.py

Key files

I'm not sure how admin is going to handle this repository next year, so here's an outline of what files you should know about (in case you need to manually import to a new repository).

• src contains all our code so far. It's mostly shell code. See the README in that directory for more details.
• The .gitignore is honestly a mess, but it currently covers ignores for VSCode, IntelliJ, Eclipse, and general Java and Gradle ignores.
• Ensure the Gradle files carry over:
  • The gradle directory, which should contain only a few files
  • build.gradle declares necessary imports. Currently it's just JavaParser.
  • settings.gradle, currently only stating the project name
  • gradlew and gradlew.bat
• Notes\ and\ Research contains a few markdown files on different concepts. If anything doesn't make sense, ask Luke directly.
• Documentation/UML has a PlantUML source, as well as generated output in png and svg format. Refer to it, or modify it, as you see fit.