THE ARITHMETIC PARSER FOR TEACHI NG THE BASICS OF PARALLEL COMPUTING

Abstract

New generations of programming languages need to introduce new ideas and concepts to teaching, without which the student will not be able to show in practice stable skills to write real computer programs. The methodology of teaching programming disciplines requires careful processing of didactic material, presenting it in various forms for better awareness and learning of students. This is especially true of the methods of teaching parallel computing. Qualitative learning, related concepts, technological and algorithmic approaches, can be ensured by using visual models of parallel processes in the first stages. An example of such a model is the scheme of calculating the arithmetic expression that contains arithmetic operators and brackets. Since separate actions, in accordance with the priorities of arithmetic operations, can be computed at the same time, the parallelization of such an expression is, on the one hand, the task is quite simple to familiarize with parallel calculations, and, on the other hand, allows you to identify separate tasks, determine the characteristics of a potential parallel algorithm, investigate the relation between the number of computers (processors) and the time of execution of the algorithm, etc. The article describes the TreeBuilder software designed to visualize the formula tree, built by the entered arithmetic expression, and to calculate the characteristics of the computing algorithm. The Treebuilder can be used for the formation of “parallel thinking” in students and high school pupils. To build a formula tree and to calculate the characteristics of the algorithm of computing within the investigation an algorithm of parsing arithmetic expressions was developed and its software implementation was made in the C#.