title: "Online Python Tutor: Embeddable Web-Based Program Visualization for CS Education"
authors: Philip J. Guo
venue: ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE)
year: 2013
links:
- Webpage
tweet: Python Tutor lets anyone write code in their web browser and visualize step-by-step run-time state
abstract: >
This paper presents Online Python Tutor, a web-based program visualization
tool for Python, which is becoming a popular language for teaching
introductory CS courses. Using this tool, teachers and students can write
Python programs directly in the web browser (without installing any plugins),
step forwards and backwards through execution to view the run-time state of
data structures, and share their program visualizations on the web.
In the past three years, over 200,000 people have used Online Python Tutor to
visualize their programs. In addition, instructors in a dozen universities
such as UC Berkeley, MIT, the University of Washington, and the University of
Waterloo have used it in their CS1 courses. Finally, Online Python Tutor
visualizations have been embedded within three web-based digital Python
textbook projects, which collectively attract around 16,000 viewers per month
and are being used in at least 25 universities. Online Python Tutor is free
and open source software, available at pythontutor.com
bibtex: >
@inproceedings{GuoSIGCSE2013,
author = {Guo, Philip J.},
title = {{Online Python Tutor}: Embeddable Web-based Program Visualization for {CS} Education},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 44th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education},
series = {SIGCSE '13},
year = {2013},
isbn = {978-1-4503-1868-6},
location = {Denver, Colorado, USA},
pages = {579--584},
numpages = {6},
url = {http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2445196.2445368},
doi = {10.1145/2445196.2445368},
acmid = {2445368},
publisher = {ACM},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
keywords = {CS1, program visualization, python},
}