Software tool for supporting the experiential teaching of selected methods of formal semantics

Abstract

This article presents a contribution to the modernization of university education in the field of theoretical computer science, namely in the field of formal semantics. The use of software tools enabling interaction and visualization of calculations can be considered as a modern approach in teaching that supports its attractiveness. In this work, we present a visualization software tool that emulates the behavior of an abstract machine for structural operational semantics. The tool supports the visualization of abstract machine calculations in two variants – depending on the used formal representation of the abstract machine memory.