smol-tutor

SMoL Tutor is a web app that corrects common misconceptions about basic concepts in modern programming languages. Specifically, the tutor teaches you, for example, how to answer the following questions:

• Why does the following program produce an error rather than 2 or 3?

let x = 2;
function main() {
  function getX() {
    return x;
  }
  let y = getX();
  let x = 3;
  return y;
}
console.log(main());

• Why is v evaluated to [1,2,[4]] rather than to [1,2,[3]]?

let x = [ 3 ];
let v = [ 1, 2, x ];
x[0] = 4;
console.log(v);

Tutorials

These tutorials are hosted with Google Apps Script. We do record your work in the tutorials, but we do no record your identity.

Each tutorial typically takes 10-20 min (rarely exceeding 30 min). You can save the finished tutorials to PDF once you finish. However, you will lose your work if you close a tutorial in the middle.

Here are all tutorials.

Change since 2022

• Added buttons for each code block to see JavaScript/Python translation.
• Replaced the copy-program-with-lang-line buttons with run buttons for running in the new web-based stacker. These buttons interact with the syntax-choosing buttons mentioned above.
• Added a summary of goal sentences at the end of each tutorial.
• Added a “print” button at the end of each tutorial. The buttons save the finished tutorials to a PDF.
• Ensured that all number literals have only two digits to avoid confusion with heap addresses.
• Replaced post-test questions such that their programs are isomorphic to the programs in their corresponding pre-tests.
• “In-lined” the previously external Google forms.
• Added some questions that ask for an explanation on why a program doesn’t produce an expected result.
• Improved README on how to customize the logging system.