The document describes the development of the Tetra IDE. It summarizes that a functional IDE was created using Qt that interacts with the Tetra language interpreter. Planned features include debugging tools and displaying multiple program threads simultaneously. The IDE was developed over 10 weeks, adding features like syntax highlighting, navigation tools, and linking with the Tetra compiler.

1. Designing the Tetra IDE
Shehan Rajapakse and Ian Finlayson
Department of Computer Science, University of Mary Washington
Conclusions
Conclusions of this research:
• Functional IDE that interacts with language interpreter
• IDE ready to package and distribute
Planned features:
• Ability to show multiple threads at once
• Debugging tool
• Ability to step through code
Acknowledgements
Funding for this project was provided by the UMW Summer
Science Institute
Materials and Methods
To develop the Tetra environment, a C++ based User
Interface/Application software known as Qt was used.
Week 10
Implementing multiple thread windows and redirecting standard output
Week 9
Linking IDE with the compiler and interpreter and catching/displaying errors
Week 8
Implementing line number feature and cursor position
Week 7
Implementing smart indent and navigation
Week 6
Laying out editor and implementing syntax highlighter
Week 5
Implementing standard window controls and shortcuts
Week 4
Designing the editor window and creating menu bars and a toolbar with icons
Week 3
Designing open and close application dialogs
Week 1-2
Learning how to use Qt via web tutorials and practice applications
Further Information
Please visit tetra-lang.org to see updates of the Tetra
development process or learn about getting your own
version of the Tetra IDE.
Abstract
With advances in computer technology, there has always been
an emphasis placed on achieving high speed and efficiency. In
previous decades, a great deal of effort was spent optimizing
the hardware of computers, with the result that computer
speeds have increased tremendously. Lately, however, the
performance of a single CPU core has plateaued. Future
performance gains lie in parallel computing, in which multiple
computations can be done at the same time using multiple
threads of execution on a multi-core CPU. Unfortunately, to
take advantage of these multi-core machines, programs must
be written in a parallel manner. The demand for parallel
programs is relatively new and is still not properly ingrained in
the minds of computer scientists, largely due to the complexity
of parallel hardware and language syntaxes. For this reason,
parallel programming is not nearly as widely understood and
practiced as it should be. Tetra is an educational programming
language that will help students and professionals better write,
debug, and visualize parallel programs, using a simple language
structure and built-in parallelism. To make using Tetra even
simpler, the language includes an Integrated Development
Environment (IDE), where users can write, run, and debug
their Tetra programs. The IDE was created using an
application framework known as Qt and contains Tetra-specific
syntax highlighting as well as the ability to run programs
dynamically. Furthermore, the environment has the capability
of displaying multiple windows for the different threads of a
program, enabling programmers to visualize the way that their
programs will be executed dynamically. Tetra will be used to
teach parallelism to computer scientists so they can more easily
learn how and where to utilize parallel programming
techniques.
Introduction
• The need for parallel processing comes from the fact
that single processor speeds have stagnated
• The parallel languages/tools that currently exist are low-
level and are often hard to learn
• Tetra code compiles to efficient, low-level parallel code
that will run on parallel architectures
Fig. 1. Single processor speeds over time
def main() int:
x = [0]
parallel:
work(x)
work(x)
return i
def work(x [int]):
lock inc:
x[0] += 1
Fig. 2. A snippet of
parallel Tetra code, using
its Python-like syntax
Results
Line numbers
Clickable UI
Buttons
Full Menu Bars Editor Toolbar
Splitter to resize
input/output windows
Syntax highlighting
Fig. 4. Event in the
Tetra IDE where syntax
error is thrown
Fig. 5. Successful build
in the Tetra IDE with
output
Fig. 6. Multiple thread
windows in the Tetra IDE
Line containing error
highlighted
Error message printed to
output window
Value of main() function
shown in output
Printed data shown in
output