Java Source Interpreter

For the purposes of teaching programming there are some disadvantages to using an integrated development environment (IDE) the most significant being that they are aimed at developers and can have a bewildering number of options.

A source code interpreter could provide all the advantages of an IDE and remove the disadvantages. In addition, an applet version of a source code interpreter could provide the following advantages:

1. provide dynamic execution of code in web based lectures.
2. allow the creation of useful web-based exercises, where the solutions can be demoed to the student interactively.
3. enable run-time analysis of code (by simply counting the number of times various instructions were executed).
4. as part of a web-based program testing system it would allow local execution of programs, with the result sent to a server for analysis.