LARP is education software for learning about algorithms and structured problem solving. With the help of this application one can design algorithms and analyse their execution in detail. LARP can represent the algorithm both as a flow chart and as pseudo code. We will focus mostly on the flow chart representation in LARP. In stead of writing pseudo code we will write Java code using the IntelliJ IDE.
LARP is available both as shareware (registration and small donation required) and as freeware (can be used freely but without any technical support). We will use the freeware version!
- Go to the home page of LARP.
- Click download and the license page will appear.
- Click "I accept the conditions of the license agreement" (button at the bottom) and the download page will appear.
- Click
Larpsetup.exe(most recent version 3.00) and run the installation (you may want to store the file somewhere on your computer first). Choose to install LARP as freeware.
By the way, the creator of LARP is Marco Lavoie (Quebec, Canada).
Note: You may have noticed that LARP has had no recent updates and you may wonder whether such an old tool is still relevant. Newer is always better, right? Well, LARP has its quirks but its functionality is more than sufficient for learning to create and debug simple algorithms using flow charts. There may be newer applications than LARP but many lack the debugging features of LARP. Also keep in mind that this is educational software, meant to teach you about algorithms. You will move on to more professional software tools later this year.
LARP has quite extensive documentation that you can easily access by pressing the F1 key from within the application. This will open the LARP user's guide (a Windows HTML Help format document).
The LARP documentation can also be accessed as an online help page.
The easiest way to explain how you can use LARP to create a simple flow chart is through the instruction video that we have prepared.