Mathematical and computational logic are basic subjects in most university degrees related to Computer Engineering, both in Spain and abroad. They are fundamental in the study (among other topics) of databases, computational complexity, programming languages, artificial intelligence, design and verification of hard and soft systems. However, for first-year undergraduate students it is not immediate to recognize the connections between logic and what they will need to learn in future studies. To mitigate this feeling of disconnect between basic and more advanced content, we have developed DeduccionNatural.pl, an open source licensed program written in Ciao Prolog (a Logic Programming Language), which allows to check if a natural deduction proof (in propositional logic) is correct.
In DeduccionNatural.pl, the proofs are programs, the inference rules are functions of a predefined library,
and the derived rules are subroutines (to refactor the proofs) defined by the students. During the academic
year 2021-2022, we have used DeduccionNatural.pl in the Cybersecurity Engineering and Artificial Intelligence degrees at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and we have conducted a satisfaction survey. The results
are not conclusive, but they encourage us to continue improving the tool.
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