The use of examples in program construction and debugging

Abstract

Techniques are described for automatically creating a computer program from example calculations which are done in scratch pad fashion at a computer display. The correct program is synthesized even though certain indexing instructions are omitted by the user as he executes the sample calculation. The created program can be tested, debugged, and modified by running examples at the display terminal, observing the program behavior, and forcing by hand a change in behavior if errors are observed. Thus programs can be created, debugged, and modified without the user ever knowing or seeing any traditional language syntax. Most of the methods discussed have been programmed and tested extensively.