QUIP: a system for automatic program generation

Extensive programming effort is expended in the rewriting of minor variations of already existing programs. One method of reducing this redundant effort is to devise a method for automatically generating programs for the solution of any of a class of problems. One such technique is illustrated in Figure 1. A generator program produces, in response to user inputs, an output program for the solution of a particular problem. User inputs to the generator can be either in the form of commands in a special purpose language (e.g., macro statement) or responses to computer-generated queries. The output code produced by such a system is free of coding errors usual in handwritten programs. The output program is a free-standing entity which can be used for production data processing without user intervention. The literature contains a number of references to this type of approach.