A plan-based intelligent assistant that supports the software development

Abstract

We describe how an environment can be extended to support the process of software development. Our approach is based on the AI planning paradigm. Processes are formally defined hierarchically via plan operators, using multiple levels of abstraction. Plans are constructed dynamically from the operators; the sequences of actions in plans are tailored to the context of their use, and conflicts among actions are prevented. Monitoring of the development process, to detect and avert process errors, is accomplished by plan recognition ; this establishes a context in which programmer-selected goals can be automated via plan generation . We also show how nonmonotonic reasoning can be used to make an independent assessment of the credibility of complex process alternatives, and yet accede to the programmer's superior judgment. This extension to intelligent assistance provides deeper understanding of software processes.

Collaboration and coordination in process-centered software development environments: a review of the literature

“…In systems such as MARVEL [14], EPOS [16], Grapple [33] and ALF [34], users are free to choose any possible action supported by the system, independently of pre-conditions being enabled. These systems use inferencing to dynamically build plans that cause the pre-condition of an action to be satisfied so that it can be executed.…”

“…MARVEL [14], EPOS [16], Grapple [33] and ALF [34], actions may cause a system to dynamically produce and initiate execution of a plan that satisfies the preconditions of a chosen action, thus greatly enhancing the usefulness of this style (see Section 5.1).…”

A comprehensive view of process engineering

“…Decisions are applied to the situation in which the process currently is, in order to change that situation to the desired new one. In this respect, the contextual approach has some similarity with the planning paradigm that has emerged from Artificial Intelligence and with projects based on the planning paradigm such as GRAPPLE [Huf89].…”

Combining local negotiation and global planning in cooperative software development projects

“…In these system, however, the coordination among the programmers is limited by the capability of their configuration management systems which are based on the check-in check-out model [9]. Madhavji [15] [10] apply the planning paradigm to software development, featuring a truth maintenance system. Croff, et al, [6] use negotiation among agents including human to handle the exception happens during plan execution.…”