The Programmer's Apprentice: a research overview

Rich, Charles; Waters, Richard C.

doi:10.1109/2.86782

Cited by 189 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…They can respond to requests from the engineer that are phrased in terms of abstract computational structures in the program, rather than low-level commands that spell out actions to be performed on language primitives. (For example, Waters' KBEaacs [116,117,139] shows how an automated isistant can aid a human engineer while communicating at a high-level of abstraction. In KBEmacs, this model is constructed as the program is being built.…”

Section: Motivationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These standard forms, which we call clichis [110,112,115,137,117], are combinations of primitive mechanisms which engineers use frequently because the combinations have been found useful in practice. From experience, the engineers have come to expect the clichdd forms to exhibit certain known behaviors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By relying on this "pre-compiled" knowledge, engineers are able to efficiently understand and build complex devices containing clichdd components without always reasoning from first principles. Rich [110,112,117] has developed a model of engineering problem solving in which synthesis and analysis methods are based on the recognition and use of clich6s. He calls these inspection methods.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Automated Program Recognition by Graph Parsing

Wills¹

1992

107

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JAN 22 1993_ 93-01046 93 J21 034- REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGEForM N=o07-1 01MB NO 0704-0188 Pub•ic reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to averaqe I hour oer response. including the time for revewing Instructions. searchrg e.-st'ng sata sour'., gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information Send comments retarding this burden estimate or any other asoect Of this ol lection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, We demonstrate that this graph parsing approach is a feasible and useful way to automate program recognition. In studying this approach, we have experimented with two medium-sized, real-world simulator programs. There are three aspects of our study. First, we evaluate our representation's ability to suppress many common forms of program variation which hinder recognition. Second, we investigate the expressiveness of our graph grammar formalism for capturing programming cliches. Third, we empirically and analytically study the computational cost of our recognition approach with respect to the real-world simulator programs. The recognition of standard computational structures (cliches) in a program can help an experienced programmer understand the program. Based on the known relationships between the cliches, a hierarchical description of the program's design can be recovered. We develop and study a graph parsing approach to automating program recognition in which programs are represented as attributed dataflow graphs and a library of cliches is encoded as an attributed graph grammar. Graph parsing is used to recognize clich6s in the code. We demonstrate that this graph parsing approach is a feasible and useful way to automate program recognition. In studying this approach, we have experimented with two medium-sized, real-world simulator programs. There are three aspects of our study. First, we evaluate our representation's ability to suppress many common forms of program variation which hinder recognition. Second, we investigate the expressiveness of our graph grammar formalism for capturing programming clich6s. Third, we empirically and analytically study the computational cost of our recognition approach with respect to the real-world simulator programs.

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Section: Motivationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Automated Program Recognition by Graph Parsing

Wills¹

1992

107

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“…The approaches are typically broken into three categories: Interactive tools such as the Programmers Apprentice [20], Theorem Proving techniques [19], and Transformational Approaches.…”

Section: The Need For Automatic Software Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

USAF Summer Research Program - 1994 Graduate Student Research Program Final Reports, Volume 11, AEDC, FJSRL, and WHMC.

Moore¹

1994

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Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, incdudii gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send com )Ilection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directoras Dynamic re-synthesis of an executing system is supported, allowing the system structure to adapt to the external or internal environment. The paper describes an application of these techniques to a large, high performance parallel instrumentation system used for analysis of turbine engine strain gauge signals produced during altitude testing. The unique features of this approach include: explicit domain-specific declarative models; graphical representation of models; multiple aspect models; automatic specification of the necessary hardware architecture; and on-line re-synthesis of dynamic systems. 1-2 MODEL-BASED SOFTWARE SYNTHESIS FOR LARGE SYSTEMSBen A. Abbott IntroductionOne of the most challenging problems in software engineering is to build large, high-performance systems that must perform continuous interaction with their environment. The behavior of these reactive systems is typically complex, concurrent, and non-deterministic. This makes them difficult to build.Automatic program synthesis is one of the prime disciplines that can contribute to the advancement of the software engineering of reactive systems. The technique has been successfully applied to a specific "real-world" application: a large-scale, parallel instrumentation system, called Computer Assisted Dynamic Data Analysis and Monitoring System (CADDMAS). The CADDMAS system was developed in cooperation with the US Air Force at Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC). The software synthesized is a complex, reactive, signal processing system running on a heterogeneous network of nearly 100 processors. TerminologyBefore describing the software synthesis technique utilized, the main terms and concepts used in automatic program synthesis, reactive systems, and model-based systems are briefly defined and discussed. In some cases, the definitions are constrained to the specific needs of this paper. Parallel Instrumentation SystemParallel Instrumentation systems use multiple computers to cooperatively convert a set of acquired input signals into a more desirable format. The need for a parallel system as 1-3 opposed to a single processor system can be a result of the raw data rate requirements, or as a result of the number of simultaneous input signals that must be processed. Reactive SystemsMost Instrumentation Systems have their behavior driven by external inputs. In such cases, they may be classified as reactive systems (26]: embedded real-time systems characterized by continuous interaction with their environment. Process monitoring and control systems, and real-time signal processing systems are typical examples of this category. The complexity, concurrency, and non-deterministic behavior of reactive sys...

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“…Similarly, Alpern and his collegues have developed efficient methods for incrementally evaluating attributed graphs in a software development environment [4], but they have not proposed specific program representations. Rich and Waters suggest that the language-independent Plan Calculus program representation employed in the Programmer's Apprentice project [25] would be well-suited to supporting multiple views, but they have so far chosen not to pursue this avenue of research [26].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%