ROD%SU-AI@sri-unix.UUCP (02/02/84)
From: Rod Brooks <ROD@SU-AI>
[Reprinted from the SU-SCORE bboard.]
A Perspective on Automatic Programming
David R. Barstow
Schlumberger-Doll Research
4:30pm, Terman Aud., Tues Feb 7th
Most work in automatic programming has focused primarily on the roles of
deduction and programming knowledge. However, the role played by knowledge
of the task domain seems to be at least as important, both for the usability
of an automatic programming system and for the feasibility of building one
which works on non-trivial problems. This perspective has evolved during
the course of a variety of studies over the last several years, including
detailed examination of existing software for a particular domain
(quantitaive interpretation of oil well logs) and the implementation
of an experimental automatic programming system for that domain. The
importance of domain knowledge has two importatnt implications: a primary goal
of automatic programming research should be to characterize the programming
process for specific domains; and a crucial issue to be addressed
in these characterizations is the interaction of domain and programming
knowledge during program synthesis.