Interfacing to the Programmer's Apprentice

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the design of a user interface to the Knowledge Based Editor (KBE), a prototype implementation of the Programmer's Apprentice. Although internally quite sophisticated, the KBE hides most of its internal mechanisms from the user, presenting a simplified model of its behavior which is flexible and easy to use. Examples are presented to illustrate the decisions which have led from high-level design principles such as "integration with existing tools" and "simplicity of user model" to a working implementation which is true to those principles.