Reusing code by reasoning about its purpose
Name
641267298-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
11.62 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e918e7c73fd4f9e69dbf80e07c2c0297
Author(s)
Arnold, Kenneth Charles
Advisor(s)
Henry Lieberman.
Date Issued
2010
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
When programmers face unfamiliar or challenging tasks, code written by others could give them inspiration or reusable pieces. But how can they find code appropriate for their goals? This thesis describes a programming interface, called Zones, that connects code with descriptions of purpose, encouraging annotation, sharing, and reuse of code. The backend, called ProcedureSpace, reasons jointly over both the words that people used to describe code fragments and syntactic features derived from static analysis of that code to enable searching for code given purpose descriptions or vice versa. It uses a technique called Bridge Blending to do joint inference across data of many types, including using domain-specific and commonsense background knowledge to help understand different ways of describing goals. Since Zones uses the same interface for searching as for annotating, users can leave searches around as annotations, even if the search fails, which helps the system learn from user interaction. This thesis describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of the Zones and ProcedureSpace system, showing that reasoning jointly over natural language and programming language helps programmers reuse code.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2010.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-105).
Subjects
Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.
MIT Department
Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Terms of Use
M.I.T. theses are protected by
copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
Persistent DSpace Link
