Automated Program Description
Name
AI_WP_237.pdf
Description
Main article
Size
568.3 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
09fb4383b0c781a2777ef9bab69bb39b
Author(s)
Cyphers, D. Scott
Date Issued
August 1982
Publisher
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Series/Report no.
MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Working Papers, WP-237
Abstract
The Programmer's apprentice (PA) is an automated program development tool. The PA depends upon a library of common algorithms (cliches) as the source of its knowledge about programming. The PA uses these cliches to understand how a program is implemented. This knowledge may also be used to explain to a user of the PA how the program is implemented.
The problem with any explanation or description is knowing how much information to present, and how much information to hide. A set of simple heuristics for doing this can be used with the cliche representation of a program to produce reasonable descriptions of parts of programs. The system described combines "canned" phrases corresponding to cliche parts to form explanations. The process is fast and appears to be easily extensible to future versions of the PA and other domains.
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