CoMo : a whiteboard that converses about code
Name
900731297-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
7.36 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
417cf9ee16e73edc348824ab675920f2
Author(s)
Sabisch, Andrew Thomas Correa
Advisor(s)
Randall Davis.
Date Issued
2014
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Software engineers routinely solve problems by brainstorming at whiteboards. Among other modes, they communicate with speech and sketch. Unfortunately, the whiteboard plays the role of a passive medium. It serves only as a place to draw. But what if it could engage in the conversation, even to a limited degree? Ideally it would help guide the engineers to a solution by being an active participant in the conversation. This thesis presents an early version of that vision: CoMo, a whiteboard that converses about code. CoMo is capable of engaging its user in a constrained mixed-initiative symmetric-multimodal conversation about a data structure manipulation. When it understands the data structure, it uses a code synthesis system to generate functioning C code. It can successfully hold a limited conversation and synthesize code for 50 manipulations on 8 data structures. This thesis further presents findings from an observational user study that helped guide the interaction with CoMo. Finally, this thesis presents the mixed-initiative code-generation framework that CoMo implements to achieve its interaction, and the insights about having limited natural conversations about data structure manipulations that were gleaned while creating the framework.
Description
Thesis: Sc. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2014.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-184).
Subjects
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
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