Programming with keywords

Abstract

Modern applications provide interfaces for scripting, but many users do not know how to write script commands. However, many users are familiar with the idea of entering keywords into a web search engine. Hence, if a user is familiar with the vocabulary of an application domain, they may be able to write a set of keywords expressing a command in that domain. For instance, in the web browsing domain, a user might enter the keywords click search button. This thesis presents several algorithms for translating keyword queries such as this directly into code. A prototype of this system in the web browsing domain translates click search button into the code click(findButton("search")). This code may then be executed in the context of a web browser to carry out the effect. Another prototype in the Java domain translates append message to log into log.append(message), given an appropriate context of local variables and imported classes. The algorithms and prototypes are evaluated with several studies, suggesting that users can write keyword queries with little or no instructions, and that the resulting translations are often accurate. This is especially true in small domains like the web, whereas in a large domain like Java, the accuracy is comparable to the accuracy of writing syntactically correct Java code without assistance.