APU: an automatic programmer for UNIX

Abstract

The authors present a paradigm for automating programming based on how humans program. The paradigm involves top-down decomposition of a given problem into smaller problems using, if possible, programming cliches and analogies from previously solved problems till a primitive level is reached; at the primitive level the problem is solved by making calls to a library of pre-existing sub-routines that encode specific knowledge about the domain. The authors describe APU, which uses the above paradigm to automate UNIX programming, and focus on the knowledge structure and the problem-solving capability without the use of analogy.<>