Automata Tutor, a tool developed by the NSF-funded Expeditions in Computer Augmented Program Engineering project, automatically grades student answers to a programming problem.
Credit: ExCAPE
Harnessing automated program synthesis allows non-programmers to create working code
Nobody said computer programming was easy. But maybe in the future, it could be.
In order to simplify program development, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported project called Expeditions in Computer Augmented Program Engineering (ExCAPE), is developing technology that provides human operators with automated assistance.
“Computers have revolutionized our daily lives, and yet the way we program computers has changed little in the last several decades,” said Rajeev Alur, a professor in the department of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Alur heads a team of researchers — representing nine leading computer science programs in the U.S. — that collaborates on the ExCAPE project. NSF supports ExCAPE with a $10 million, five-year Expeditions in Computing award, which funds interdisciplinary research teams working to transform computing and technology.
Alur said the team is taking on a longstanding problem: “Software development remains a tedious and error-prone activity.”
Using a model of programming called automated program synthesis, however, computers can generate pieces of code based on a user’s intent, expressed using various non-code-based forms, such as examples, demonstrations or natural language commands.
“ExCAPE aims to change programming from a purely manual task to one in which a programmer and an automated program synthesis tool can collaborate to generate software that meets its specification,” Alur said.
By removing the need for would-be programmers to learn esoteric programming languages, the method has the potential to significantly expand the number of people engaged in programming in a variety of disciplines, from personalized education to robotics.
Programming tools
Emerging technology known as Software-Defined Networks (SDN) allows network operators to tailor a computer network to the traffic running on it, thereby improving efficiency. Most network operators, however, are not traditional programmers and, as a result, cannot take full advantage of all the technology offers.
To address this shortcoming, the ExCAPE team developed a tool called NetEgg that lets a network operator specify the desired functionality of a switch using examples. NetEgg then automatically generates the code needed to implement that behavior while ensuring maximal throughput for network traffic.
Now patented, NetEgg has already been tested in a classroom setting and forms the basis of an NSF I-Corps project, which will explore the product’s transition to commercial deployment.
Computer-aided education and beyond
Looking at the growing area of online learning, the ExCAPE team further recognized the role that program synthesis tools could play in generating automatic feedback for students — analyzing their solutions, grading their assignments, and providing meaningful explanations of their mistakes.
That’s why the team created Automata Tutor, which has been used by more than 5,000 students from more than 10 universities around the world. Alur and his colleagues presented the results from the early deployment of Automata Tutor in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction and at theInternational Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence.
The group has created other tools, including AutoProf, which provides feedback on introductory programming assignments in computer languages, such as Python. Another tool, CPSgrader, automatically grades laboratory courses in cyber-physical systems and provides feedback.
More broadly, the ExCAPE team was able to develop a method that formalized and standardized the core computational problem in emerging synthesis tools. Called Syntax-Guided Synthesis, the new method has allowed the team to build a number of prototype solvers over the past two years.
“This effort has been instrumental in advancing the state-of-the-art in computational approaches, and it has facilitated novel applications of program synthesis, for instance, in automatic optimization of programs for quantum computers,” Alur said.
Industry adoption
The ExCAPE team’s research has affected the commercial software world, too. Its notion of syntax-guided synthesis inspired Microsoft to create automated program synthesizers for its suite of software.
“At Microsoft, we have invested significantly in the field of program synthesis, especially programming-by-examples, and with applications to end-user programming,” said Sumit Gulwani, of Microsoft Research, USA.
Microsoft started out by developing domain-specific synthesizers such as FlashFill and FlashExtract, each of which uses examples to generate custom code that improves efficiency. FlashFill, which was released as a feature of Microsoft’s Excel 2013, allows data entered into one column of a worksheet table to be entered in a new table column using only a few keystrokes. FlashExtract, which was included in Microsoft’s PowerShell and Operations Management Suite, extracts structured data from semi-structured log files using examples.
The technology giant has also developed a generic programming-by-example synthesizer called FlashMeta.
“All of our ongoing development of by-example synthesizers at Microsoft for various domains is now being carried out over the FlashMeta framework,” Gulwani said. “In fact, we have set up an entire research and engineering team for development of this framework, called PROSE. This has yielded one order of magnitude effectiveness in the overall development process.”
In years to come, the process of using coding languages for programming may be seen as an evolutionary step in computing, just as other methods replaced the punch cards and assembly languages used to program early computers.
“This project builds on decades of foundational advances in formal methods and programming languages,” says Nina Amla, program director in the Division of Computing and Communication Foundations at NSF. “It signals a paradigm shift in the way we teach basic programming principles, and develop reliable software systems.”
Learn more: Computer programming made easier
The Latest on: Computer programming
via Google News
The Latest on: Computer programming
- HitTrax batting program helps develop ASU softball's hittingon March 4, 2021 at 7:04 pm
Powerful hitting has been a staple for the Jeff Harger-led Sun Devil offense in large part due to the use of HitTrax.
- Computer Systems Design Services Industry | Discover, Track, Compare, Evaluate Companies on BizVibeon March 4, 2021 at 7:17 am
BizVibe has expanded the number of companies which can now be discovered and tracked for their computer systems design services industry group.
- The Jazz Pianist Using a Computer Program to Play with Other Musicians in Quarantineon March 3, 2021 at 3:04 am
Using the software JackTrip, the Brooklyn-based musician and amateur coder Dan Tepfer has been holding live-streamed concerts with jazz musicians elsewhere on the East Coast.
- Now Hiring: Software Developer, Computer Programming, Cyber Security Are All In-Demand Gigson March 2, 2021 at 3:56 pm
Computer programmers get paid well and many times, you can work from anywhere in the world. -The economic strain of the pandemic has forced many people to look for new jobs, even pivot careers. In ...
- Plano students win top honors in all-girls computer programming competitionon March 1, 2021 at 12:14 pm
Plano students took top honors in a recent Digital Divas 2021 competition. The computer programming competition and workshop designed to introduce ...
- Intelligent.com Announces Best Computer Programming Degree Programs for 2021on February 26, 2021 at 2:45 pm
Degree holders gain increased earning potential with career opportunities upon graduation from these top ranked institutions. SEATTLE (PRWEB) SEATTLE, WA ...
- Syracuse University to offer online, part-time computer programming degreeon February 24, 2021 at 7:40 pm
Students who pursue this degree may choose to seek careers in fields such as health care, criminal justice, defense contracting and finance.
- Letters: Frustrated by vaccine appointment computer programon February 18, 2021 at 6:03 am
Could they not set the computer program to tell you what is not in order? There is no point in trying again if it won`t accept my application. Perhaps I will just have to accept that I may get ...
- New machine learning theory raises questions about nature of scienceon February 11, 2021 at 4:00 pm
Qin (pronounced Chin) created a computer program into which he fed data from past observations of the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and the dwarf planet Ceres. This program ...
- Pick the right class to enhance your programming skillson February 7, 2021 at 5:11 am
Give your love the gift of computer programming this Valentine's Day with courses on getting started in a variety of coding courses. Below we have selected a few course bundles that can get you up ...
via Bing News