APE: An Expert System for Automatic Programming from Abstract Specifications of Data Types and Algorithms

摘要

The APE (Automatic Programming Expert) system constructs executable and efficient programs from algebraic specifications of abstract data types, and abstract algorithms given as conditional term-rewrite-rule-systems with term', built up from operation symbols of the abstract data types involved. The APE is an experimental system devised to develop methods for codifying a rather broad extent of programming knowledge required to construct implementations of data types and algorthms. For data type specifications, the APF admits hidden operations, conditional axioms, and parameterized data types. The APE automatically implements algebraic: specifications of all commonly known data types in terms of clusters of INTFRLISP-functions. The APL constructs executable implementations of a variety of sorting and searching algorithms. As an experimental prototype, the API demonstrates that a knowledge-based programming paradig provides a useful tool for partially automating an important phase of software development.