A Methodology for LISP Program Construction from Examples

PHILLIP D. SUMMERS,     IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York

ABSTRACT

An automatic programming system, THESYS, for constructing recursive LISP programs from examples of what they do is described. The construction methodology is illustrated as a series of transformations from the set of examples to a program satisfying the examples. The transformations consist of (1) deriving the specific computation associated with a specific example, (2) deriving control flow predicates, and (3) deriving an equivalent program specification in the form of recurrence relations. Equivalence between certain recurrence relations and various program schemata is proved. A detailed ...

Get Readings in Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.