Invisible Programming

The topic of this conference is Visual languages, but I want to discuss computer programming using a technique where there is no apparent language at all; the language is (mostly) invisible. Here, the user sees the results of the program aecution and the data the program is operating on, but the program itself is not shown. The program is specifcd by demonstrating the operations that should be performed using example data. Therefore, these system are called ‘ ‘programming-by -example” or “demonstrational“ interfaces. This paper presents an overview of this intriguing idea, and presents a survey of existing systems and an agenda for future research. Introduction This paper discusses a new style of user interface where the user gives an example of the desired operation, and the system generalizes to construct a general-purpose procedure. These are called Demonstrational Interfaces, because the user is demonstrating to the system what should be done. When a demonstrational interface provides true programming capabilities, then it is called Programming by Example. This paper more formally defines demonstrational interfaces and related terms, and discusses why I think they are important. Next, a survey of existing uses of this technology is presented. Finally, some areas for future work are discussed.