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Programming by Example: Efficient, but Not "Helpful"

Authors Mark Santolucito, Drew Goldman, Allyson Weseley, Ruzica Piskac

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Author Details

Mark Santolucito
  • Yale University, USA
Drew Goldman
  • Roslyn High School, USA
Allyson Weseley
  • Roslyn High School, USA
Ruzica Piskac
  • Yale University, USA

Funding

  • Santolucito, Mark: This research sponsored by NSF grants CCF-1302327, CCF-1553168 and CCF-1715387.
  • Piskac, Ruzica: This research sponsored by NSF grants CCF-1302327, CCF-1553168 and CCF-1715387.

Cite AsGet BibTex

Mark Santolucito, Drew Goldman, Allyson Weseley, and Ruzica Piskac. Programming by Example: Efficient, but Not "Helpful". In 9th Workshop on Evaluation and Usability of Programming Languages and Tools (PLATEAU 2018). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 67, pp. 3:1-3:10, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2019)
https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.PLATEAU.2018.3

Abstract

Programming by example (PBE) is a powerful programming paradigm based on example driven synthesis. Users can provide examples, and a tool automatically constructs a program that satisfies the examples. To investigate the impact of PBE on real-world users, we built a study around StriSynth, a tool for shell scripting by example, and recruited 27 working IT professionals to participate. In our study we asked the users to complete three tasks with StriSynth, and the same three tasks with PowerShell, a traditional scripting language. We found that, although our participants completed the tasks more quickly with StriSynth, they reported that they believed PowerShell to be a more helpful tool.

Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Software and its engineering → Programming by example
Keywords
  • user study
  • scripting
  • programming by example

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