|
Your Wish is my Command: Programming by Example
WEB ENHANCED (flash)
As user interface designers, software developers and yes-as users, we all know the frustration that comes with using "one size fits all" software from off the shelf. Repeating the same commands over and over again, putting up with an unfriendly graphical interface, being unable to program a new application
that you thought of yourself-these are all common complaints. The inflexibility of today's computer interfaces makes many people feel like they are slaves to their computers. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Why can't technology give us more "custom-fitting" software?
On the horizon is a new technology that promises to give ordinary users the power to create and modify their own programs. Programming by example (PBE) is a technique in which a software agent records a user's behavior in an interactive graphical interface, then automatically writes a program that will perform that behavior for the user.
Your Wish is My Command: Programming by Example takes a broad look at this new technology. In these nineteen chapters, programming experts describe implemented systems showing that PBE can work in a wide variety of application fields.
* Includes sections on text and graphical editing, Web browsing, computer-aided design and geographical information systems.
* Covers teaching programming to children and programming computer games.
Foreword; Introduction; Novice Programming Comes of Age; Generalizing by Removing Detail: How Any Program Can Be Created by Working with Examples; Demonstrational Interfaces: Sometimes You Need a Little Intelligence; Web Browsing by Demonstration; Programming by Demonstration for Information Agents; End Users and GIS: A Demonstration is Worth a Thousand Words; Bring Programming by Demonstration to CAD Users; Demonstrating the Hidden Features That Make an Application Work; A Reporting Tool Using Programming by Example for Format Designation; Composition by Example; Learning Repetitive Text-editing Procedures with SMARTedit; Training Agents to Recognize Text by Example; SWYN: A Visual Representation for Regular Expressions; Learning Users' Habits to Automate Repetitive Tasks; Domain-Independent Programming by Demonstration in Existing Applications; Stimulus-Response PBD: Demonstrating When as Well as What; Pavlov: Where PBD Meets Macromedia's Director; Programming by Analogous Examples; Visual Generalization in Programming by Example.
|
