Programming by example

In computer science, programming by example (PbE), also termed programming by demonstration or more generally as demonstrational programming, is an end-user development technique for teaching a computer new behavior by demonstrating actions on concrete examples. The system records user actions and infers a generalized program that can be used on new examples. PbE is intended to be easier to do than traditional computer programming, which generally requires learning and using a programming language. Many PbE systems have been developed as research prototypes, but few have found widespread real-world application. More recently, PbE has proved to be a useful paradigm for creating scientific work-flows. PbE is used in two independent clients for the BioMOBY protocol: Seahawk and Gbrowse moby. Also the programming by demonstration (PbD) term has been mostly adopted by robotics researchers for teaching new behaviors to the robot through a physical demonstration of the task. The usual distinction in literature between these terms is that in PbE the user gives a prototypical product of the computer execution, such as a row in the desired results of a query; while in PbD the user performs a sequence of actions that the computer must repeat, generalizing it to be used in different data sets. For final users, to automate a workflow in a complex tool (e.g. Photoshop), the most simple case of PbD is the macro recorder.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (3)

Inductive programming

Inductive programming (IP) is a special area of automatic programming, covering research from artificial intelligence and programming, which addresses learning of typically declarative (logic or functional) and often recursive programs from incomplete specifications, such as input/output examples or constraints. Depending on the programming language used, there are several kinds of inductive programming.

Programming by example

Programming by demonstration

In computer science, programming by demonstration (PbD) is an end-user development technique for teaching a computer or a robot new behaviors by demonstrating the task to transfer directly instead of programming it through machine commands. The terms programming by example (PbE) and programming by demonstration (PbD) appeared in software development research as early as the mid 1980s to define a way to define a sequence of operations without having to learn a programming language.