Integrating Programming by Example and Natural Language Programming

We motivate the integration of programming by example and natural language programming by developing a system for specifying programs for simple text editing operations based on regular expressions. The programs are described with unconstrained natural language instructions, and providing one or more examples of input/output. We show that natural language allows the system to deduce the correct program much more often and much faster than is possible with the input/output example(s) alone, showing that natural language programming and programming by example can be combined in a way that overcomes the ambiguities that both methods suffer from individually and, at the same time, provides a more natural interface to the user.

Authors

• Mehdi Manshadi University of Rochester
• Daniel Gildea
• James Allen

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