Interactive Programming by Example

As of today, programming has never been so accessible. Yet, it remains a challenge for end-users: students, non-technical employees, experts in their domains outside of computer science, and so on. With its forecast potential for solving problems by only observing inputs and outputs, programming-by-example was supposed to alleviate complex tasks requiring programming for end-users. The initial ideas of macro-based editors paved the way to subsequent practical solutions, such as spreadsheet transformations from examples. Finding the right program is the core of the programming-by-example systems. However, users find it difficult to trust such generated programs. In this thesis, we contribute to proving that some forms of interaction alleviate, by having users provide examples, the problem of finding correct and reliable programs. We first report on two experiments that enable us to conjecture what kind of interaction brings benefits to programming-by-example. First, we present a new kind of game engine, Pong Designer. In this game engine, by using their finger, users program rules on the fly, by modifying the game state. We analyze its potential, and its eventual downsides that have probably prevented its wide adoption. Second, we present StriSynth, an interactive command-line tool that uses programming-by-example to transform string and collections. The resulting programs can also rename or otherwise manage files. We obtained the result that confirms that many users preferred StriSynth over usual programming languages, but would appreciate to have both. We then report on two new exciting experiments with verified results, using two forms of interaction truly benefiting programming-by-example. Third, on top of a programmingby- example-based engine for extracting structured data out of text files, in this thesis we study two interaction models implemented in a tool named FlashProg: a view of the program with notification about ambiguities, and the asking of clarification questions. In this thesis, we prove that these two interaction models enable users to perform tasks with less errors and to be more confident with the results. Last, for learning recursive tree-to-string functions (e.g., pretty-printers), in this thesis we prove that questioning breaks down the learning complexity from a cubic to a linear number of questions, in practice making programming-by-example even more accessible than regular programming. The implementation, named Prosy, could be easily added to integrated development environments

Functional synthesis for linear arithmetic and sets

Synthesis of program fragments from specifications can make programs easier to write and easier to reason about. To integrate synthesis into programming languages, synthesis algorithms should behave in a predictable way—they should succeed for a well-defined class of specifications. To guarantee correctness and applicability to software (and not just hardware), these algorithms should also support unbounded data types, such as numbers and data structures. To obtain appropriate synthesis algorithms, we propose to generalize decision procedures into predictable and complete synthesis procedures. Such procedures are guaranteed to find the code that satisfies the specification if such code exists. Moreover, we identify conditions under which synthesis will statically decide whether the solution is guaranteed to exist and whether it is unique. We demonstrate our approach by starting from a quantifier elimination decision procedure for Boolean algebra of set with Presburger arithmetic and transforming it into a synthesis procedure. Our procedure also works in the presence of parametric coefficients. We establish results on the size and the efficiency of the synthesized code. We show that such procedures are useful as a language extension with implicit value definitions, and we show how to extend a compiler to support such definitions. Our constructs provide the benefits of synthesis to programmers, without requiring them to learn new concepts, give up a deterministic execution model, or provide code skeleton

StriSynth: Synthesis for Live Programming

Abstract—Motivated by applications in automating repetitive file manipulations, we present a tool called StriSynth, which allows end-users to perform transformations over data using examples. Based on provided examples, our tool automatically generates scripts for non-trivial file manipulations. Although the current focus of StriSynth are file manipulations, it implements a more general string transformation framework. This framework builds on and further extends the functionality of Flash Fill—a Microsoft Excel extension for string transformations. An accompanying video to this paper is available at the following website http://youtu.be/kkDZphqIdFM

User Interaction Models for Disambiguation in Programming by Example

Programming by Examples (PBE) has the potential to revolutionize end-user programming by enabling end users, most of whom are non-programmers, to create small scripts for automating repetitive tasks. However, examples, though often easy to provide, are an ambiguous specification of the user's intent. Because of that, a key impedance in adoption of PBE systems is the lack of user confidence in the correctness of the program that was synthesized by the system. We present two novel user interaction models that communicate actionable information to the user to help resolve ambiguity in the examples. One of these models allows the user to effectively navigate between the huge set of programs that are consistent with the examples provided by the user. The other model uses active learning to ask directed example-based questions to the user on the test input data over which the user intends to run the synthesized program. Our user studies show that each of these models significantly reduces the number of errors in the performed task without any difference in completion time. Moreover, both models are perceived as useful, and the proactive active-learning based model has a slightly higher preference regarding the users' confidence in the result

Shifting the limits in wheat research and breeding using a fully annotated reference genome

Introduction: Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is the most widely cultivated crop on Earth, contributing about a fifth of the total calories consumed by humans. Consequently, wheat yields and production affect the global economy, and failed harvests can lead to social unrest. Breeders continuously strive to develop improved varieties by fine-tuning genetically complex yield and end-use quality parameters while maintaining stable yields and adapting the crop to regionally specific biotic and abiotic stresses. Rationale: Breeding efforts are limited by insufficient knowledge and understanding of wheat biology and the molecular basis of central agronomic traits. To meet the demands of human population growth, there is an urgent need for wheat research and breeding to accelerate genetic gain as well as to increase and protect wheat yield and quality traits. In other plant and animal species, access to a fully annotated and ordered genome sequence, including regulatory sequences and genome-diversity information, has promoted the development of systematic and more time-efficient approaches for the selection and understanding of important traits. Wheat has lagged behind, primarily owing to the challenges of assembling a genome that is more than five times as large as the human genome, polyploid, and complex, containing more than 85% repetitive DNA. To provide a foundation for improvement through molecular breeding, in 2005, the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium set out to deliver a high-quality annotated reference genome sequence of bread wheat. Results: An annotated reference sequence representing the hexaploid bread wheat genome in the form of 21 chromosome-like sequence assemblies has now been delivered, giving access to 107,891 high-confidence genes, including their genomic context of regulatory sequences. This assembly enabled the discovery of tissue- and developmental stage–related gene coexpression networks using a transcriptome atlas representing all stages of wheat development. The dynamics of change in complex gene families involved in environmental adaptation and end-use quality were revealed at subgenome resolution and contextualized to known agronomic single-gene or quantitative trait loci. Aspects of the future value of the annotated assembly for molecular breeding and research were exemplarily illustrated by resolving the genetic basis of a quantitative trait locus conferring resistance to abiotic stress and insect damage as well as by serving as the basis for genome editing of the flowering-time trait. Conclusion: This annotated reference sequence of wheat is a resource that can now drive disruptive innovation in wheat improvement, as this community resource establishes the foundation for accelerating wheat research and application through improved understanding of wheat biology and genomics-assisted breeding. Importantly, the bioinformatics capacity developed for model-organism genomes will facilitate a better understanding of the wheat genome as a result of the high-quality chromosome-based genome assembly. By necessity, breeders work with the genome at the whole chromosome level, as each new cross involves the modification of genome-wide gene networks that control the expression of complex traits such as yield. With the annotated and ordered reference genome sequence in place, researchers and breeders can now easily access sequence-level information to precisely define the necessary changes in the genomes for breeding programs. This will be realized through the implementation of new DNA marker platforms and targeted breeding technologies, including genome editing

Programmation Interactive par l'Exemple

Dans cette présentation couvrant mon travail de thèse effectué entre 2012 et 2017, je couvre - Une introduction à la programmation par l'exemple - Pong Designer: Programmer des jeux android avec le doigt - StriSynth: Renommer des millions de fichiers sans programmer - FlashProg: Extraire des tables d'un texte avec la souris - Prosy: Comment poser des questions précises. - Les conclusions de ma thèse