Small-Step Live Programming by Example

Live programming is a paradigm in which the programming environment continually displays runtime values. Program synthesis is a technique that can generate programs or program snippets from examples. paper presents a new programming paradigm called Synthesis-Aided Live Programming that combines these two prior ideas in a synergistic way. When using Synthesis-Aided Live Programming, programmers can change the runtime values displayed by the live works that combine the two have taken a holistic approach to the way examples describe the behavior of functions and programs. This paper presents a new programming paradigm called Small-Step Live Programming by Example that lets the user apply Programming by Example locally. When using Small-Step Live Programming by Example, programmers can change the runtime values displayed by the live visualization to generate local program snippets. % Live programming and program % synthesis work perfectly together because the live programming environment % reifies values, which makes it easy for programmers to provide the examples % needed by the synthesizer. We implemented this new paradigm in a tool called , and performed a user study on $13$ programmers. Our study finds that Small-Step Live Programming by Example with helps users solve harder problems faster, and that for certain types of queries, users prefer it to searching the web. Additionally, we identify the , in which users' mental models of the tool do not match its ability, and needs to be taken into account in the design of future synthesis tools.