computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

, the term automatic programming identifies a type of

computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...

in which some mechanism generates a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and oth ...

to allow human

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

s to write the code at a higher abstraction level. There has been little agreement on the precise definition of automatic programming, mostly because its meaning has changed over time.

David Parnas David Lorge Parnas (born February 10, 1941) is a Canadian early pioneer of software engineering, who developed the concept of information hiding in modular programming, which is an important element of object-oriented programming today. He is a ...

, tracing the history of "automatic programming" in published research, noted that in the 1940s it described automation of the manual process of punching

paper tape Five- and eight-hole punched paper tape Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage ...

. Later it referred to translation of

high-level programming language In computer science, a high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In contrast to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language ''elements'', be easier to u ...

s like Fortran and

ALGOL ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

. In fact, one of the earliest programs identifiable as a

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

was called Autocode. Parnas concluded that "automatic programming has always been a

euphemism A euphemism () is an innocuous word or expression used in place of one that is deemed offensive or suggests something unpleasant. Some euphemisms are intended to amuse, while others use bland, inoffensive terms for concepts that the user wishes ...

for programming in a higher-level language than was then available to the programmer."

Program synthesis In computer science, program synthesis is the task to construct a program that provably satisfies a given high-level formal specification. In contrast to program verification, the program is to be constructed rather than given; however, both fields ...

is one type of automatic programming where a procedure is created from scratch, based on mathematical requirements.

Origin

Mildred Koss, an early

UNIVAC UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...

programmer, explains: "Writing machine code involved several tedious steps—breaking down a process into discrete instructions, assigning specific memory locations to all the commands, and managing the I/O buffers. After following these steps to implement mathematical routines, a sub-routine library, and sorting programs, our task was to look at the larger programming process. We needed to understand how we might reuse tested code and have the machine help in programming. As we programmed, we examined the process and tried to think of ways to abstract these steps to incorporate them into higher-level language. This led to the development of interpreters, assemblers, compilers, and generators—programs designed to operate on or produce other programs, that is, ''automatic programming''."

Generative programming

''Generative programming'' and the related term meta-programming are concepts whereby programs can be written "to manufacture software components in an automated way" just as automation has improved "production of traditional commodities such as garments, automobiles, chemicals, and electronics." The goal is to improve

productivity. It is often related to code-reuse topics such as

component-based software engineering Component-based software engineering (CBSE), also called component-based development (CBD), is a branch of software engineering that emphasizes the separation of concerns with respect to the wide-ranging functionality available throughout a giv ...

Source-code generation

''Source-code generation'' is the process of generating source code based on a description of the problem or an

ontological In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...

model such as a template and is accomplished with a

programming tool A programming tool or software development tool is a computer program that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs, that can b ...

such as a

template processor A template processor (also known as a template engine or template parser) is software designed to combine templates with a data model to produce result documents. The language that the templates are written in is known as a template language ...

or an

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools ...

(IDE). These tools allow the generation of

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

through any of various means. Modern programming languages are well supported by tools lik
Json4Swift
(

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIFT, ...

) an
Json2Kotlin
( Kotlin). Programs that could generate COBOL code include: * the DYL250/DYL260/DYL270/DYL280 series *

Business Controls Corporation Business Controls Corporation is a privately held computer company that developed an application-program-generator and also a series of accounting software packages. These packages were widely enough used for various business magazines to have bac ...

's SB-5 * Peat Marwick Mitchell's PMM2170 application-program-generator package These application generators supported COBOL inserts and overrides. A macro processor, such as the

C preprocessor The C preprocessor is the macro preprocessor for the C, Objective-C and C++ computer programming languages. The preprocessor provides the ability for the inclusion of header files, macro expansions, conditional compilation, and line control ...

, which replaces patterns in source code according to relatively simple rules, is a simple form of source-code generator. Source-to-source code generation tools also exist.Quinlan, Dan, and Chunhua Liao.
The ROSE source-to-source compiler infrastructure
. Cetus users and compiler infrastructure workshop, in conjunction with PACT. Vol. 2011. 2011.

Low-code applications

A low-code development platform (LCDP) is software that provides an environment

s use to create

application software Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

through

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...

s and configuration instead of traditional

Notes

References

*''Generative Programming: Methods, Tools, and Applications'' by Krzysztof Czarnecki and Ulrich W. Eisenecker, Addison Wesley, 2000.

External links

Code Generation for Dummies
{{DEFAULTSORT:Automatic Programming Programming paradigms Source code generation