research-article

Towards bidirectional live programming for incomplete programs

Authors:

Zhenjiang HuAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '22: Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 2154 - 2164

https://doi.org/10.1145/3510003.3510195

Published: 05 July 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Bidirectional live programming not only allows software developers to see continuous feedback on the output as they write the program, but also allows them to modify the program by directly manipulating the output, so that the modified program can get the output that was directly manipulated. Despite the appealing of existing bidirectional live programming systems, there is a big limitation: they cannot deal with incomplete programs where code blanks exist in the source programs.

In this paper, we propose a framework to support bidirectional live programming for incomplete programs, by extending the output value structure, introducing hole binding, and formally defining bidirectional evaluators that are well-behaved. To illustrate the usefulness of the framework, we realize the core bidirectional evaluations of incomplete programs in a tool called Bidirectional Preview. Our experimental results show that our extended backward evaluation for incomplete programs is as efficient as that for complete programs in that it is only 21ms slower on a program with 10 holes than that on its full program, and our extended forward evaluation makes no difference. Furthermore, we use quick sort and student grades, two nontrivial examples of incomplete programs, to demonstrate its usefulness in algorithm teaching and program debugging.

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Cited By

Zan TZhang XHe XHu Z(2025)Intentionally Fusing Direct Manipulations into SVG ProgramsInformation10.3390/info1603016916:3(169)Online publication date: 24-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.3390/info16030169
Zhao JZhao YYao PZeng FZhan BRen K(2024)KBX: Verified Model Synchronization via Formal Bidirectional TransformationACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/369600034:2(1-40)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3696000
Hidaka STisi MEgyed AWimmer MChechik MCombemale B(2024)Partial Bidirectionalization of Model Transformation LanguagesProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 27th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems10.1145/3640310.3674083(1-12)Online publication date: 22-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640310.3674083
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cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE '22: Proceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 2022

2508 pages

ISBN:9781450392211

DOI:10.1145/3510003

General Chair:
Matthew B Dwyer
University of Virginia
,
Program Chairs:
Daniela Damian
University of Victoria, Canada
,
Andreas Zeller
CISPA, Germany

Copyright © 2022 ACM.

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Published: 05 July 2022

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ICSE '22

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ICSE '22: 44th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 21 - 29, 2022

Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh

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Cited By

Zan TZhang XHe XHu Z(2025)Intentionally Fusing Direct Manipulations into SVG ProgramsInformation10.3390/info1603016916:3(169)Online publication date: 24-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.3390/info16030169
Zhao JZhao YYao PZeng FZhan BRen K(2024)KBX: Verified Model Synchronization via Formal Bidirectional TransformationACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/369600034:2(1-40)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3696000
Hidaka STisi MEgyed AWimmer MChechik MCombemale B(2024)Partial Bidirectionalization of Model Transformation LanguagesProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 27th International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems10.1145/3640310.3674083(1-12)Online publication date: 22-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3640310.3674083
Zhang XXie RGuo GHe XZan THu Z(2024)Fusing Direct Manipulations into Functional ProgramsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36328838:POPL(1211-1238)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632883
He XZan T(2024)BITJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2024.112148216:COnline publication date: 1-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2024.112148

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