SPECIFYING PROCEDURES TO OFFICE SYSTEMS

Abstract

This paper surveys current practice, research, and future prospects for communicating procedures to office computer systems, placing special emphasis on robustness and suitability for the casual user. Users of existing systems who have to specify procedures must generally resort to some kind of command language. Explicit forms programming languages, perhaps based on ideas of logic programming which suppress control structure, offer better prospects. In the more distant future, knowledge-based techniques utilizing models of office semantics may address the more general issues of problem-solving in the office. Programming by example is a promising method for specifying procedures but presents difficulties with editing, conditionals, iteration, variables and data structures. These can be partially overcome by using several example sequences or having users provide control information explicitly through a well-engineered interactive interface.