Some rules for the automatic synthesis of programs
Cordell Green, David R. Barstow · International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence · 1975
A set of rules (or facts) about program synthesis is presented. The rules are about the process of programming, and are sutficient for the synthesis of an insertion sort program. The use of the rules to write a short LISP program is described. Taken together, the rules are an embodiment of a detailed theory which explains one small part of the programming process. The size of the set of rules suggests the complexity of the process of writing programs and indicates that much work will be required to codify significant amounts of programming knowledge as a step toward the development of program-understanding systems.