2021/12/21 by Ilham Qasse, Shailesh Mishra, Qasse, Ilham +3
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #AI in Service Interactions #Artificial Intelligence in Law #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC) #Multi-Agent Systems and Negotiation #Programming Languages (cs.PL) #Software Engineering (cs.SE)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2112.11101
openalex publication_date 2021/12/21 · openalex created_date 2022/05/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The revolutionary potential of automatic code generation tools based on Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) frameworks has yet to be realized. Beyond their ability to help software professionals write more accurate, reusable code, they could make programming accessible for a whole new class of non-technical users. However, non-technical users have been slow to embrace these tools. This may be because their concrete syntax is often patterned after the operations of textual or graphical interfaces. The interfaces are common, but users would need more extensive, precise and detailed knowledge of them than they can be assumed to have, to use them as concrete syntax. Conversational interfaces (chatbots) offer a much more accessible way for non-technical users to generate code. In this paper, we discuss the basic challenge of integrating conversational agents within Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) frameworks, then turn to look at a specific application: the auto-generation of smart contract code in multiple languages by non-technical users, based on conversational syntax. We demonstrate how this can be done, and evaluate our approach by conducting user experience survey to assess the usability and functionality of the chatbot framework.