DESCARTES: an automatic programming system for algorithmically simple programs

Most research work in the field of automatic programming has been focused on conceptually complex problems. However, although most of the programs we are generally faced with may be very big and manage large volumes of data, they are conceptually simple. Starting from this consideration, we have developed, since 1992, a system called DESCARTES which, fully automatically, generates programs written in conventional procedural languages, starting from program specifications expressed in a mathematical type formal specification language. The first operational version of the system which represents about one million of C lines has already been used in several industrial applications, and especially to specify and generate a nuclear power plant emergency shutdown system and a module scheduling control operations for a fuel power plant. In this paper, we describe the DESCARTES language and system as well as the results obtained and we comment our approach compared to traditional approaches in the field of automatic programming.