Automated software synthesis: an application in mechanical CAD

Automated program synthesis has not gained widespread acceptance among software practitioners despite considerable efforts by several researchers. We outline some of the difficulties in applying program synthesis for practical problems and argue that a careful analysis of the cost vs. benefit tradeoff is essential when considering such an approach. We describe a successful application of automated program generation for synthesizing geometric constraint satisfaction routines in the domain of mechanical CAD. We present a general framework for modeling and solving the problem, illustrate the framework using examples from the geometric constraint satisfaction domain, and describe experimental results on productivity increase using this approach. We also discuss characteristics of the problem domain and our approach that were critical for success.