Sunbeam : an intermediate step in a gradual promotion model for the development of natural Arabic programming systems

Abstract EN

This paper describes and illustrates a gradual promotion method for the design of natural Arabic programming systems.

A natural Arabic programming system is a system capable of executing problem solutions stated in natural or semi-natural Arabic.

By natural here we mean standard spoken or written Arabic in which sentences and phrases are formed according to the standard syntax and vocabulary of the Arabic language.

The gradual promotion method is based on the observation that in many fields of applications users and specialists employ a semi-fixed style and jargon to specify their problems and requirements when they deal with a computer programmer or system designer.

Usually, the phrases and words used are a subset of the general language and their final objectives are very clear.

Therefore, instead of designing a general understanding system that considers all language structures and their probable semantic implications it may be more economical for the designer to capture the style and jargon in each field and produce a system that serves the users in that field based on the semantics specified.

According to the gradual promotion model this can be done in three consecutive stages.

These three stages together with an illustrative experiment in the domain of simple numerical applications are described in the paper below.

The major outcome of the experimental at this stage is a programming language SUNBLA that closely simulates the behavior of users performing simple numerical computations.

Recommendations for the third and final stage are given.