Code Understanding and Generation

This paper briefly reviews the applicability of case- based reasoning (CBR) to code understanding and generation. The paper suggests that case-based techniques are already common in code understanding and generation but are seldom labelled as CBR. Some examples of 'explicit' and 'covert' CBR are briefly examined. It is suggested that extending the existing code understanding and generation methods to make more complete use of CBR may usefully increase the capability of these methods.