Recommended Application Evaluation System for Software Logic Validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current software evaluation tools are inefficient in validating that applications implement desired functionality, as they require significant resources and expertise to match high-level processing concepts with actual application logic, often resulting in wasted time and resources due to incomplete or inaccurate descriptions and the 'vocabulary problem' where different words describe the same programming concept.
Innovation Solution
The Recommended Application Evaluation (RAE) system uses the EXEcutable exaMPLes ARchive system (Exemplar) to efficiently evaluate application logic by accepting high-level processing concepts as inputs, retrieving highly relevant applications through information retrieval and program analysis, and ranking API calls based on their implementation of these concepts, utilizing help documentation to expand queries and provide a user interface for navigating relevant application logic.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If software professionals use traditional search engines to validate application functionality, then they can find applications with matching keywords, but the cognitive distance and resource expenditure to validate that the logic actually implements desired functionality becomes excessive
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary evaluation system that acts as a mediator between the search engine and the application logic. This system automatically analyzes application descriptions, API calls, and logic to generate validation scores, thereby reducing the cognitive distance and manual effort required for functionality validation while maintaining high measurement precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the manual mechanical process of reviewing and validating application logic with an automated computational system. The system uses algorithms to analyze code, match functionality requirements, and generate validation results, substituting human cognitive effort with automated mechanical processing that is both faster and more consistent.
2Reliability
If software professionals manually evaluate application logic to validate functionality implementation, then validation accuracy improves, but resource expenditure and complexity increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complex validation process into distinct modular components: functionality requirement parsing, application description analysis, API call matching, logic verification, and scoring. Each module handles a specific aspect of validation, making the overall system more manageable and maintainable while ensuring comprehensive and reliable functionality validation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary evaluation system that acts as a mediator between the search engine and the application logic. This system automatically analyzes application descriptions, API calls, and logic to generate validation scores, thereby reducing the cognitive distance and manual effort required for functionality validation while maintaining high measurement precision.
3Adaptability or versatility
If developers build multiple prototypes without reusing existing application logic, then they can explore different high-level processing concepts, but project resources and time are wasted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables preliminary evaluation of existing applications against high-level processing concepts before prototype development begins. By automatically analyzing and scoring existing applications for functionality matches, developers can identify suitable candidates for reuse or adaptation, performing the evaluation work in advance to avoid wasting resources on building prototypes from scratch when suitable existing applications are available.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent facilitates copying and reusing existing application logic by providing automated evaluation that identifies applications with matching functionality. Instead of building new prototypes, developers can copy and adapt existing validated applications, maintaining adaptability to different concepts while significantly improving development efficiency through reuse.
Data Source
AI summary
A code evaluation tool greatly reduces time, cost, and other resource expenditures needed to validate that an application implements desired functionality. The tool is a search, navigation and visualization tool that accepts high-level processing concepts as inputs to identify, rank, and return the code of a recommended application. A software developer may use the tool to validate that functional requirements are met by the recommended application. The tool provides an efficient way to improve the evaluation of application logic to validate that the application meets specified functional requirement and implements the desired high-level processing concepts.