The Role of Interactive Program Synthesis in the Future of Software Development

Program synthesis, a rapidly evolving field, has seen significant advancements over the past decade, yet much of the existing research has predominantly focused on non-interactive techniques. This paper fills this gap by conducting a comprehensive analysis of interactive program synthesis, categorizing state-of-the-art papers according to their approaches to prevalent synthesis challenges. We establish a timeline spanning from 2015 to 2024 for each identified challenge and provide a heat map to illustrate the compatibility between different approaches. Our analysis uncovers trends that highlight correlations between requirements, paradigms, and methods for resolving ambiguities, offering insights into potential future applications. The study identifies natural language processing as an increasingly prominent method, driven by technological advancements in machine learning and large-scale language models. By charting these developments, the paper sheds light on the evolving landscape of interactive program synthesis, providing a roadmap for researchers and practitioners in the field.